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)

Kyoto