Two sisters--Eri, a fashion model sleeping her way to oblivion, and Mari, a young student--form the center of a novel that documents a series of encounters in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn.

A middle-aged actor and the wife of a photographer meet while on business in Tokyo. They strike up an unusual friendship in the hotel bar that helps them both overcome boredom and loneliness.

The emergence of Japan as a political and economic global power has been one of the most remarkable success stories of modern history. This introduction offers an overview of two thousand years of Japanese history. This edition includes photographs and maps. Highlighting key historical events, the author also marks cultural, artistic, and religious milestones. Chronologies at the end of each chapter, as well as a detailed glossary, offer additional...

Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copy editor in her mid-thirties. Working and living alone in a city where it is not easy to form new relationships, she has little regular contact with anyone other than her editor, Hijiri, a woman of the same age but with a very different disposition. When Fuyoku stops one day on a Tokyo street and notices her reflection in a storefront window, what she sees is a drab, awkward, and spiritless woman who has lacked the strength...

Born poor in 1920s Japan, nine-year-old Chiyo's life changes when her father sells her to an okiya in Kyoto's Gion district, where she will be trained as a geisha. It's a life that's far less glamorous than Chiyo imagines: little more than an indentured servant, she must submit to her mistress' wishes, whether it means sleeping on wooden blocks or having her virginity auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Winner of the Agatha Award. "Sujata Massey blasts her way into fiction with The Salaryman's Wife, a cross-cultural mystery of manners with a decidedly sexy edge."-- Janet Evanonich Japanese-American Rei Shimura is a 27-year-old English teacher living in one of Tokyo's seediest neighborhoods. She doesn't make much money, but she wouldn't go back home to California even if she had a free ticket (which, thanks to her parents, she does.) She's determined...

"What did it mean to be a ninja or a samurai? Did they really have special abilities? What was life like for them in ancient Japan? Find out the answers to these questions and more as Jack and Annie track the facts behind some of history's most intriguing and secretive figures"--Amazon.com.

Japan, 1939. On the Street of a Thousand Blossoms in Tokyo, two orphaned brothers are growing up with loving grandparents who inspire them to dream of a future firmly rooted in tradition. The older boy, Hiroshi, shows early signs of promise in sumo wrestling, while Kenji is fascinated by the art of creating exquisite masks for actors in the Noh theater. But as the ripples of war spread all the way to their quiet neighborhood, the brothers must put...

"Set again in the beloved Japanese bookshop and nearby coffee shop in the Jimbochi neighborhood of Toyko, More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop deepens the relationship between Takako, her uncle Satoru , and the people in their lives. A new cast of heartwarming regulars have appeared in the shop, including an old man who wears the same ragged mouse-colored sweater and another who collects books solely for the official stamps with the author's personal...

Acclaimed bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is found brutally murdered in his home on the night before he's planning to leave Japan and relocate to Vancouver. His body is found in his office-- a locked room-- within his locked house, by his wife and his best friend, both of whom have rock solid alibis. Or so it seems.