Civilization and Monsters, Gerald Figal's book on monsters and modernity, has been on my to-read list for quite some time now. I discovered the book in my never-ending search for anything related to Japanese folklore, history and traditional culture. When I first read the description of this particular title, I was immediately interested. The ( Read more... )

Whew ( Read more... )

I am finally beginning the third part of my writing project (I still hesitate to call it a book, since it's unfinished and might never take that actual form) and so far, I'm very satisfied with how it is coming together ( Read more... )

I began reading this book on a recommendation from a good friend of mine. Working at a bookstore, I'd always seen this book on the shelves and known for a long time that it was considered a modern classic. Yet I hadn't had occasion or reason to pick it up off the shelf until recently; and I'm quite thankful that I did, for it's truly a ( Read more... )

Books I own that I have yet to read:

• Hellboy: Unnatural Selection, by Tim Lebbon
  
• The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle
  
• The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, by Washington Irving
  
• Shrub, by Molly Ivins
  
• The Interpretation of Fairy Tales, by Marie-Louise von Franz
  
• Beowulf and Grendel, by John Grigsby
  
• Snake Moon, by Ray Manzarek
  
• The Secret ( Read more... )

I've been meaning to write about this here for a few weeks now, but I honestly forgot for a long time because of everything happening around the Christmas season. I finally finished the new translation (and the first I'd ever read) of Ueda Akinari's Ugetsu Monogatari, or Tales of Moonlight and Rain ( Read more... )

Here is a very interesting paper: "On the Extinction of the Japanese Wolf". The article was written by John Knight, for the Asian Folklore Studies journal, in 1997. It is an examination of wolf sightings since 1905 (when it officially supposedly went extinct), wolves in folklore, and also the meaning of forest people's desire for the wolf's ( Read more... )

If this is the first review you've read in mukashi_banashi, then you may still have enough time to leave before you read any more. These reviews, I am sorry to say, are filled with misery and woe. The one you are reading right now may just be the worst one yet. If you can't stomach such things as character descripions, overall plot analyses, or mysterious vessels ( Read more... )

Books I own that I have yet to read:

• Hellboy: Unnatural Selection, by Tim Lebbon
  
• The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle
  
• The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, by Washington Irving
  
• Shrub, by Molly Ivins
  
• The Interpretation of Fairy Tales, by Marie-Louise von Franz
  
• Beowulf and Grendel, by John Grigsby
  
• Snake Moon, by Ray Manzarek
  
• The Secret ( Read more... )

So I'm now researching the Ushū Kaidō (羽州街道) , an old road in the northeastern region of Japan. The only real resource I seem to be able to find about this road is this site, which is written in Japanese ( Read more... )