The Cat with Three Passports
The Cat with Three Passports

Author: CJ Fentiman

Publisher: Silver Vine Press

Published: 2020-11-02

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 0648851915

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A girl struggling to fit in. A homeless kitten. An unexpected job offer in an unfamiliar country that changes everything. CJ had a long history of escaping places and people she wasn't fond of. But for the sake of a silver tabby, she decided to stay in Japan for a while. This decision helped her open up her heart and mind, revisit her way of thinking, and reconnect with her estranged family. Let this heartwarming memoir take you to the land of cats and cherry trees as you read about CJ's adventures - from the craziness of the naked men festival, the experience of forest bathing and the significance of finding a life purpose or ikigai, to the temples of Takayama, and wonders of Cat Island - you'll see what a homeless kitten found outside a temple in Japan taught her about an old culture and new beginnings

The Cat Who Saved Books
The Cat Who Saved Books

Author: Sosuke Natsukawa

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2021-12-07

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0063095742

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AN INDIE NEXT PICK! From the #1 bestselling author in Japan comes a celebration of books, cats, and the people who love them, infused with the heartwarming spirit of The Guest Cat and The Travelling Cat Chronicles. Bookish high school student Rintaro Natsuki is about to close the secondhand bookstore he inherited from his beloved bookworm grandfather. Then, a talking cat appears with an unusual request. The feline asks for—or rather, demands—the teenager’s help in saving books with him. The world is full of lonely books left unread and unloved, and the cat and Rintaro must liberate them from their neglectful owners. Their mission sends this odd couple on an amazing journey, where they enter different mazes to set books free. Through their travels, the cat and Rintaro meet a man who leaves his books to perish on a bookshelf, an unwitting book torturer who cuts the pages of books into snippets to help people speed read, and a publishing drone who only wants to create bestsellers. Their adventures culminate in one final, unforgettable challenge—the last maze that awaits leads Rintaro down a realm only the bravest dare enter . . . An enthralling tale of books, first love, fantasy, and an unusual friendship with a talking cat, The Cat Who Saved Books is a story for those for whom books are so much more than words on paper. Translated from the Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai. "Cats, books, young love, and adventure: catnip for a variety of readers!" –Kirkus

Nala's World
Nala's World

Author: Dean Nicholson

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Published: 2020-09-29

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1538718804

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Discover the nationally bestselling, true story of a life-changing friendship between a man and his rescue cat, Nala, as they adventure together on a bike journey around the world -- from the Instagram phenomenon @1bike1world. When 30-year-old Dean Nicholson set off from Scotland to cycle around the world, his aim was to learn as much as he could about our troubled planet. But he hadn't bargained on the lessons he'd learn from his unlikely companion. Three months after leaving home, on a remote road in the mountains between Montenegro and Bosnia, he came across an abandoned kitten. Something about the piercing eyes and plaintive meowing of the bedraggled little cat proved irresistible. He couldn't leave her to her fate, so he put her on his bike and then, with the help of local vets, nursed her back to health. Soon on his travels with the cat he named Nala, they forged an unbreakable bond -- both curious, independent, resilient and adventurous. The video of how they met has had 20 million views and their Instagram has grown to almost 750k followers -- and still counting! Experiencing the kindness of strangers, visiting refugee camps, rescuing animals through Europe and Asia, Dean and Nala have already learned that the unexpected can be pretty amazing. Together with Garry Jenkins, writer with James Bowen of the bestselling A Street Cat Named Bob, Dean shares the extraordinary tale of his and Nala's inspiring and heart-warming adventure together.

The Guest Cat
The Guest Cat

Author: Takashi Hiraide

Publisher: New Directions Publishing

Published: 2014-01-28

Total Pages: 90

ISBN-13: 0811221512

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A wonderful sui generis novel about a visiting cat who brings joy into a couple’s life in Tokyo A bestseller in France and winner of Japan’s Kiyama Shohei Literary Award, The Guest Cat, by the acclaimed poet Takashi Hiraide, is a subtly moving and exceptionally beautiful novel about the transient nature of life and idiosyncratic but deeply felt ways of living. A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo; they work at home, freelance copy-editing; they no longer have very much to say to one another. But one day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. It leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again. Soon they are buying treats for the cat and enjoying talks about the animal and all its little ways. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife — the days have more light and color. The novel brims with new small joys and many moments of staggering poetic beauty, but then something happens…. As Kenzaburo Oe has remarked, Takashi Hiraide’s work "really shines." His poetry, which is remarkably cross-hatched with beauty, has been acclaimed here for "its seemingly endless string of shape-shifting objects and experiences,whose splintering effect is enacted via a unique combination of speed and minutiae."

The Travelling Cat Chronicles
The Travelling Cat Chronicles

Author: Hiro Arikawa

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-10-23

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 0451491343

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A book that “speak[s] volumes about our need for connection—human, feline or otherwise” (The San Francisco Chronicle), The Travelling Cat Chronicles is a life-affirming anthem to kindness and self-sacrifice that shows how the smallest things can provide the greatest joy—the perfect gift for cat lovers and travellers! We take journeys to explore exotic new places and to return to the comforts of home, to visit old acquaintances and to make new friends. But the most important journey is the one that shows us how to follow our hearts... An instant international bestseller and indie bestseller, The Travelling Cat Chronicles has charmed readers around the world. With simple yet descriptive prose, this novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner, Satoru, as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru's longtime friends. Or so Nana is led to believe... With his crooked tail—a sign of good fortune—and adventurous spirit, Nana is the perfect companion for the man who took him in as a stray. And as they travel in a silver van across Japan, with its ever-changing scenery and seasons, they will learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude, of loyalty and love. On New York Post's Required Reading List

The Woman in the White Kimono
The Woman in the White Kimono

Author: Ana Johns

Publisher: Harlequin

Published: 2019-05-28

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 148803513X

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Oceans and decades apart, two women are inextricably bound by the secrets between them. Japan, 1957. Seventeen-year-old Naoko Nakamura’s prearranged marriage to the son of her father’s business associate would secure her family’s status in their traditional Japanese community, but Naoko has fallen for another man—an American sailor, a gaijin—and to marry him would bring great shame upon her entire family. When it’s learned Naoko carries the sailor’s child, she’s cast out in disgrace and forced to make unimaginable choices with consequences that will ripple across generations. America, present day. Tori Kovac, caring for her dying father, finds a letter containing a shocking revelation—one that calls into question everything she understood about him, her family and herself. Setting out to learn the truth behind the letter, Tori’s journey leads her halfway around the world to a remote seaside village in Japan, where she must confront the demons of the past to pave a way for redemption. In breathtaking prose and inspired by true stories from a devastating and little-known era in Japanese and American history, The Woman in the White Kimono illuminates a searing portrait of one woman torn between her culture and her heart, and another woman on a journey to discover the true meaning of home.

Rainy Day Ramen and the Cosmic Pachinko
Rainy Day Ramen and the Cosmic Pachinko

Author: Gordon Vanstone

Publisher: Monsoon Books

Published: 2021-03-01

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 191204983X

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After three years in Japan, Fred Buchanan is broke, unemployed and engaged in a telepathic turf war with a feral cat behind an Okinawa convenience store. Thus begins his metaphysical odyssey back to Tokyo. Along the way, symbols and sages materialize in the form of a two-fingered jazz musician, the faded tattoo on an ex-yakuza lover, an odd brood of internet cafe refugees, the kite flyer of Kabukicho and Yukie, an alluring hostess with strips of delicious thigh and strange power imbued in the etched eye on her fingernail. Charging through Shinjuku’s neon jungle, enveloped in a boozy, nicotine-stained haze, past and present collide as an empty orchestra croons a slow dance of people and place, memory and madness, loss and love. All the while, Fred struggles to be an agent of his destiny and not another ball bearing bouncing through the cosmic pachinko. Rainy Day Ramen and the Cosmic Pachinko is told as a uniquely clever mix of Murakami-esque magical realism and gonzo Japan travelogue.

Catland: The Soft Power of Cat Culture in Japan
Catland: The Soft Power of Cat Culture in Japan

Author: Sarah Archer

Publisher: The Countryman Press

Published: 2020-08-11

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1682684741

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An irresistible and colorful celebration of Japan’s thriving cat culture. In Japan, cats rule. And the country’s feline love affair is now a worldwide phenomenon. From cat cafés and Hello Kitty to the familiar sight of a maneki neko (“beckoning cat”) waving its paw from a shop window, cat lovers all over the world are more immersed in Japan’s cat culture than they may realize. With charming storytelling, Catland will introduce you to cats practicing to become monks, a designer who makes cat costumes inspired by the fashions of 18th-century France, and skilled craftsmen who build pieces of fine furniture precisely scaled down to suit feline customers. Packed with photographs, works of art, pop culture and folklore, Catland is the perfect gift for the cat lover in your life.

Kanazawa
Kanazawa

Author: David Joiner

Publisher: Stone Bridge Press, Inc.

Published: 2022-01-25

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 161172953X

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In Kanazawa, the first literary novel in English to be set in this storied Japanese city, Emmitt’s future plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of negotiations to purchase their dream home. Disappointed, he’s surprised to discover Mirai’s subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo, a city he dislikes. Harmony is further disrupted when Emmitt’s search for a more meaningful life in Japan leads him to quit an unsatisfying job at a local university. In the fallout, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa’s most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English. While continually resisting Mirai’s efforts to move to Tokyo, Emmitt becomes drawn into the mysterious death thirty years prior of a mutual friend of Mirai’s parents. It is only when he and his father-in-law climb the mountain where the man died that he learns the somber truth, and in turn discovers what the future holds for him and his wife. Packed with subtle literary allusion and closely observed nuance, with an intimacy of emotion inexorably tied both to the cityscape and Japan’s mountainous terrain, Kanazawa reflects the mood of Japanese fiction in a fresh, modern incarnation.

Things Remembered and Things Forgotten
Things Remembered and Things Forgotten

Author: Kyoko Nakajima

Publisher: Sort of Books

Published: 2021-05-13

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1908745975

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'If we want to understand what has been lost to time, there is no way other than through the exercise of imagination ... imagination applied with delicate rather than broad strokes'. So wrote the award winning Japanese author Kyoko Nakajima of her story, Things Remembered and Things Forgotten, a piece that illuminates, as if by throwing a switch, the layers of wartime devastation that lie just below the surface of Tokyo's insistently modern culture. The ten acclaimed stories in this collection are pervaded by an air of Japanese ghostliness. In beautifully crafted and deceptively light prose, Nakajima portrays men and women beset by cultural amnesia and unaware of how haunted they are - by fragmented memories of war and occupation, by fading traditions, by buildings lost to firestorms and bulldozers, by the spirits of their recent past.