Donald Richie Books

These private recollections of longtime Japan resident and Japanese culture expert Donald Richie capture the personalities of the Japanese people with insight and humor.

Richie offers an insightful reflection on Akira Kurosawa's extensive filmography, highlighting the director's thirty feature films. The epilogue delves into Kurosawa's artistic legacy and discusses his final, incomplete project, "The Ocean Was Watching," which was intended to be set in the Edo period. This examination not only celebrates Kurosawa's contributions to cinema but also provides a glimpse into the themes and historical context that shaped his storytelling.

The authoritative guide to Japanese film, completely revised and updated. Now available in paperback for the first time, A Hundred Years of Japanese Film by Donald Richie, the foremost Western expert on Japanese film, gives us an incisive, detailed, and fully illustrated history of the country's cinema. Called 'the dean of Japan's arts critics' by Time magazine, Richie takes us from the inception of Japanese cinema at the end of the nineteenth century, through the achievements of Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Ozu, then on to the notable works of contemporary

Featuring stunning photography, this travel guide delves into the vibrant culture, art, and architecture of Tokyo. It highlights the city's unique blend of tradition and modernity, showcasing its diverse neighborhoods and iconic landmarks. Perfect for both first-time visitors and seasoned travelers, the guide offers insights into the experiences that define Tokyo as a world-class destination.

Yasujiro Ozu, the man whom his kinsmen consider the most Japanese for all film directors, had but one major subject, the Japanese family, and but one major theme, its dissolution. The Japanese family in dissolution figures in every one of his fifty-three films.

Exploring contemporary Japanese culture, this book offers an insightful perspective into the values, traditions, and social dynamics that shape modern Japan. It delves into various aspects of everyday life, providing a nuanced understanding of how historical influences and current trends intersect in the lives of the Japanese people. Through vivid descriptions and analysis, readers gain a deeper appreciation of Japan's unique cultural landscape.

Sure to be a classic, Donald Richie's concise, profound insights into the mysteries of Japanese

This illustrated volume presents a portrait of Japan with over 100 colourhotographs and essays on nature, arts, traditional culture and modern life.

From the metropolitan bustle of busy, modern Tokyo to the serenity of classical Kyoto, from the northern frontier land of snowy Hokkaido to distinctly colorful Kyushu and Okinawa in the southwest, Japan is a country of striking contrasts and frequent contradictions-geisha and baseball, the Kabuki theater and oil refineries, skyscrapers of steel and glass, landscape gardens of sand and rock. The blend of the ancient and the contemporary is unique and fascinating. Here in one volume are all the beauty and vitality of a nation whose recorded history reaches back nearly two thousand years, a nation that has progressed in little more than a century from self-imposed isolation to a place of prominence among the nations of the world. Facts-historical, geographic, cultural and economic-are wedded In a definitive combination to extraordinary pictures by some of Japan's leading photographers. This book provides, in addition to the incisive text and captions written by Donald Richie, an informative foreword by the late Edwin O. Reischauer. For the general reader, for those who have visited these islands, and for those who are unfamiliar with them, this is a superbly well-rounded introduction.

Following on the success of the first publiction, A hundred things Japanese, this work provides 100 more additional definitions that define Japanese culture