Underground by Haruki Murakami
(
Book
)
6
editions published
between
2000
and
2010
in
English
and held by
938
libraries
worldwide
Covers the 1995 Tokyo Gas Attack, during which agents of a Japanese cult released a gas deadlier than cyanide into the subway system, as documented in interviews with its survivors, perpetrators, and victim family members. In March 1995, agents of a Japanese religious cult attacked the Tokyo subway system with sarin, a gas twenty six times as deadly as cyanide. Attempting to discover why, Murakami conducted hundreds of interviews with the people involved, from the survivors to the perpetrators to the relatives of those who died. Underground is their story in their own voices. Concerned with the fundamental issues that led to the attack as well as these personal accounts, Underground is a document of what happened in Tokyo as well as a warning of what could happen anywhere. This is an enthralling and unique work of nonfiction that is timely, vital, and as brilliantly executed as Murakami's novels. From Haruki Murakami, internationally acclaimed author of the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Norwegian Wood, a work of literary journalism that is as fascinating as it is necessary, as provocative as it is profound. It was a clear spring day, Monday, March 20, 1995, when five members of the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo conducted chemical warfare on the Tokyo subway system using sarin, a poison gas twenty-six times as deadly as cyanide. The unthinkable had happened; a major urban transit system had become the target of a terrorist attack. Attempting to discover why, Murakami conducted hundreds of interviews with the people involved, from a subway authority employee with survivor guilt, to a fashion salesman with more venom for the media than for the perpetrators, to a young cult member who vehemently condemns the attack though he has not quit Aum. Through these and many other voices, Murakami exposes intriguing aspects of the Japanese psyche. And, as he discerns the fundamental issues leading to the attack, we achieve a clear vision of an event that could occur anytime, anywhere. Hauntingly compelling and inescapably important, Underground is a powerful work of journalistic literature from one of the world's most perceptive writers. Concerned with the fundamental issues that led to the attack as well as these personal accounts, Underground is a document of what happened in Tokyo as well as a warning of what could happen anywhere. This is an enthralling and unique work of nonfiction that is timely and vital and as wonderfully executed as Murakami's brilliant novels.
All she was worth by Miyuki Miyabe
(
Book
)
7
editions published
between
1996
and
2000
in
English and Japanese
and held by
656
libraries
worldwide
Tokyo's Inspector Shunsake Honma investigates the case of a woman who may have murdered another in order to take her identity. A tale of credit cards and debt and rampant consumerism in today's Japan.
Monkey brain sushi : new tastes in Japanese fiction(
Book
)
11
editions published
between
1991
and
2002
in
English
and held by
547
libraries
worldwide
Chinese painting(
Book
)
3
editions published
in
1983
in
English
and held by
421
libraries
worldwide
A wild sheep chase by Haruki Murakami
(
Book
)
14
editions published
between
1989
and
2010
in
English and Japanese
and held by
414
libraries
worldwide
It begins simply enough: A twenty-something advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend, and casually appropriates the image for an insurance company's advertisement. What he doesn₂t realize is that included in the pastoral scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and in using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention of a man in black who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences. Thus begins a surreal and elaborate quest that takes our hero from the urban haunts of Tokyo to the remote and snowy mountains of northern Japan, where he confronts not only the mythological sheep, but the confines of tradition and the demons deep within himself.
Dance dance dance : a novel by Haruki Murakami
(
Book
)
11
editions published
between
1994
and
2010
in
English and Japanese
and held by
384
libraries
worldwide
As he searches for a mysteriously vanished girlfriend, the protagonist plunges into a wind tunnel of sexual violence and metaphysical dread in which he collides with call girls and recieves cryptic instructions from a shabby but oracular Sheep Man.
Smile as they bow : a novel by Nu Nu Yi
(
Book
)
4
editions published
in
2008
in
English
and held by
304
libraries
worldwide
Censored for more than 12 years by the Burmese government, 'Smile as they Bow' is a mixture of Arundhati Roy and Ha Jin - an illuminating, beautiful and, above all, satisfying portrayal of a culture many have never witnessed.
A burden of flowers by Natsuki Ikezawa
(
Book
)
5
editions published
in
2001
in
English
and held by
295
libraries
worldwide
Based on a true story of the 1980s, the action centers on Asia-traveling Japanese artist "Tez" Nishijima and his Europhile sister Kaoru. When Tez is arrested in Bali on charges of heroin trafficking and faces the death penalty, his parents are paralyzed with shame, leaving his Paris-based sister to come to the rescue. She enlists the help of an old expert on Indonesia and two of his friends, and sets off to face a shadowy and alien situation. Her brother, languishing in jail, thinks back over his journeys in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, to the two women who changed his life there, to his subsequent slow spiral into drug addiction, and to the day a police stooge planted heroin in his room in the Kuta Beach "backpack territory" of Bali.
Chanoyu : the Urasenke tradition of tea(
Book
)
1
edition published
in
1988
in
English
and held by
164
libraries
worldwide
しみじみ(
Book
)
3
editions published
in
1998
in
Japanese and English
and held by
55
libraries
worldwide
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