Arts, Literature & Culture

What is "Basic Japanese"?

This book presents some very basic words and phrases along with some that are not usually considered "basic" at all. In fact, some of the material in this book is not typically presented until the…  Read More

The Elements of Japanese Design is a library of traditional Japanese design motifs in the form of more than 2,700 family crests ( mon) compiled and drawn by a Kyoto publisher and bookseller early in the twentieth century, and…  Read More

The short works collected in Four Huts give voice to one of the most treasured aesthetic and spiritual ideals of Asia—that of a simple life lived in a simple dwelling. The texts were written between the ninth and…  Read More

Japanese Street Slang is the first and only exposé of the rough and ready, raw and down-dirty street language as it is used in Japan today. Here's how they really speak: The hustlers and high rollers, the teens and…  Read More

Miyamoto Musashi, who lived in Japan in the fifteenth century, was a renowned samurai warrior. He has become a martial arts icon, known not just as an undefeated dueler, but also as a master of battlefield strategy. Kenji Tokitsu turns…  Read More