Known as the “Narito Disappearances,” the crime has authorities baffled—until a confession appears on the police’s doorstep, signed by Oda Sotatsu, a thread salesman. Sotatsu is arrested, jailed, and interrogated—but he refuses to speak. Even as his parents, brother, and sister come to visit him, even as his execution looms, and even as a young woman named Jito Joo enters his cell, he maintains his vow of silence. Our narrator, a journalist named Jesse Ball, is grappling with mysteries of his own when he becomes fascinated by the case. Why did Sotatsu confess? Why won’t he speak? Who is Jito Joo? As Ball interviews Sotatsu’s family, friends, and jailers, he uncovers a complex story of heartbreak, deceit, honor, and chance. Wildly inventive and emotionally powerful, Silence Once Begun is a devastating portrayal of a justice system compromised, and evidence that Jesse Ball is a voraciously gifted novelist working at the height of his powers.

    Seventeen-year-old Naoko Nakamura’s prearranged marriage to the son of her father’s business associate would secure her family’s status in their traditional Japanese community, but Naoko has fallen for another man—an American sailor, a gaijin—and to marry him would bring great shame upon her entire family. When it’s learned Naoko carries the sailor’s child, she’s cast out in disgrace and forced to make unimaginable choices with consequences that will ripple across generations.America, present day. Tori Kovač, caring for her dying father, finds a letter containing a shocking revelation—one that calls into question everything she understood about him, her family and herself. Setting out to learn the truth behind the letter, Tori’s journey leads her halfway around the world to a remote seaside village in Japan, where she must confront the demons of the past to pave a way for redemption.In breathtaking prose and inspired by true stories from a devastating and little-known era in Japanese and American history, The Woman in the White Kimono illuminates a searing portrait of one woman torn between her culture and her heart, and another woman on a journey to discover the true meaning of home.

    They are known as “Hunters”. However, not all Hunters are powerful. My name is Sung Jin-Woo, an E-rank Hunter. I’m someone who has to risk his life in the lowliest of dungeons, the “World’s Weakest”. Having no skills whatsoever to display, I barely earned the required money by fighting in low-leveled dungeons… at least until I found a hidden dungeon with the hardest difficulty within the D-rank dungeons! In the end, as I was accepting death, I suddenly received a strange power, a quest log that only I could see, a secret to leveling up that only I know about! If I trained in accordance with my quests and hunted monsters, my level would rise. Changing from the weakest Hunter to the strongest S-rank Hunter!

    The war was coming to an end at last. The people of Nagasaki knew this as they desperately tried to survive each day's shortages of food and warmth - ordinary people going about their lives as normally as they could manage. People like Nagai, the doctor who'd just been told he had leukemia; Father Tamaya, the obliging Catholic priest, who'd agreed to postpone a return to his rural parish; and Koichi, the mobilised tram driver, who secretly watched the Noguchi sisters sobbing behind the company toilet block. Because the bombing of Hiroshima had been so devastating and there was severe media censorship, they knew nothing of what had befallen that city except for the unbelievable stories told by a few survivors who had just now arrived. Beyond Japan, forces they could never have imagined were mustering as the Americans prepared to drop their next atomic bomb on the armaments manufacturing city of Kokura. Bad weather, however, sent the pilots and their terrible load to Nagasaki, where a small group of 169 POWs, including 24 Australians, were digging air-raid shelters and repairing bridges near what became the bomb's epicentre. And, above the heads of them all, the machinery of wartime politics stumbled on towards its catastrophic finale. In this compelling narrative - based on eye-witness accounts, contemporary diaries, letters and interviews - Craig Collie collects up the stories of the many levels of devastation suffered on that fateful day. We come as close as history will allow us to being there when 80,000 people died as a result of the bomb, half of that number instantaneously. The world had changed forever and the shock waves would ripple right up to the present day, as we continue to contemplate the terrible power of a nuclear future

    "If a woman knows nothing else, she should know how to be silent. . . . Do not question. Do not fight. Do not resist." Such is eight-year-old Noriko "Nori" Kamiza's first lesson. She will not question why her mother abandoned her with only these final words. She will not fight her confinement to the attic of her grandparents' imperial estate. And she will not resist the scalding chemical baths she receives daily to lighten her shameful skin.The illegitimate child of a Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover, Nori is an outsider from birth. Though her grandparents take her in, they do so only to conceal her, fearful of a stain on the royal pedigree that they are desperate to uphold in a changing Japan. Obedient to a fault, Nori accepts her solitary life for what it is, despite her natural intellect and nagging curiosity about what lies outside the attic's walls. But when chance brings her legitimate older half-brother, Akira, to the estate that is his inheritance and destiny, Nori finds in him the first person who will allow her to question, and the siblings form an unlikely but powerful bond—a bond their formidable grandparents cannot allow and that will irrevocably change the lives they were always meant to lead. Because now that Nori has glimpsed a world in which perhaps there is a place for her after all, she is ready to fight to be a part of it—a battle that just might cost her everything.Spanning decades and continents, Fifty Words for Rain is a dazzling epic about the ties that bind, the ties that give you strength, and what it means to try to break free.

    Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Yoshida Kenko (c. 1283-1352). Kenko's work is included in Penguin Classics in Essays in Idleness and Hojoki.

    A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo; they work at home, freelance copy-editing; they no longer have very much to say to one another. But one day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. It leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again. Soon they are buying treats for the cat and enjoying talks about the animal and all its little ways. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife — the days have more light and color. The novel brims with new small joys and many moments of staggering poetic beauty, but then something happens….As Kenzaburo Oe has remarked, Takashi Hiraide’s work "really shines." His poetry, which is remarkably cross-hatched with beauty, has been acclaimed here for "its seemingly endless string of shape-shifting objects and experiences,whose splintering effect is enacted via a unique combination of speed and minutiae."

    Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever. The KonMari Method, with its revolutionary category-by-category system, leads to lasting results. In fact, none of Kondo's clients have lapsed (and she still has a three-month waiting list).With detailed guidance for determining which items in your house "spark joy" (and which don't), this international best seller featuring Tokyo's newest lifestyle phenomenon will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home - and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.

    When a detective calls in 2002 hoping to solve the case with new information, Kenji takes immediate action to keep the truth from becoming public.In 1967, Kenji’s father, a former general in the Imperial Japanese Army, had more than his fair share of enemies. When a burglar stole his war sword and left a threatening note, it became clear that someone held a nasty grudge. And when the general was found murdered with Kenji holding the same sword over his dead body, Kenji became the prime suspect.Kenji learned who killed his father and knew why, but no one was ever arrested. In 2002, the statute of limitations has already run out. No charges can be brought regardless of the new evidence.

    Week after week, Mauldin defied army censors, German artillery, and Patton’s pledge to “throw his ass in jail” to deliver his wildly popular cartoon, “Up Front,” to the pages of Stars and Stripes. “Up Front” featured the wise-cracking Willie and Joe, whose stooped shoulders, mud-soaked uniforms, and pidgin of army slang and slum dialect bore eloquent witness to the world of combat and the men who lived—and died—in it. This taut, lushly illustrated biography—the first of two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Mauldin—is illustrated with more than ninety classic Mauldin cartoons and rare photographs. It traces the improbable career and tumultuous private life of a charismatic genius who rose to fame on his motto: “If it’s big, hit it.”

    That superpower was what we know today as India under the Mughal Empire. Years of internal strife, attacks by Afghan raiders and finally conquest by the British led to the decline and destruction of this mighty empire.But what if India had never been conquered by the British? What if it remained a mighty and prosperous nation under the rule of the Mughal Empire?A nation known as Hindustaan.Dilli, 1857. The Mughal Empire is at the peak of its power and is gearing up to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of its victory over the British, an occasion where the popular Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar is widely expected to announce his successor. The Empire is thrown into sudden chaos when the Emperor is assassinated and a new regime seizes power in a bloody coup. In this maelstrom, three unlikely companions find themselves thrown together by fate. Ranveer, a young officer in the elite Mughal cavalry, who is now hunted by the very Empire he served; Theo, a rakish English traveller with a mysterious past and Maya, a beautiful and spirited Princess they rescue. Together, they embark on a series of dramatic adventures across Hindustaan. A journey that takes them from bloody skirmishes with Afghan raiders, rescue missions in remote forts, joining a coalition of rulers who band together against the new despotic regime to protect their independence, and finally back into the heart of Dilli for a dramatic mission.The stage is set for a monumental struggle that will decide not just their fate, but that of the whole of Hindustaan.

    A sadistic serial killer has been abducting young innocents for his ritual horror and the authorities are clueless. Carl Engel is an enigma. The blunt Londoner has forged a thirty-year career as a private investigator amid the chaos of Thailand's political history. Struggling with advancing years and a decreasing workload he is approached by an elderly American with a lucrative missing persons case.The case descends into the sordid world of the elusive serial killer and a menacing web of political intrigue dating back to the Vietnam War. Carl must use his guile and experience to stay alive, find the killer and negotiate the dangerous military interests that lurk behind the scenes. Based on a real character Carl Engel lives in a world rarely seen by outsiders and hauls the reader on a pulsating ride to the explosive conclusion.

    The picture of them alive on a ledge in a flooded cave made front page news worldwide. As his light flickered from one boy to another, one diver called out, “How many of you?” “Thirteen,” a boy answered. “Brilliant,” the diver said. The diver was British cave diver John Volanthen.After 10 days trapped in the flooded cave complex in northern Thailand, and after an enormous effort that had transfixed the world, the missing 12 boys and their soccer coach had finally been found in the Tham Luan Cave. The world celebrated a happy ending and the incredible courage and skills of the rescue team.Each chapter tells one part of the story from Tham Luang but also imparts a life lesson, gleaned from John’s exploration and rescue efforts, that can be applied to everyday obstacles and challenges.John’s story shows how an average person can do the unimaginable, inspiring the superhero in us all.

    Tom Cavendish goes to Japan to build lighthouses and his wife Ally, Doctor Moberley-Cavendish, stays and works at the Truro asylum. As Ally plunges into the institutional politics of mental health, Tom navigates the social and professional nuances of late 19th century Japan. With her unique blend of emotional insight and intellectual profundity, Sarah Moss builds a novel in two parts from Falmouth to Tokyo, two maps of absence; from Manchester to Kyoto, two distinct but conjoined portraits of loneliness and determination. An exquisite continuation of the story of Bodies of Light, Signs for Lost Children will amaze Sarah Moss's many fans.

    Yamamoto Kiyoki is a Japanese art student, dreaming of studying in Paris with the inspiring and vibrant Impressionist painters.Yamamoto Ryusei is Kiyoki’s father. Ryusei’s art, carving intricate masks for traditional Japanese theater, has been his refuge from loneliness since the death of his beloved wife, and he is revered as the most inspired artist of his kind. He expects his only son to honor the traditions of his family and his country, not to be seduced by Western ideas of what is beautiful. Ryusei hopes Kiyoki will follow his own distinguished career, creating masks that will become the family’s crowning achievement.But what is a father to do when his son’s path is not what he had planned? And how can a son honor his father, and yet fulfill his own destiny?