Newly Arrived Books (October 2013)

1. Books and boats: Sino-Japanese relations in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries / Ōba Osamu; translated by Joshua A. Fogel
MerwinAsia, 2012
[327.51||Oo]

This book is about trade between Japan and China during the Edo period. The description of books brought by Chinese ships is especially detailed.

Publisher description:
http://merwinasia.com/books/2012/Books_and_Boats.php

2. How Asia works: success and failure in the world’s most dynamic region / Joe Studwell
Profile Books, 2013
[330.95||Sj]

The author explores recent economic development in Asia, comparing Northeast Asia with Southeast Asia.

Publisher description:
http://www.profilebooks.com/isbn/9781846682421/

3. Native-speakerism in Japan: intergroup dynamics in foreign language education / edited by Stephanie Ann Houghton and Damian J. Rivers
Multilingual Matters, 2013
[400||Hs]

This innovative volume explores wide-ranging issues related to “native-speakerism” as it manifests itself in the Japanese and Italian educational contexts.

Publisher description:
http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?sort=
sort_date/d&sf1=title_exact&st1=nativespeakerisminjapan

4. Elegant perfection: masterpieces of courtly and religious art from the Tokyo National Museum / Tokyo National Museum; edited by Heather Brand; translations by Maiko Behr
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, distributed by Yale University Press, 2011
[709.52||Tk||大]

The catalog of an exhibition held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, commemorating the opening of its Art of Japan Gallery. Items from the collection of the Tokyo National Museum of courtly and religious art, including national treasures and important cultural properties, were exhibited.

Publisher description:
http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300175936

5. Another stage: Kanze Nobumitsu and the late Muromachi noh theater / Lim Beng Choo
East Asia Program, Cornell University, 2012
[792||Lb]

In this book the author examines the significance of the late Muromachi period noh practitioner Kanze Nobumitsu (1435-1516) and his plays, referring to Nobumitsu’s style in relation to his predecessor Zeami, as well as the historical and social background.

Publisher description:
http://eap.einaudi.cornell.edu/publications/AnotherStage-163

6. Frames of anime: culture and image-building / Tze-Yue G. Hu
Hong Kong University Press, 2010
[792.53||Ht]

The book introduces the history of Japanese anime, looking at the cultural background such as the traditional performing arts.

Publisher description:
http://www.hkupress.org/Common/Reader/Products/
ShowProduct.jsp?Pid=1&Version=0&Cid=16&
Charset=iso-8859-1&page=-1&key=9789622090972

7. An Edo anthology: literature from Japan’s mega-city, 1750-1850 / edited by Sumie Jones with Kenji Watanabe
University of Hawai’i Press, 2013
[895.6||Js]

This is a collection of various genres of literature written in Edo (today’s Tokyo), especially in the mid-18th through 19th centuries. The volume includes a wide range of writings, from well-known masterpieces to those belonging to the counterculture. The texts are arranged by subject.

Publisher description:
http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-8943-9780824837402.aspx

8. Wondrous brutal fictions: eight Buddhist tales from the early Japanese puppet theater / translated with an introduction by R. Keller Kimbrough
Columbia University Press, 2013
[895.6||Kr]

Wondrous brutal fictions presents eight seminal works (“Sanshō Dayū”, “Karukaya”, etc.) from the seventeenth-century Japanese sekkyō and ko-jōruri puppet theaters, many translated into English for the first time.

Publisher description:
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14658-6/
wondrous-brutal-fictions