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Kyoto   |   READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE
We feature a handpicked selection of travel guides, maps, literature, books on art, nature and culture, all designed to help you get more out of your travels to Kyoto . Order an essential package, and we'll ship any additional items for free.

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Lonely Planet Kyoto  •   Lonely Planet
GUIDEBOOK •  2008 •  PAPER  • 220 PAGES
A practical travel guide to Kyoto, covering history and culture, as well as its many temples, gardens and other attractions. With detailed day trips, travel information and 32 pages of maps, this is an excellent guide to Kyoto. (JPN60, $22.99)
  Lonely Planet Kyoto
Old Kyoto, A Guide to Traditional Shops and Inns  •  Diane Durston
GUIDEBOOK •  2005 •  PAPER  • 240 PAGES
An excellent travel companion, this guide focuses on the neighborhoods, shops, restaurants and inns that reflect the traditions, architecture and ways of life of the ancient capital city. It also includes a number of day trips outside Kyoto. With maps, suggested walking tours, and invaluable directions, the book has at its heart wonderfully intimate, elegant essays on carefully chosen shops, many tiny, often in out-of-the-way streets or neighborhoods that you might not discover on your own. (JPN24, $22.00)
  Old Kyoto, A Guide to Traditional Shops and Inns
In Praise of Shadows  •  Junichiro Tanizaki  •  Thomas J. Harper  •  Edward G. Seidensticker
ART & ARCHITECTURE •  1980 •  PAPER  • 56 PAGES
This essay by the great Japanese novelist, first published in 1933, offers tremendous insight into Japanese aesthetics. It's an earthy meditation on traditional Japanese art, architecture and design. Most illuminating. (JPN19, $9.95)
  In Praise of Shadows
Kyoto Map  •   Periplus Maps
2003 •  MAP
Designed for the traveler, this convenient map includes detailed information on Old Kyoto -- an invaluable guide for exploring the city on your own. It shows different sections of Kyoto and surrounding areas at a variety of scales, ranging from 1:12,000 to 1:500,000. (JPN27, $8.95)
  Kyoto Map
 

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A Guide to the Gardens of Kyoto  •  Marc Treib  •  Ron Herman   • GUIDEBOOK  •  Organized geographically, each of the featured gardens in this indispensable guide gets several pages with special features, practical information, history, comments and several black-and-white photographs. (JPN07, $22.00)
 
 
Exploring Kyoto, On Foot Through the Ancient Capital  •  Judith Clancy   • GUIDEBOOK  •  Featuring 30 well-crafted walking tours of neighborhoods, gardens and sanctuaries. (JPN26, $16.95)
 
 
A Traveller's History of Japan  •  Richard Tames   • HISTORY  •  A lively and concise narrative history of Japan and its transformation from Shinto, Shogun and Samurai traditions to 20th-century powerhouse. (JPN09, $14.95)
 
 
Embracing Defeat, Japan in the Wake of WWII  •  John W. Dower   • HISTORY  •  A social and political history of the postwar years in Japan. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, it's an eye-opening account by a leading scholar of Japanese-American relations at MIT. (JPN54, $18.95)
 
 
Kyoto, A Cultural History  •  John Dougill   • HISTORY  •  A rich portrait and guide to the gardens, monasteries, art, history and culture of Kyoto, once Japan's capital, founded 1,200-years ago. (JPN178, $19.99)
 
 
Kyoto, Seven Paths to the Heart of the City  •  Diana Durston  •  Katsuhiko Mizuno   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  An oversize, nicely illustrated walking guide to seven historic districts in the city. Includes 100 color photographs and 8 very helpful full-color maps. The neighborhood descriptions are augmented by Durston's notes on architecture, food, crafts and festivals. (JPN119, $24.95)
 
 
Old Kyoto, A Short Social History  •  John Lowe   • HISTORY  •  This lively history of the city covers Kyoto's emperors, shoguns and samurai, merchants and artists during its long reign as royal court and Shogunate. With 39 images, half in color. (JPN167, $18.95)
 
 
Seeing Kyoto  •  Juliet Winters Carpenter  •  Sen Soshitsu   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  In this oversized visual celebration of Kyoto and neighboring Nara, long-time resident Carpenter presents the cobblestone streets, temples, gardens, history and traditions of the ancient capital. (JPN180, $35.00)
 
 
The Book of Tea  •  Kakuzo Okakura   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  A graceful, witty meditation on Japanese aesthetics and culture as reflected through the tea ceremony. A celebrity and cultural ambassador, Okakura was a curator at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. (JPN21, $9.95)
 
 
Japanese Art  •  Joan Stanley-Baker   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  Concise, thoroughly illustrated and comprehensive, this handsome book in the "World of Art" series is a fine survey of Japanese art from the prehistoric period to modern Japan. With 167 illustrations. (JPN08, $18.95)
 
 
The Gardens of Japan  •  Teiji Itoh   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  This beautifully illustrated overview of the history and tradition of gardens features 75 color photographs and astute essays. With a guide to 50 popular and representative gardens. (JPN38, $60.00)
 
 
A Year in Japan  •  Kate T. Williamson   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE  •  Williamson records her extended stay in Kyoto, its architecture, gardens, culture and traditions in 350 watercolor illustrations. (JPN189, $19.95)
 
 
Geisha, A Life  •  Mineko Iwasaki   • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR  •  The memoir of a celebrated Geisha, rich in details of life in Kyoto's Gion Kobu district. Iwasaki was the chief source of information for Arthur Golden's best-selling "Memoirs of a Geisha." (JPN131, $15.00)
 
 
Untangling My Chopsticks, A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto  •  Victoria Abbott Riccardi   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE  •  In this beguiling memoir, Riccardi writes with verve of cultural encounters, bewilderment and discovery in Kyoto. If you've ever parted the drapes of a Japanese restaurant to face a room full of people and blank stares, you'll really appreciate the book. With 25 recipes for traditional and less traditional Japanese dishes. (JPN135, $12.95)
 
 
Travelers' Tales Japan  •  Donald W. George  •  Amy G. Carlson   • ANTHOLOGY  •  A collection of stories and essays by famous writers that capture experiences traveling through Japan. With a range of styles and topics, this book is a great travel companion. (JPN48, $18.95)
 
 
Confessions of a Mask  •  Meredith Weatherby  •  Yukio Mishima   • LITERATURE  •  This powerful book is the story of the monk who burned the Temple of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto. It's an unsettling portrait of society in Post-War Japan, and the coming of age of a complex, tragic figure who struggles with his homosexuality. (JPN18, $12.95)
 
 
Japanese Inn  •  Oliver Statler   • LITERATURE  •  Life over four generations at a country inn. An impressionistic overview of traditional Japan solidly based on actual historic events. Illustrated with 50 Japanese prints. (JPN39, $22.00)
 
 
The Essential Haiku, Versions of Basho, Buson and Issa  •  Robert Hass   • LITERATURE  •  A collection of haiku, tenderly translated, by three Japanese masters of the form. Edited by ormer Poet Laureate Robert Hass. (JPN93, $16.00)
 
 
The Lady and the Monk, Four Seasons in Kyoto  •  Pico Iyer   • LITERATURE  •  Deeply romanticized, this short novel is nonetheless redolent in the places, sights and sounds of modern day Kyoto. Iyer writes with infectious charm the story of a young American man and his affair with a bored Japanese married woman. (JPN32, $14.95)
 
 
The Old Capital  •  Yasunari Kawabata  •  J. Martin Holman   • LITERATURE  •  Kawabata captures perfectly the tension between tradition and new ways in postwar Japan in this lyrical novel set in Kyoto. (JPN185, $15.00)
 
 


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