You think ancient Japan, you picture samurai, geisha, and ninja. You think modern Japan, you picture anime, robots, and neon-lit streets. More than any other nation, Japan is famous in equal parts for its history and its modern culture. It has done such a good job of both separating and marrying the two together. As such, its tourism...
The Red Circle Minis Collection – Three New Japanese Stories The ethos and approach to publishing of Red Circle Authors Limited is everything that we at Books and Bao cherish. As someone who howls from the mountaintops about the importance of Anglophones reading more translated literature from across the globe, it is thrilling to...
Hi guys! My name’s Rebecca from becular.com – I’ve been living in Ho Chi Minh City as a digital nomad for the past few months and have struggled with only one thing: finding books. Getting a decent hairdresser despite the language barrier is surprisingly achievable. Tracking down cheap local eats, easy peasy. Navigating the busy...
China is a wonderful place for so many reasons: its extensive cuisine, deep and alluring history, fascinating language, thriving economy, unparalleled natural beauty – the list goes on and on. it’s also a terrible place, politically, but that shouldn’t necessarily stop you from moving there (trust us, as angry liberals who love Taiwan...
So you want to start reading Haruki Murakami. You’ve seen his overwhelming popularity both in Japan and the West; you’ve heard the whispers, over and over, that he might finally win the Nobel Prize for Literature; you want to know what all the fuss is about. Murakami can be accessible and inaccessible in equal parts, depending on how you...
Korea’s cafe culture is something to be reckoned with and it’s only when you head elsewhere you realise quite how impressive it is. From themed cafes to hipster joints, to cosy nooks, you could easily make a top-ten list for every city in South Korea and you still wouldn’t scratch the surface. Nonetheless, if...
Written by Wang Ting-Kuo | Translated from Chinese by Howard Goldblatt & Sylvia Li-Chun Lin Here is one of those rare books that has a lot to unpack – metaphor, motifs, motivations – but proves to be, nonetheless, completely accessible. More than that, it is compelling, carried by a desperate forward momentum that pleads with the...
From Shakespeare to the Brontes to JK Rowling, no nation on Earth has so many great names that define the world of literature as the United Kingdom. We live and breathe the work of these authors; their homes and settings draw tourists from around the world; their characters are alive in the cobblestone streets and the walls of our...
The Beauty of Travel Writing Adventurers, explorers, travellers – whatever you wish to call them – have been documenting their discoveries and experiences for hundreds of years. Setting sail for uncharted waters and touching down on exotic lands, bold and brave men and women have explored every corner of the map and recorded...
The Book of Tehran | Edited by Fereshteh Ahmadi Here is the latest in Comma Press’ fantastic vision of gathering short stories from cities all around the globe, translating them, and binding them together in beautiful collections, dubbed A City in Short Fiction. Following the massive success of such collections as The Book of Tokyo, The...
