In 1600 Adams was the first English man to step on Japanese shores - one of only nine survivors of a Dutch trading expedition. He became the shogun's advisor and ship builder, and a samurai.... read more
This anthology of Japanese poetry dates from the C10th and became the basis of all later vernacular poetry including haiku. The early literary authors Shikibu and Shonagon drew from it too, ... read more
An account by a London financier of her family in Japan over the last 150 years. The huge changes they have navigated are described with sympathy and careful research.
Takes the reader from the earliest written accounts to the present in vivid portraits. The empress Masako is there, and presumably princess Murasaki Shikibu, whose diary is not only fascina... read more