Anil's Ghost  •  Michael Ondaatje LITERATURE •  2001 •  PAPER  • 320 PAGES Ondaatje's novel follows the exploits of a forensic anthropologist, born in Sri Lanka but educated in America, who returns to her homeland to help uncover the truth behind a series of organized murders. Ondaatje, a Sri Lanka native and author of The English Patient, is a poet at heart and his book teems with scenes, moments and sensations described with what one can only call intense (SRL10, $14.00)
Audrey Hepburn's Neck, A Novel  •  Alan Brown LITERATURE •  1997 •  PAPER  • 304 PAGES This exquisite short novel follows the adventures of 23-year-old Toshi, a young man from the rural north who makes his way to crazy, contemporary Tokyo. Apart from its stunning language, strong images and characters, this prize-winning novel also captures the eclectic, mixed-up society of contemporary Japan. (JPN14, $20.95)
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman  •  Haruki Murakami LITERATURE •  2007 •  PAPER  • 384 PAGES Winner of the 2007 Kiriyama prize, this anthology brings together 25 first-rate short stories, set in Italy, Greece and the author's native Japan. (JPN252, $14.95)
Catfish and Mandala, A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam  •  Andrew X. Pham BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •  2000 •  PAPER  • 344 PAGES Much more than a road trip, this book combines the author's family history with his many and often-gritty adventures by bicycle through foreign lands (including Mexico, Japan and, notably, Vietnam). In addition, he reveals much about himself and his family, transplanted from Vietnam to the United States in 1967. Winner of the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize. (VNM50, $15.00)
Dancing With Strangers, Europeans And Australians At First Contact  •  Inga Clendinnen HISTORY •  2005 •  PAPER  • 324 PAGES A compassionate and well-researched account of early British contact with the Australian natives, focusing on the rapport between British governor Arthur Philip and a native named Bennelong. (AUS208, $24.99)
Dogside Story  •  Patricia Grace LITERATURE •  2002 •  PAPER  • 304 PAGES At the forefront of Maori literature, Grace writes with ease and style about a man struggling for custody of his daughter in a Maori community on New Zealand's east cape. (NZL98, $13.95)
Family Matters  •  Rohinton Mistry LITERATURE •  2003 •  PAPER  • 444 PAGES An aging professor comes to live with his daughter, her husband and their two children in a cramped Bombay apartment in Mistry's moving, and often comic, tale of history, memory and familial bonds. (IDA214, $15.95)
The Fragile Edge, Diving and Other Adventures in the South Pacific  •  Julia Whitty TRAVEL NARRATIVE •  2008 •  PAPER  • 304 PAGES Whitty (A Tortoise for the Queen of Tonga) illuminates coral reefs and their inhabitants and the pleasures of diving in this memoir of underwater adventures in Rangiroa, Tuvalu and Moorea. Winner of the 2008 Kiriyama Prize and John Burroughs Medal. (PAC173, $14.95)
From the Land of Green Ghosts, a Burmese Odyssey  •  Pascal Khoo Thwe BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •  2003 •  PAPER  • 304 PAGES The young Burmese author, a member of a remote hill-tribe in the Shan hills, captures the traditions and challenges of the Padaung people in this astonishing debut. His memoir follows his fate from a traditional upbringing in the village, through love and war, and escape from a rebel camp on the Burmese-Thai border with the help of a Cambridge don. A student activist in the mass demonstrations of 1988 (and talented writer in love with English literature), Khoo Thwe fled to England and Cambridge, where he graduated with honors, an extraordinary feat. (BMA29, $13.95)
The Girl Who Played Go  •  Shan Sa  •  Adriana Hunter LITERATURE •  2004 •  PAPER  • 320 PAGES An accomplished novel set in a Manchurian city in the war-torn 1930s, where a spirited 16-year-old Chinese girl and a young Japanese soldier find peace in a game of Go. Winner of the 2004 Kiriyama Prize, the novel captures the turmoil of the changing fortunes and war in the region. Sa Shan, who was born in Beijing, has lived in France since 1990. This is her first novel to be translated into English. (CHN214, $14.95)
The Hummingbird's Daughter, A Novel  •  Alberto Urrea LITERATURE •  2006 •  PAPER The Hummingbird's Daughter brings to powerful life the grit, poverty and culture of the 19th-century American Southwest. Urrea bases his novel on the life of Teresita, the Saint of Cabora, born on a ranch in 1878 on the Arizona-Mexico border (she's also his great aunt). Winner of the Kiriyama Prize. (SWU220, $14.99)
Japan, A Reinterpretation  •  Patrick Smith CULTURAL PORTRAIT •  1998 •  PAPER  • 400 PAGES Informed by the author's experience as a journalist in Asia and wide-ranging research, this provocative book tears down the image of Japan as a nation of conservative workaholics. It's a thoughtful, stimulating look at the country since World War II, targeting the role of the U.S. in creating modern Japan. Highly recommended. (JPN16, $15.95)
Maps for Lost Lovers  •  Nadeem Aslam LITERATURE •  2006 •  PAPER  • 400 PAGES A well-wrought novel about a Pakistani family living near London, the cultural and personal conflicts of immigrant communities and one woman's struggles with her faith in Islam. Winner of the 2005 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize. (GBR567, $14.95)
Maximum City, Bombay Lost and Found  •  Suketu Mehta TRAVEL NARRATIVE •  2005 •  PAPER  • 528 PAGES The tale of the author who, after a 21-year sojourn in New York, returns to his native Bombay -- the biggest, fastest, richest city in India. (IDA252, $16.95)
Mister Pip  •  Lloyd Jones LITERATURE •  2008 •  PAPER  • 272 PAGES A transcendent tale of the power of storytelling, well-grounded in the politics and society of the modern South Pacific. Jones, a New Zealander, draws on his travels and recent events in Bougainville, largest of the Solomon Islands and a break away province of Papua New Guinea, for his story. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Mister Pip deservedly won both the Commonwealth Prize and Kiriyama Prize. (PNG22, $12.00)
My Year of Meats  •  Ruth L. Ozeki LITERATURE •  1999 •  PAPER  • 366 PAGES The quirky, comic tale of two women: an American filmmaker working for a Japanese TV show in the pocket of the beef lobby, and a depressed Japanese housewife who watches the show. It's a sharp satire of colliding cultures and the meat market that is also an engaging personal story. (jpn334, $15.00)
The Reindeer People, Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia  •  Piers Vitebsky CULTURAL PORTRAIT •  2006 •  PAPER  • 496 PAGES • NEW A portrait of and tribute to the Eveny nomads, with whom the anthropologist author has lived and worked over the last 20 years. Vitebsky captures the many hardships, age-old rituals, and modern challenges of life on the taiga of northeastern Siberia, where the Eveny live in symbiosis with reindeer. With 16 pages of black-and-white photographs. (SIB48, $15.95)
River Town, Two Years on the Yangtze  •  Peter Hessler BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •  2001 •  PAPER  • 432 PAGES An intelligent personal account of life as a Peace Corps volunteer in Fuling, a Provincial city where foreigners are a curiosity. Fuling is located on the Yangtze in Sichuan, which will be partially submerged with the completion of the Three Gorges dam. (CHN125, $14.95)
Three Cups of Tea, One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations . . . One School at a Time  •  Greg Mortenson  •  David Oliver Relin CULTURAL PORTRAIT •  2007 •  PAPER  • 352 PAGES When American nurse Mortenson attempted to scale K2 in 1993, he found shelter for seven weeks in a remote Pakistani mountain village. In return, he set up the village's first school, a project which expanded into the 50-school Central Asia Institute in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson (with Along with co-author Relin) relates compelling anecdotes of villagers, the Taliban, schoolchildren and more, eventually arguing for efforts by the US to increase education and provide relief from Islamic fundamentalism. (PKN20, $15.00)
Three-Legged Horse  •  Cheng Ch'Ing-Wen LITERATURE •  2000 •  PAPER  • 240 PAGES These twelve tales vividly evoke traditional and modern Taiwan. The first English translations of work by Cheng, well-known in Taiwan. (TWN05, $24.50)