Welcome to Litsy!

It‘s baffling what people do to inflict pain on other people. I don‘t understand it, yet I know how capable I am of doing it. Even in small ways like how I might talk to someone who upsets me.

Of course, the Rape of Nanking was a massacre not a mild social interaction. Iris Chang describes a lot of atrocities. At first they turned my stomach (literally) but she never stops describing them. Is it intentional?

I‘m still left with WHY.

Japan medieval history is very confusing and Clements makes it more confusing by giving the reader too many compressed details and not enough clear analysis. Still, lots of interesting stuff here. I was entertained to learn the origins of sushi and kabuki theater.

Looking for audiobooks and indecisive, I found this free on audible. I‘m fascinated, all of 20 minutes in.

This nearly 40 hour audiobook is nothing if not thorough. At such a length it‘s hard to stay focused on everything, and after a while it becomes tough to keep names straight. Nonetheless, I learned a lot about a period of Japanese history in which I was uneducated.

A pick for me, but if I had read a hardcopy, I‘m not sure I could‘ve made it all the way through. The narration by Eric Jason Martin contributed much to my enjoyment of this tome.

Surprising enough I've never read anything on Hiroshima even though I love reading about Japan.
This book takes accounts of the people who survived.

Hojoki, also titled The 10 Foot Square Hut, is a Japanese poetic work by 12/13th-century author Kamo no Chomei. It describes the string of disasters (typhoon, famine, epidemic, earthquake) witnessed by the author, and his retreat into smaller and smaller dwellings, in the countryside, away from The World.
The work itself is short and moving; the introduction (probably written by the translators) is engaging and useful.

I knew nothing about this beyond having heard of it. The lead-up to the main part of the story didn‘t catch my interest. The things that happened were incredibly awful, but the author also followed up with chapters on Westerners who tried to help with a “safe zone” in the middle of the city, then chapters on how the Chinese people fared after and how the Japanese tried to hide what had happened.

I listened to this title because it was free with an Audible subscription and I like this narrator. Despite being written 50 years ago, this book is still relevant to those interested in a thorough yet succinct history of Japan. The authors focus on medieval and feudal Japanese society but there‘s also a bit about WWII. Nice, easy listen!

Willard Hotel June 2 around 2:00 I heard #antihero in the lobby. Around 2:15 I turned a corner and came upon this kimono in a hallway. #volumesandvocals

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