Oku no Hosomichi

The Narrow Road to the Deep North (奥の細道) is a major work by the Japanese poet, Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694). The text is written in the form of a travel diary, and it was penned as he made an epic and dangerous journey on foot through feudal Japan. While the poetic work became seminal of its own account, the poet's travels in the text have since inspired many people to follow in his footsteps and trace his journey for themselves. In one of its most memorable passages, Basho suggests that "every day is a journey, and the journey itself home." (Japanese Audio Reader: Kasumi Kobayash)

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Kamijikan: The Divinity of Time

Ancient guardians battle to preserve history and protect Creation from being rewritten by the forces of darkness.

It began before the concept of time had any meaning. An evil lord and his dominions sought to rule all Creation. Exiled on a formless Earth when the rebellion crushed, their prize of the Secret of Time was lost for millennia. The saga stretches from ancient times to the year 2018 as it chronicles the adventures of the secret beings that walk among humanity. Their ongoing war of the past holds the fate of Earth, Creation, and the Infinite Beyond forever.

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A Walk Across Dalian

In the tradition of his "Everyday Dalian" photobook, the Municipal Government of Dalian originally commissioned SongLi to produce his second photography book about the city. The intended purpose was as an international promotion for the 2009 Davos World Economic Summit.

However, SongLi evolved that inspirational vision into a new and unique visual expression with the timeless book, "A Walk Across Dalian." This rare artistic perspective offers a photographic guide to the city unlike anything done before. Based on his 2008 Coast-To-Coast Trek across the city of Dalian, this journey of images shows the city through the eyes of a resident foreign expert. It also offers a personal introduction to the history and culture of the famous and historical seaport.

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ISBN: 1442114088 / 9781442114081

Under The Dragon Flag

James Allan recounts his misadventures in Northeast Asia during the 1894-95. After gambling away his fortune in Monte Carlo Allan signs up as a sailor and sets out for the seas. He eventually finds himself aboard the freight ship "Columbia" smuggling military cargo to China at the time of the county's ill-fated conflict with the Japanese Empire.

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Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun

The Russo-Japanese War grew out of the rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea. Harry Collingwood provides a personal narrative of this conflict, that served as a prelude for the following two World Wars of the Twentieth Century.

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1904: An Officer's Journal During the Russo-Japanese War

In 1904-1905, Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton was the military representative of the Indian Army serving with the Japanese Army in Manchuria. Among the several military advisors from Western countries, he was the first to arrive in Japan after the start of the war. As the earliest, he would be recognized as the dean of multi-national observers in this conflict.

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Celebrated Geysha of Tokyo

A photographic book that commemorates the Geisha (spelled Geysha in the 1890s) community of Tokyo. These iconic images capture an insight into an ancient Japanese cultural tradition.

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Dalian Ghost Stories

The city of Dalian has always held secrets. Its foreign colonization and occupation brought external cultures and languages to Northeast China. Great Britain, Russia, and Japan took turns dominating the region for nearly a century, influencing local folklore and religious superstitions. When the city was finally returned to native hands, China experienced numerous waves of political and social upheaval. These events made local ghost stories a taboo subject. This compilation is the first historic research of supernatural events and sightings in Dalian from 1858 to 1958. It also combines vintage colonial images with the modern photographic vision of SongLi.

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ISBN: 1441472800

Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House)

In 1590 the Hojo clan was defeated during the Battle of Odawara by the Taiko Hideyoshi. As a result of the victory, the Hojo provinces were awarded to the warlord Tokugawa Iyeyasu. In the years of continued harsh warfare that followed, the castles of these captured areas became the setting of terrible and mysterious disasters for the Tokugawa clan, who would rule all of Japan as Shogun.

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Gleanings in Buddha-Fields

This collection of stories takes the reader on a journey into the soul of Japan and enters into the spirit of Buddhism. The accumulation of experience over numerous lifetimes and rebirths is a central theme, as the Japanese belief of reincarnation directly shapes their thinking and culture. This edition was written a hundred years ago by Lafcadio Hearn, the author credited with opening up Meji Era Japan to the world through his insightful books.


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Rashomon Effect

The Rashomon Effect is the effect of the subjectivity of perception on recollection, by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially different but equally plausible accounts of it. - Karl G. Heider After crash landing on a desolate moon, a lone astronaut must defend his sanity by destroying an alien life form. In the process he opens a door to an alternative reality and falls deeper into madness. Jumping between dimensions and sanity he is required to help a team of ancient explorers stabilized fractures in space-time that threaten to obliterate the future, while stalling an alien invasion poised to exterminate humanity.

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Faith From Fujisawa

A deep and spiritually revealing series of articles about Christian wisdoms and beliefs, with a focus on understanding scriptural meanings. The first in series by Pastor John Stemmons, from the Amazing Grace Church in Fujisawa, Japan.

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The Book Of Tea

Okakura Kakuzo devoted his life to teaching, art, Zen, and the preservation of Japanese art and culture. He was an ambassador, professor and popular writer during his long and influential career. At the time of his death, Okakura was the curator of the Chinese and Japanese Art Collection at the Boston Museum.






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Some Chinese Ghosts

This is a collection of ghost stories based on Chinese old tales and legends. They are rich in atmosphere, authentic in tone, and almost without exception very good stories. They are an interesting contrast to Western lore, since ghosts in China are not evil but remain behind to fulfill their duty. This collection was written a hundred years ago by Lafcadio Hearn, the author credited with opening up Meji Era Japan to the world through his insightful books.



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On the Great Highway

James Creelman became the first American journalist to interview the Pope, accompanied the Japanese in their war with China in Manchuria, visited Tolstoy at his home in Russia, got wounded in the Philippines as a correspondent in the Spanish-American War (he was taunting the Spanish after the Americans had seized their flag), pow-wowed with Sitting Bull, and reported on the death of President McKinley at the hands of an assassin. With the sharp, clipped writing of a master journalist, Creelman tells the story of his times, and of the part he played in that story.

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The Time Machine - Japanese Edition

Steampunk Chronicles

A dreamer obsessed with traveling through time builds himself a machine and travels over 800,000 years into the future. The known world has been transformed and human society has finally learned to live in apparent harmony and bliss. But as the Traveler stays in this realm of the future he discovers a terrible secret. The human population is merely livestock for a hidden subterranean class of mutants.

NOTE: The Japanese language version follows the standard publishing layout of reading right to left. Therefore, the reader begins at the back of the book.

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The Tale Of Genji

Murasaki Shikibu's epic-length novel, The Tale of Genji, probes the psychological, romantic and political workings of mid-Heian Japan. The novel earned Murasaki Shikibu notoriety even in the early 11th century, some six hundred years before the printing press made it available to the masses. Court society, which served as the subject of the novel, sought out chapters. Ladies-in-waiting and courtiers even pilfered unrevised copies, according to legend. Some thousand years later, the novel continues to delight an enthusiastic audience. Murasaki Shikibu and her creation Genji have achieved National Treasure status in Japan and admiration all over the world. The tale spreads across four generations, splashed with poetry and romance and heightened awareness to the fleeting quality of life. Murasaki Shikibu's tale of love, sex, and politics explores a complex web of human and spiritual relationships.

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More Glimpses of Unfamilar Japan

Hearn offers another look into a side of Japan that no longer exists, lost in modern history. Yet his observations gave the Western world its first look at this mysterious and misunderstood culture. This second series also contains many stories that transcend time and remain an insightful and intriguing. A must read for anyone interested in Japanese history and society.

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Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things

This collection of 17 old stories from Japan was collected and translated by the well-known ethnographer, Lafcadio Hearn, and first published in English in 1904. The tales are old folk stories that deal with ghosts and the spirit world. Many feature the theme of spirits who take human form to disguise their true nature. They are spooky, old-fashioned stories which remain as intriguing today as when they were first written.

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Kokoro: Japanese Inner Life Hints

These stories follow Hearn's particular interests of Japanese folklore and the vanishing culture of which he found himself a part in post-Meji Japan. Each story is a slice of life focusing on Japanese character, morals and feelings. This is what the Japanese people care about, what they think is important, what is inside.

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Japanese Fairy Tales

Yei Theodora Ozaki’s classic Japanese fairy tales are showcased in this new compilation. Featured are twenty-two favorite tales that introduce the vivid world of Japanese fantasy. It is a landscape of ghouls, goblins, and ogres. Of sea serpents and sea kings. Kind and magical animals. Demons and dragons, princes and princesses. A must read for anyone interested in Japanese myths and legends.

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JAPAN: An Attempt at Interpretation

Hearn's book is incredibly insightful and thorough, offering a history of the various forms of Shinto, Buddhism, Confucianism and other folk-practices that shaped the national character of Japan. It also details Japanese interactions and culture, and most interesting are his speculations of Japanese culture, and where it would go in his pre-WWII era. Unfortunately, some of his worst fears were realized.

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In Ghostly Japan

Much of the collection focuses on how incense relates to ghosts in terms of the Shinto and Buddhist religion. In addition, there is a mix of true stories and Japanese lore as they relate to the world of the dead.

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Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan

Hearn offers a look into a side of Japan that no longer exists, lost in modern history. Yet his observations gave the Western world its first look at this mysterious and misunderstood culture. This first series contains many stories that transcend time and remain an insightful and intriguing. A must read for anyone interested in Japanese history and society.

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Folklore of Old Japan

Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford (1837-1916), Lord Redesdale, was in the British Foreign Service as a young man. He was assigned to the legation in Japan for several years and acquired a life-long fascination with Japanese culture. This book has been a standard source of information about Japanese folklore and customs since its original publication in 1871 and has been in print ever since.

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Diaries of Court Ladies From Old Japan

Written nearly one thousand years ago, these diaries continue to intrigue modern readers. Authored by three Ladies of the Royal Court in Japan, they show not only Imperial life, but also life in Japan before its traditional fourteenth-century image. These diaries were written centuries before the Shogun or samurai developed into the powerful military class that divided all of Japan, and plunged it into a long and bloody civil war. The events detailed are therefore very different in context to how the Western World views Old Japan. These accounts are also some of the oldest records in not only Japanese history, but in written history.

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Christianity In Japan

This book attempts to interpret the characteristics of Japan at a time when it became a modern power. It focuses on many social attitudes, and the role of religion and influences of Christianity on the society. Written over a hundred years ago, the study remains key to understanding the modern Japanese mind, and unlocking further understanding of past events.

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Bushido: The Soul of Japan

Originally written during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, this revised edition explains the Japanese soul from a unique historical perspective. Written by a Japanese professor, it contrasts the Spirit of Japanese culture at a time of its transition into the modern world. Bushido as the warrior code of the samurai. Bushido was a strict code that demanded loyalty, devotion, and honor to the death. Under Bushido, if a samurai failed to uphold his honor he could regain it by performing seppuku (ritual suicide).

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Dairen: 1936

The South Manchurian Railway Company, formerly the largest economic enterprise in Manchuria and the main agency of Japans penetration, was organized shortly after the Russo-Japanese War. It undertook construction of towns, harbors, mining, utilities and trade. When a competing Chinese railway network threatened their monopoly, the Japanese Kwantung army staged the Manchurian Incident and set up the state of Manchukuo. At the end of World War II, China expropriated the company's vast property.

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Blue Sky Red Tears: Book One

Dairen was Japan's first colonial city in Machuria. It was a foothold for the Empire's plans of expansion in and conquest of China. But the prosperity of the 1930s was not shared by all of the colony's citizens. "Blue Sky Red Tears" follows the life of Lin Baixue. Born from a secret affair between a high ranking Japanese official and his Manchurian Chinese housemaid, Baixue struggles to find her identity within two societies that each view her as an outcast. As she comes of age, the secrets in her household continue to mount. Through her misery, Baixue dreams of a life in Japan on the eve a war that will envelop all of Asia.

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ISBN: 0-9763168-1-1
ISBN: 0-9763168-0-3
ISBN: 0-9763168-2-X