Japan is traditionally called mysterious, inscrutable, and stoic. It prefers total isolation to dealing with the rest of the world (It used to destroy ships and cargo and execute those onboard upon arrival). Now Pico Iyer, who has lived there for 32 years tells us the how and why. In A Beginners’ Guide To Japan, a short book of even shorter anecdotes (often one-liners) he describes living in Japan as the Japanese do, and how very different that can be from the rest of the world.The basic theme i...

The Japanese have a unique culture that is unlike almost any other on this planet. It has been influencing the world since the end of the Second world war too, partly through the high quality and reliable cars and electronic products that they make and that have become household names, but also things like anime, Hello Kitty, the cherry blossom and their distinctive gardens to name but a few. Their tiny archipelago of islands is home to 120 million people. I have never yet been fortunate to visi...

Good set of notes by my favorite author from his time living in Japan as a foreigner. Good book to acquaint oneself with the contradictions and complexities of the Japanese ways.

Enjoyable and easy to read in bursts. While my kids are studying Japan this gave me some extra reading to enjoy in my down time. The author's presentation is irregular, a paragraph blurb format for most of the book broken up by longer anecdotes every few sections. Knowing the author is British born, living in Japan for 30 years to a native Japanese woman helps shed light on his unique perspective. He has a beautiful love of the country and its people, no doubt encouraged by the love for his wife...

Iyer's observations are incisive and provocative. The style of the bit (a smorgasbord of tidbits, linked thematically and roughly) is not my favorite. I would have preferred a more coherent essay form.

I used to love reading Pico Iyer's books. Read him after a long time, and I must say I really liked this unconventional book. It's a collection of notes, thoughts, philosophical musings, observations; there's no narrative, but it feels cohesive despite the odd structure. At times profound, thought-provoking, at others a bit irritating. There are so many nuggets like these:__________Strangers routinely sleep with their heads on strangers' shoulders on Japanese trains, and the leaned-upon agree no...

I hadn't heard of this author, when I stumbled upon this book in the travel section of my local library. I was so intrigued by the format and the few brief passages I read that I checked it out. I'm glad I did. I now have a new author to follow, an author whose TED talks I have started watching.I have long been fascinated by Japan, its culture, history, and arts. Having lived there as a child, I felt a deep homesickness for the country when my family returned to the States. That prompted me as a...

Darn you Pico Iyer! I have three other books going, but this is so tantalizing, bite sized insights into Japanese culture, the little moments that reveal so much--it's completely jumped the queue.>>>>>>>>>>>>>This irresistible little book will be the perfect gift for every lover of Japan, presented here in little mots that are perfect encapsulations of Japanese moments, attitudes, surprises and contradictions. A book you can open anywhere for a burst of insight. Iyer has lived in Japan for 30 ye...

This Beginner's Guide to Japan is a far cry from being a "guide" and it certainly isn't for "beginners".I knew beforehand what kind of book to expect from a renowned author and essayist; I also knew there'd be no info on how to correctly recycle or that you are not supposed to eat, drink, or smoke while walking. I was, however, not prepared for what I did find: The Beginner's Guide to Japan resembles a collection of posthumously published bits and pieces (I mean, recollections and aphorisms, of

I hope to make it to Japan one day, and even though I’m fairly well-versed in Japanese cinema and have a general gist of Japanese culture, I could obviously still learn a thing or two in preparation for my travels. I thought Pico Iyer’s “beginner’s guide” might be a good place to start, but I unfortunately found that to be far from the truth.My biggest problem is how the book offers its information. The vast majority of the content is in bullet-point format (usually just one or two sentences eac...

Although he has lived in Japan for over thirty years, Pico Iyer sees it as a closed society which he still doesn't pretend to understand. So he wrote A Beginner's Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations, which consists of a number of short, sometimes cryptic observations as he tries to explain to us his understanding of Japan. Here is a typical entry:After a woman threw herself off the roof of a Tokyo apartment complex in 1970, roughly one hundred and fifty others threw themselves off the

In the before times, when travelling was possible, I’ve never been the sort of traveller who sees multiple places or cities in a short period of time. I like to sink into a place, spend weeks if possible in that place, find the hyper local delights and stay put. It is less about marvelling about how people in a different place do things, but more about realizing things about my own beliefs and ways of being. One of my favourite trips was spending almost four weeks in Bandung Indonesia for a fiel...

This is a very short (just over 200 pgs) and physically small (it will fit in a shirt pocket) book. It is the observations of a journalist who has lived in Japan for more than 30 yrs and is married to a native. It is written in a bullet point format with some of the observations only a sentence or two while others take two or three pages. The observations are organized by topic and the author uses Japanese novelists and other cultural figures in making and explaining some of those observations.

Iyer has lived in Japan for 32 years and these are random observations and quotes about Japan. Things to delight and frustrate.Why I started this book: Short, sweet and about Japan... I couldn't say no.Why I finished it: Tiny tidbits of things that stop and make you think about Japan. Some will make you smile and some will make you pull your hair out. Japan is country of hospitality and hostility, honesty and hypocrisy, stunning precision and wabi-sabi, purposeful imperfections. It is a country

It's hard to conclude anything about any one person, let alone an entire culture, from a single snapshot. But how about 50 snapshots? Or 500? Pico Iyer gives us a panoramic collage of Japanese culture in freeze frame format, and strangely enough, it works. Some of these pictures are beautiful, others are bizarre, and I take the lack of consistency to be a sign of authenticity. The anecdotal nature of Iyer's approach is provocative, as the title suggests, but it isn't sensational. Iyer still sees...

I bought this hoping that I'd genuinely learn something new, intriguing and appealing about Japan being a so called beginner. As I started reading, I was merrily told that it's a beginner's guide because the author is a beginner, mind you he's been living there for 30 years. I'd say this was a clever play on words, a pun, if you will but it was otherwise misleading and confusing or even false advertising rather than helpful. It shows that he is a beginner as he is incapable of conveying helpful

It was a fantastic read. You got vignettes about various aspects of Japanese life and I found it quite interesting. Makes me want to visit Japan!

Iyer channels David Markson and writes one-sentence paragraphs to explain My Japan™. unfortunately, I think Iyer is a gentle soul, and missing the forest for the trees. interestingly, the lead review on this book is Janet Fitch, author of the renowned White Oleander. so I am disagreeing with the experts' gallery, and maybe the GR crowd wisdom of 3.79.I feel Iyer's take on Japan is too naive basically. however, I greatly respect his book Video Night in Kathmandu and Other Reports from the Not-So-...

Great! Loved it!