JAPANESE GHOST STORIES (HIROKO YODA)

 

Many of the ghost stories of Japan came to the fore during the Edo period with its famous woodblocks of ukiyo – e, the floating world.

This collection of Japanese ghost stories brings together fantastic tales of vengeful spirits, mountain – dwelling phantoms, man – eating oni, haunted trees, and child-rearing ghosts, with stories such as Yuki-Onna, Hoichi the Earless, The Ghost of O-Kiku from The Bancho Sarayashiki, the sorry tale of O-Iwa from the Yotsuya Kaidan, The Peony Lantern and The Ghost Who Bought Candy. Japan has a long and ancient custom of sharing stories of the supernatural, brought to fashionable prominence in the Kaidan literature of the Edo period, now presented here for the modern reader.

THE AUTHOR: HIROKO YODA

Hiroko Yoda is a Japanese entrepreneur, translator, writer, folklorist, and president of the localization company AltJapan Co., Ltd.  She was also a Tokyo city editor for the CNN travel website CNNGo. She is a translator of video games and the author of numerous books about Japanese history and culture. She is particularly known for her pioneering work contextualizing yokai  culture for English-speaking audiences

Informtion from: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroko_Yoda

THE BOOK

Hello there, I know it’s been a while since I last posted, but, here we are again, the intention is to try and publish more often tan I have been doing lately.

Going to the topic, today, I wanted to talk about the book Japanese Ghost Stories by Japanese entrepreneur, translator, writer and folklorist Hiroko Yoda, which, as you have read above, is a recopilation of ghost stories from Japanese folklore.

In the case of the different tales I think they are really effective, mainly because, Japanese have a special hability with horror since the are able to create a ghost from a simple daily objet, people who are in their mid thirties might remember the film ringu (and its late occidental versión the ring) that was able to create a really unconfortable situation with just a video tape.

Another good thing about this book is the selection of tales, that mix tales with daily objets and vengeful spirits that come back from death to haunt, and maybe kill the ones who hurt them in life (this is the case of Oiwa and Okiku).

I would recomend you this book, if you like horror stories, and if you are intrested in Japanese folklore

FIRST READINGS OF 2023

 Hello there, first of all I want to wish you a very happy new year, and second, I know it’s been a while since my last post, but I have been quite busy for the last months, but, finally I had some time to write a new post.

In this post I am going to talk about my two first readings of the year, I am currently rading both, so I am just going to give my first impressions of both readings.

The first one is The ink black heart  by Robert Galbraith (we all know it is J. K. Rowling’s pen name) the latest Cormoran Strike’s novel, in this book, Cormoran and Robin, his partner at the agency, will have to investigate the murder of Eddie Ledwell, who was the co – creator of an online show, while her partner gets seriously injured.

The second one is the firts volumen of death note, the manga that follows the fighting between Light Yagami/Kira and prívate investigator L.

In both cases, I am enioying their readings, in the case of The ink black heart I have read the previous books and I love tem (I speak beyond the controversial affirmations of the autor, actually, like many other people I have my oppininon about all that, but this is not the time or the place to talk about it), personally I think that all the books are adictive from the begining and it is hard to stop reading them, while in the case of death note, it is also a certain Reading, mainly because I have already watch the anime show and the live action movies around it, so I know for sure that I will like reading this.

Once again happy new year, and I will try to publish more often during this year

TO SLEEP IN A SEA OF STARS (CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI)

 During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, xenobiologist Kira Navárez finds an alien relic that thrusts her into the wonders and nightmares of first contact. Epic space battles for the fate of humanity take her to the farthest reaches of the galaxy and, in the process, transform not only her – but the entire course of history.

THE AUTHOR: CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI

Christopher Paolini was born on 1983 in South California He has lived most of his life in Paradise Valley, Montana, with his parents and his younger sister. The Bearooth Mountains, close to the valley and snowed most part of the year, inspired the fantastic sttlement appeared for the first time in Eragon.

The last book he has published is to sleep on a sea of stars.

Christopher Paolini’s web: https://www.paolini.net/

THE BOOK

Hello there, today I bring you the review of the book to sleep ina sea of stars, in which we follow Kira Navárez, a xenobiologist on a mission on an uncolonized planet, who will become the last hope of the galaxy.

Being honest, I was a little affraid of begining the book, the edition I handle is 800 pages, so I feared it to be quite slow, but it has been a really nice surprise mainly because once Kira and her situation is presented, the action begins and it doesn’t stop until the end.

The book presents a few really well built characters, Kira and her partners at the very begining are the typicall cientist, meanwhile Salvo Falconi and his crew are good people diguised as cheeky people who will take very chance to make Money, and at the same time we can see people like Tschetter and other members of the army who just want to control Kira for their pourpouses.

On the other hand we also can find travels through space and big battles due to the firt contact with other species living on the Space, and which will fight with humans because of the colonies on new planets.

In general I have loved the book, it’s true that I like sci – fi, but in this particular case it has been a big and positive surprise.

I am so sorry because this review doesn´t make justice to the book, but my main problem is that I am not an English native speaker and it is a bit hard to make this things, I sincerely do expect that with time my writing in English will go better and become more fluent

A GEEK IN JAPAN (HÉCTOR GARCÍA)

 

For every fan of manga, anime, J – pop or anyone intrigued by these and other aspects of Japanese cultura this book is a guide to the land that is the source of it.

THE AUTHOR: HÉCTOR GARCÍA

He was born in Spain in 1981, and after earning his MS in software engineering and working for CERN in Switzerland he moved to Japan, where he worked on voice recognition software and later for Digital garaje, developing the technology needed for Silicon Valley startups like twitter.

He has been living in Tokyo since 2004 and during his free time he runs www.kirainet.com , oneof the most – read blogsin the world in Spanish language and writes books about his experiencies in Japan.

THE BOOK

Hello there, today as my first book review for this Project I bring yoy a book in which the autor tells the reader about living ad working in Japan and the cultural differences between Héctor García’s culture and Japanese Culture.

In my case I have been Reading books settled in Japan or writen by Japanese authors thanks to a Reading inititive (I might talk about it next year)  so like the book seemed quite interesting, I decided to begin to read it.

The English edition of the book is published by Tuttle, in it we can find really interesting information, since the book talks about Japanese history of the country, diferente places to visit, most of them not quite known ouside the country (for example Hector García speaks about a museum dedicated to Ramen) and his experiences living and working there, this helps to show Japanese daily life (men and women go out in separated groups, and the only mix at the nomikais, or the parties organized at work)

The most interesting thing about this book, is the way he shows the Japanese society and cultura, and the shock, he seems to suffer, as a foreginer living there (the autor was born in Spain), also is interesting the way he presents a touristic view of Japan giving advice on how to prepare everything to visit the country and what we can visit outside the most known places there.

Actually I do recomend you to read this book if you are interested in Japanese cultura ore ven if you want to travel to Japan