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Cutting Back

Cutting Back
  • Author(s): Leslie Buck
  • Location(s): Kyoto
  • Genre(s): Travelogue, Autobiography/Memoirs
  • Era(s): Modern

At thirty-five, Leslie Buck made an impulsive decision to put her personal life on hold to pursue her passion. Leaving behind a full life of friends, love, and professional security, she became the first American woman to learn pruning...

Geisha

Geisha
  • Author(s): Liza Dalby
  • Location(s): Kyoto
  • Genre(s): Nonfiction
  • Era(s): 1970s

The author, the only non-Japanese ever to have trained as a geisha, offers an insider’s look at the exclusive world of female companions to the Japanese male elite. The new preface considers the geisha today as a vestige of...

Geisha, a Life (Geisha of Gion)

Geisha, a Life (Geisha of Gion)
  • Author(s): Mineko Iwasaki
  • Location(s): Kyoto
  • Genre(s): Autobiography/Memoirs
  • Era(s): 1950s to 1980s

Celebrated as the most successful geisha of her generation, Mineko Iwasaki was only five years old when she left her parents’ home for the world of the geisha. For the next twenty-five years, she would live a life filled...

I Love You So Mochi

I Love You So Mochi
  • Author(s): Sarah Kuhn
  • Location(s): Kyoto
  • Genre(s): Young Adult
  • Era(s): Contemporary

Perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Kasie West, I Love You So Mochi is a delightfully sweet and irrepressibly funny novel from accomplished author Sarah Kuhn. As sweet and satisfying as actual mochi… a tender love story wrapped...

The Kamogawa Food Detectives

The Kamogawa Food Detectives
  • Author(s): Hisashi Kashiwai, Jesse Kirkwood (Translator)
  • Location(s): Kyoto
  • Genre(s): Cosy Mystery, Food and Drink
  • Era(s): Contemporary

The Kamogawa Food Detectives, translated from Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood, is the first book in the bestselling, mouth-watering Japanese sleuthing series for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold. What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just...

The Old Capital

The Old Capital
  • Author(s): Yasunari Kawabata
  • Location(s): Kyoto
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): post WW2

The Old Capital is one of the three novels cited specifically by the Nobel Committee when they awarded Kawabata the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968. With the ethereal tone and aesthetic styling characteristic of Kawabata’s prose, The Old...

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
  • Author(s): Yukio Mishima
  • Location(s): Kyoto
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1950s

Because of the boyhood trauma of seeing his mother make love to another man in the presence of his dying father, Mizoguchi becomes a hopeless stutterer. Taunted by his schoolmates, he feels utterly alone untill he becomes an acolyte...

Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto

Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
  • Author(s): Victoria Abbott Riccardi
  • Location(s): Kyoto
  • Genre(s): Autobiography/Memoirs
  • Era(s): Contemporary

Two years out of college and with a degree from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, Victoria Riccardi left a boyfriend, a rent-controlled New York City apartment, and a plum job in advertising to move to Kyoto to study kaiseki,...

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