---

"With an elegant, understated manner, Iyer offers poignant reflections on his adopted country and its maddening contradictions and shifting parts . . . Subtle observations [that] reveal a great deal . . . Marvelously nuanced"-Kirkus Reviews

"Stitching together observations, statistics, and personal encounters with meditative precision, Iyer depicts a paradoxical culture that finds communion in silence, passion in solitude, and animation in lifeless objects . . . Candid and wholly absorbing, Iyer´s inventive guidebook is more than a collection of cultural curiosities-it´s a tribute to a nation that prizes social consciousness and sees life in temporality."-Booklist [starred]

"Having lived in Japan for decades, the widely traveled and erudite, Oxford-born Iyer presents this lovely pocket compendium of oddities and insights of Japanese life . . . Provocative and elegant, Iyer´s guide succeeds precisely because it doesn´t attempt to be authoritative."-Publisher´s Weekly [starred]

---