Searching for books in Japanese

I don't speak Japanese or read kanji, but there's a book I've heard of that was a business best-seller on productivity by Yukio Noguchi that I'd like to track down. (He's an economist by profession.)

Can someone suggest a bookstore or library that would be good to do searches in? I'll bet I'll be able to recognize it by cover or description.

thanks

Ed

I would suggest going to wikipedia or some other source that will give you the kanji for the author's name, then searching at http://www.bk1.co.jp/

All this, of course, is reliant on your browser being able to view Japanese characters.

I would suggest going to wikipedia or some other source that will give you the kanji for the author's name, then searching at http://www.bk1.co.jp/

All this, of course, is reliant on your browser being able to view Japanese characters.

I would suggest going to wikipedia or some other source that will give you the kanji for the author's name, then searching at http://www.bk1.co.jp/

All this, of course, is reliant on your browser being able to view Japanese characters.

... *swats LibraryThing*

Did a couple of quick searches...

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/search/ref=nb_ss_gw/249-9406667-3828318?__mk_ja_JP=%8...

The one at the top looks right (and best-sellers are always at the top).

The title roughly translates as "Time management method 2006"

Nothing in English here though.

Ed, I don't know where you live, but you might try checking if you have a Kinokuniya bookstore anywhere in your general area. Kinokuniya is a big Japanese chain, sort of the equivalent of Barnes and Noble or Border, that has stores in selected US cities (as well as Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, etc.) Here's a link: http://www.kinokuniya.co.jp/english/contents/network04.html I shop at the Kinokuniya stores in Southern California and find they have a good selection of recent Japanese books in all categories, magazines, manga, and a decent selection of translations into English. They also carry stationary, pens, wrapping paper, DVDs and CDs and anime-related merchandise. It's a fun place to visit if there's one anywhere close to you.

Geez, I wish there was an edit function! :-(

MT (who does know that it's Borders with an 's' and that stationery is quite different from stationary)

Geez, I wish there was an edit function! :-(

MT (who does know that it's Borders with an 's' and that stationery is quite different from stationary)

Here's a search for Noguchi Yukio at Sasuga Japanese Bookstore:
http://www.sasugabooks.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=Noguchi+Yukio

Only one result is in English, though (Aging in the United States and Japan: Economic Trends).

Hope this helps.

I am looking for a good collection of mukashibanashi in Japanese or English. Is there a good website where I might purchase these?

Belleyang-sama,

There are tales and there are tales -- if a collection that includes much material which Usanians might consider "adult" in both meanings of the word is alright, trans. Royall Tyler: Japanese Tales (Pantheon, i think, for my book is hidden in a box) is highly recommended. Great variety and a gorgeous book design.

LibraryThing Manager-sama! The touchstones are hilarious. I put brackets around "Royall Tyler: Japanese Tales" and out popped . . . Winnie the Pooh!!! -- 敬愚

>12 Keigu-sama, I already have Royall Tyer's Japanese Tales. Can you suggest mukashibanashi in Japanese?

Belleyang-sama,

There are far too many and i (being single) have never had to try to sort them out. If you have an area in Japan you like, just google in japanese for prefecture (or region) "no" mukashibanashi (eg.秋田の昔話). Many times you can find various versions on-line, something useful when trying to come up with a fun translation. Or, you could check for a theme you are interested in.

I always go to a site to search for old books, for they tend to be cheaper and morte interesting than new books

http://www.kosho.or.jp/servlet/top

You do not need to login. Just click on the 古本検索book search tag just to the left of the login. You cannot, however, search mukashibanashi because it is in over 1000 titles and that is too many. So you need to narrow it down

After finding a book though, you need to buy it -- i have a small account with a tiny used bookstore that serves me as an in-between. Maybe i could be of help that way.

Of course (?) Hearn did hundreds of tales -- have you seen many?
And i have one tale that might make a nice little book -- i mention it in the review of the Navel book. Maybe i could copy that for you (japanese thunder demons can be very cute).

After check

>Keigu-sama--Above links didn't work. Thank you for the info and the offers. I had a favorite website www.digital-lib.nttdocomo.co.jp but it has disappeared. I am wondering if it will ever come back. It was a great source with a text and a narrator. I read at 2nd grade level, but I know kanji/hanzi. I also get a lot of help from my mother who is fluent in Japanese. I had several mukashibanashi when my family left Japan, but they have all disappeared. I may take you up on help in finding books in the near future. Much thanks.

>14 No, I've not read Lafcadio Hearn. I'd prefer straight from the source, because it's so much more fun and the sound-verbs are just wonderful.

Where is your review of the "Navel book"? Is it on Library Thing. And yes, I'd love to know about the Thunder Demon.

You can always search for particular stories to see the original, but Lafcadio hearn did get many good stories for he had bright students searching hard for them -- you MUST get to a big library and search throiugh his old books sometime.

Japanese does not have nearly so much sound built-in to its verbs as english does, but this is more than balanced in children's literature by the sound-adverbs, actually, two types of mimesis, one that reproduces real sound and one that reproduces psychological sound.

i wrote it into the review of the navel book on libray thing, but have not tried to look at others library reviews yet. you can google kaminari and oni and find enough on the demons, just i thought that particular tale might be worth doing

the ole 屁股chinese have far more fart-lore and farts in nursery rhymes etc than the japanese do, and it hurts to think about how i translated a certain book in about fifteen minutes for my stepfather, a doctor to mention in a talk and someone with publishing connections i lacked has sold, is it a million or more copies of that book! but anyway i have about a hundred pages of haiku fart (i wish i could send it to you but it was written many computers ago and i only have one print-out) and am looking for something myself now, the right name for the fart-nun, supposedly employed to take the blame for the noblewoman --- ah, i knew the term ten years ago!

i am afraid, you would need to be better in japanese to search for and choose books at the site i tried to give (it oddly split into two lines in the message) anyway.

you could make a tale, too, of an old man and a fart-bug (see issa's fart bug at my paraverse.org --> paraversing page.

i also wish i had a box which is 300 miles away in a closet and has hundreds, maybe thousands of pages of chinese mothergoose related essays and may include that princess on the japanese-side too

i do have one chinese mother goose poem about a cry-monster (night-howler in chinese) and my many translations and other associations in this pc if you are curious. Farting has been done. But the problem of baby's crying at night have not that i know of -- you might illustrate and make a book with the idea turned into a story for a young child + my poem trans.+essay (maybe simplified!) for the parent and your illustrations . . .

question: do chinese depict people sleeping like japanese with a bubble from their nose? (that would be in an illustration of the good sleeping baby and if i did a flipbook of it the balloon would carry the child out the window . . .

No, Chinese don't have sleeping bubbles...they have sleeping bugs to put in the ear. I enjoyed reading your paraverse.org pages. "The Fifth Season" is Japanese and English? I don't translate folk tales, but am always searching for something really funny, absurd that can lead my imagination elsewhere. The story that comes out ends up an entirely different thing. I have to stop being greedy and finish reading what I already have in my possession. I laugh myself silly reading the stories outloud. I've never heard of Chinese fart lore! Maybe because my parents didn't tell them?

Hoh, hoh! After reading Barthes (the empire of signs) on single-fold eyes, i thought,

In that case, the sandman's sand would just slide right off the eyelids . . .

Naruhodo (as japanese say), it would not matter, for the sleep bugs go in the ear!

maybe i hyperbolized on fartlore. What i have read is in nursery rhymes and i recall one in particular where the blast from one sibling covered the other in ashes --- anyway, my impression is of a people whose fart humor is only matched by germans. the japanese are better known for farts because they had their musical artist (like the french) and there is that old scroll of the fart-war, which i would guess you have seen

i think the navel book has one samurai who farts with great pressure from his belly button and achieves great things with this weapon but the book is lost in my room and will stay lost until i clean up after finishing something that may take another week, but i have your e-mail, and will let you know -- ah, i saw you were a biologist, so i guess you will be checking out Rise, Ye Sea Slugs! (?)