This 2-vol., A-Z reference addresses contemporary Japanese life and society.

Merlin the wizard challenges readers to become wizards like himself by deciphering clues hidden in his guide to wizardry.

Compiled in this volume is original material on Japanese arts and culture from the prehistoric era to the Meiji Restoration (1867). These sources, including many translated here for the first time, are placed in their historical context and outfitted with brief commentaries, allowing the reader to make connections to larger concepts and values found in Japanese culture. This book contains material on the visual and literary arts, as well as primary texts on topics not easily classified in Western categories, such as the martial and culinary arts, the art of tea, and flower arranging. More than sixty color and black-and-white illustrations enrich the collection and provide further insights into Japanese artistic and cultural values. Also included are a bibliography of English-language and Japanese sources and an extensive list of suggested further readings.

The Illustrated Companion to Japanese Archaeology provides for the first time a comprehensive visual introduction to a wide range of sites and finds from the earliest occupation of the Japanese archipelago prior to 35,000 years ago to the early historical periods and the establishment of the Chinese-style capital at Heijo, modern-day Nara, in the 8th century AD. The volume originated in the largest ever exhibition of Japanese archaeological discoveries held in Germany in 2004, which brought together over 1500 exhibits from 55 lenders around Japan, and research by over 100 specialists. The Illustrated Companion brings the fruits of this project to an English-reading audience and offers an up-to-date survey of the achievements of Japanese archaeology.

"Salaryman" in Japan is a look at Japanese business style through the eyes of the "salaryman", that special breed of worker who has provided the driving force behind the economic miracle of postwar Japan.

Take a step back in time to the origins of Japan's creation myth--told here for the very first time in illustrated form. In the beginning there was nothing--a void. Then the heavens and the earth took shape, as the ancient gods of Japan breathed the first sparks of life into these islands. The 1300 year-old Kojiki myth traces the beginnings of the Japanese people, following the rise of the Japanese islands from their humble origins as a lump of clay to a great nation that would one day take its rightful place among the leading nations of the world. Like all creation myths from around the world, the Kojiki story occupies a treasured place in the nation's literature and collective imagination. Kazumi Wilds's striking illustrations capture the drama and intensity of a mythic tale where chaos and demons are unleashed and where darkness is slowly pushed back by the righteous, as good prevails over evil. Kojiki: The Birth of Japan combines the raucous rhythms and startling imagery of today's best graphic novels with a retelling of a classic and timeless Japanese story. This book will be remembered and treasured for years to come by lovers of mythology, folklore and anyone interested in Japanese culture and history. For readers ages 14 & up

Bushido: The Soul of Japan is a book written by Inazō Nitobe exploring the way of the samurai. He found in Bushido, the Way of the Warrior, the sources of the seven virtues most admired by his people: rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, sincerity, honor and loyalty. It was published in 1899. A best-seller in its day, it was read by many influential foreigners, among them President Theodore Roosevelt, President John F. Kennedy and Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts. Nitobe also delved into the other indigenous traditions of Japan, such as Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism and the moral guidelines handed down over hundreds of years by Japan's samurai and sages. He sought similarities and contrasts by citing the shapers of European and American thought and civilization going back to the Romans, the Greeks and Biblical times. He found a close resemblance between the samurai ethos of what he called Bushido and the spirit of medieval chivalry and the ethos of ancient Greece, as observed in books such as the Iliad of Homer.

Ehon - or "picture books"- are part of an incomparable 1,200-year-old Japanese tradition. Created by artists and craftsmen, most ehon also feature essays, poems, or other texts written in beautiful, distinctive calligraphy. They are by nature collaborations: visual artists, calligraphers, writers, and designers join forces with papermakers, binders, block cutters, and printers. The books they create are strikingly beautiful, highly charged microcosms of deep feeling, sharp intensity, and extraordinary intelligence. In the elegant, richly illustrated Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan, renowned scholar Roger S. Keyes traces the history and evolution of these remarkable books through seventy key works, including many great rarities and unique masterpieces, from the Spencer Collection of the New York Public Library, one of the foremost collections of Japanese illustrated books in the West. The earliest ehon were made as religious offerings or talismans, but their great flowering began in the early modern period (1600-1868) and has continued, with new media and new styles and subjects, to the present. Shiohi no tsuto (Gifts of the Ebb Tide, 1789; often called The Shell Book) by Kitagawa Utamaro, one of the supreme achievements of the ehon tradition, is reproduced in full. Michimori (ca. 1604), a luxuriously produced libretto for a No play is also featured, as are Saito- Shu-ho's cheerful Kishi empu (Mr. Ginger's Book of Love, 1803), Kamisaka Sekka's brilliant Momoyogusa (Flowers of a Hundred Worlds, 1910), and many more. Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan ends with ehon by some of the most innovative practitioners of the twentieth century. Among these are Chizu (The Map, 1965), Kawada Kikuji's profound photographic requiem for Hiroshima; Yoko Tawada's and Stephan Kohler's affecting Ein Gedicht für ein Buch (A Poem for a Book, 1996); and Vija Celmins's and Eliot Weinberger's Hoshi (The Stars, 2005). The magnificent ehon tradition originated in Japan and developed there under very specific conditions, but it has long since burst its bounds, like any living tradition. Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan suggests that when artists meet readers in these contrived, protected, focused, sacred book "worlds," the possibilities for pleasure, insight, and inspiration are limitless. Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan was praised as "illuminating" in The New York Times' review of the New York Public Library's exhibit. http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/arts/design/21ehon.html

"Little is known of the acclaimed 18th-century Japanese artist Toshusai Sharaku. This impressive volume is the definitive illustrated catalog of the surviving works of this legendary figure -- offering connoisseurs and collectors clear black-and-white reproductions of 146 prints and drawings. Each print is accompanied by extensive commnetary providing details of background and coloring; inofrmation on states and impressions; and identifications of actors and other subjects, and roles depicted. Also included are succinct plot summaries of the plays in which Sharaku's subjects appeared. Here is a priceless record of Japan's popular Kabuki theater."--from publisher