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Alex Kerr’s Followers (149)
Alex Kerr
Born
Bethesda, Maryland, The United States
Genre
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Lost Japan
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published
1993
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2 editions
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Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan
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published
2001
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17 editions
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Another Kyoto
by
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published
2016
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8 editions
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Another Bangkok: Reflections on the City
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Living in Japan
by
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published
2006
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20 editions
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Finding the Heart Sutra: Guided by a Magician, an Art Collector and Buddhist Sages from Tibet to Japan
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Hidden Japan: An Astonishing World of Thatched Villages, Ancient Shrines and Primeval Forests
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Bangkok Found: Reflections on the City
by
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published
2010
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6 editions
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Shot Down: The Secret Diary of One POW's Long March to Freedom
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published
2015
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7 editions
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No Bars Between
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“Why has pachinko swept Japan? It can hardly be the excitement of gambling, since the risks and rewards are so small. During the hours spent in front of a pachinko machine, there is an almost total lack of stimulation other than the occasional rush of ball bearings. There is no thought, no movement; you have no control over the flow of balls, apart from holding a little lever which shoots them up to the top of the machine; you sit there enveloped in a cloud of heavy cigarette smoke, semi-dazed by the racket of millions of ball bearings falling through machines around you. Pachinko verges on sensory deprivation. It is the ultimate mental numbing, the final victory of the educational system." - Lost Japan, Eng. vers., 1996”
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“. . . Japan has a fundamental problem with information itself: it’s often lacking, and when it does exist, is fuzzy at its best, bogus at its worst. In this respect, Japan’s traditional culture stands squarely at odds with modernity—and the problem will persist. The issue of hidden or falsified information strikes at such deeply rooted social attitudes that the nation may never entirely come to grips with it. Because of this, one may confidently predict that in the coming decades Japan will continue to have trouble digesting new ideas from abroad—and will find it more and more difficult to manage its own increasingly baroque and byzantine internal systems.”
― Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan
― Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan
“It is not, of course, only the Japanese who find flat sterile surfaces attractive and kirei. Foreign observers, too, are seduced by the crisp borders, sharp corners, neat railings, and machine-polished textures that define the new Japanese landscape, because, consciously or unconsciously, most of us see such things as embodying the very essence of modernism. In short, foreigners very often fall in love with kirei even more than the Japanese do; for one thing, they can have no idea of the mysterious beauty of the old jungle, rice paddies, wood, and stone that was paved over. Smooth industrial finish everywhere, with detailed attention to each cement block and metal joint: it looks ‘modern’; ergo, Japan is supremely modern.”
― Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan
― Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan
Polls
The poll is for a Non-Fiction group read book about Japan. Authors do not need to be Japanese to have been qualified for the nominations
16 total votes
Topics Mentioning This Author
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| Pick-a-Shelf: Elvenn's Bookopoly 2020 | 7 | 22 | Oct 22, 2020 10:18AM | |
| Around the World ...: Elvenn Tourist 2020 | 15 | 73 | Dec 24, 2020 07:01PM | |
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| Goodreads România: Voi ce citiți acum? Primele impresii... | 419 | 1368 | Aug 29, 2025 11:08PM |
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