For example, if I was an author and speaker who has repeatedly said African-Americans were never slaves in America’s history and millions did not die in the slave trade and it’s all simply propaganda, do you think US authorities would let me into the country? And would I as a ...
and the somewhat ruthless search for mates after the victory of finding Watership Down came in for criticism; the book has been dismissed as a mere adventure story celebrating male camaraderie (Adams had been a soldier in WW2 which may have had an influence). ...
If it were up to me, I would reissue these three pieces separately and encourage them to be read widely, particularly by Americans. One thing I observed in twenty years of life in Europe is the resistance of many Europeans to view the world in black-and-white terms, and I suspect this ...
diary of a Japanese teenager washed up on the shores of her remote island. She becomes engrossed in this troubled teen’s life in Tokyo. The book covers topics as wide-ranging as the nature of time, Zen Buddhism, quantum mechanics, kamikaze pilots in WW2, cyberbullying, and the environment...
criminals and Nazi concentration camps – Auschwitz and Dachau included. Interestingly, our research revealed another post-WW2 program remarkably similar to Project Paperclip, this one involving Japanese scientists and war criminals rather than the Nazis. The US was a key player in this program, ...
Magic-realism blends with Japanese myth and legend in an original story about grief, memory, time and an earthquake that shook a nation. There’s a catfish under the islands of Japan and when it rolls the land rises and falls. Sora hates the catfish whose rolling caused an earthquake so...
Thinking about it on the way home I realised that my sister had seen none of what I’d known and I knew nothing of what she’d seen in Mum. And then I thought, perhaps as we were such dissimilar daughters to her, Mum became a different mother to each of us? Hence the completely ...
My daughter introduced me to Japanese Manga. I particularly loveThe Drops of God– how a famous wine expert posthumously encourages his estranged son to learn about fine wines – and guess what? You learn too as you read – what would you like to know about Margaux, Amarone, Dom Perignon?
With this background in mind, Forrest’s novel depicts a Militia unit—the 83rd battalion—in the campaign in eastern New Guinea in 1943 as US and Australian forces advance northwards, slowly pushing back the Japanese. The story is told from the viewpoints of a number of characters, including...
It is interesting to note that a Book of the Month judge at first dismissed the novel and its unknown author with "~it seemed to be about agriculture in China." Spurling points out that Americans at that time were in a cycle of prosperity and destitution and could identify with the up ...