Each year, the flowering of cherry blossoms marks the beginning of spring. But if it weren’t for the pioneering work of an English eccentric, Collingwood “Cherry” Ingram, Japan’s beloved cherry blossoms could have gone extinct. Ingram first fell in love with the sakura, or cherry tree, when he visited Japan on his honeymoon in 1907 and was so taken with the plant that he brought back hundreds of cuttings with him to England. Years later, upon learning that the Great White Cherry had virtually disappeared from Japan, he buried a living cutting from his own collection in a potato and repatriated it via the Trans-Siberian Express. In the years that followed, Ingram sent more than 100 varieties of cherry tree to new homes around the globe. As much a history of the cherry blossom in Japan as it is the story of one remarkable man, The Sakura Obsession follows the flower from its significance as a symbol of the imperial court, through the dark days of the Second World War, and up to the present-day worldwide fascination with this iconic blossom.

More than 150 million Americans drink coffee each day. We're not the only nation obsessed: More than 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed in the world each day. In Coffee Obsession, we take a journey through the coffee-producing nations around the world, presenting the different styles, flavors, and techniques used to brew the perfect cup. We explore how coffee gets from bean to cup in each region, and what that means for the final product. Through clear step-by-step instruction, Coffee Obsession will teach you how to make latte, cappuccino, and other iconic coffee styles as if you were a professionally trained barista. With more than 130 classic coffee recipes to suit every taste, detailed flavor profiles and tasting notes, as well as recommended roasts from around the world, Coffee Obsession is like nothing else out on the market.

'One of Japan's most venerated writers' David Mitchell In this unnerving fable from one of Japan's greatest novelists, a recluse known as 'Mole' retreats to a vast underground bunker, only to find that strange guests, booby traps and a giant toilet may prove even greater obstacles than nuclear disaster. 'As is true of Poe and Kafka, Abe creates an unexpected impulsion. One continues reading, on and on' New Yorker 'Abe's depiction of the deadly game of survival is hilarious but at the same time leaves us with a chilling sense of apprehension about the brave new world that awaits us' Los Angeles Times Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter

Most books about Japan will tell you how to use chopsticks and say "konnichiwa!" Few honestly tackle the existential angst of living in a radically foreign culture. The author, a three-year resident and researcher of Japan, tackles the thousand tiny uncertainties of living abroad. -- Adapted from back cover

This translation simultaneously published as "The sakura obsession: the incredible story of the plant hunter who saved Japan's cherry blossoms" in the USA by Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

'A wonderful connecting of two women writers' stories more than a century apart.' Julia Kuehn, The University of Hong Kong The first-ever biography of the pioneering female journalist who fought to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington, DC Every age has strong, independent women who defy the gender conventions of their era to follow their hearts and minds. Eliza Scidmore was one such maverick. Born on the American frontier just before the Civil War, she rose from modest beginnings to become a journalist who roamed far and wide writing about distant places for readers back home. By her mid-20s she had visited more places than most people would see in a lifetime. By the end of the nineteenth century, her travels were so legendary she was introduced at a meeting in London as “Miss Scidmore, of everywhere.” In what has become her best-known legacy, Scidmore carried home from Japan a big idea that helped shape the face of modern Washington: she urged the city's park officials to plant Japanese cherry trees on a reclaimed mud bank-today's Potomac Park. Though they rebuffed her suggestion several times, she finally got her way nearly three decades later thanks to the support of First Lady Helen Taft. Scidmore was a “Forrest Gump” of her day who bore witness to many important events and rubbed elbows with famous people, from John Muir and Alexander Graham Bell to U.S presidents and Japanese leaders. She helped popularize Alaska tourism during the birth of the cruise industry, and educated readers about Japan and other places in the Far East at a time of expanding U.S. interests across the Pacific. At the early National Geographic, she made a lasting mark as the first woman to serve on its board and to publish photographs in the magazine. Around the same time, she also played an activist role in the burgeoning U.S. conservation movement. Her published work includes books on Alaska, Japan, Java, China, and India; a novel based on the Russo-Japanese War; and about 800 articles in U.S. newspapers and magazines. Deeply researched and briskly written, this first-ever biography of Scidmore draws heavily on her own writings to follow major events of a half-century as seen through the eyes of a remarkable woman who was far ahead of her time.

Land of Plants in Motion is the first in any language to examine two companion stories: (1) the rise of an East Asian floristic zone and how the Japanese islands evolved an astonishing wealth of plant species, and (2) the growth of Japanese botanical sciences. The majority of plant species regarded as “Japanese” trace their origins to western China and the eastern Himalaya but are so indigenized that they often seem native today. Early modern scientists in Japan drew on knowledge of Chinese herbal medicine but achieved distinctive insights into plant life commensurate with but separate from their European counterparts. Scholars at the University of Tokyo pioneered Japanese plant biology in the late nineteenth century. They incorporated Western botanical methods but sought a degree of difference in taxonomy while also gaining international legitimacy through publications in English. Japan’s age of empire (1895–1945) was less about plant exploration and more about plant collection, for both scientific and economic benefits. Displays of species from throughout the empire made Japan’s sphere of colonization and conquest visible at home. The infrastructure for research and instruction expanded slowly after World War Two: new laboratories, botanical gardens, scholarly societies, and publications eventually allowed for great diversity of specialized study, especially with the growth of molecular biology in the 1970s and DNA research in the 1980s. Basic research was harmed by cuts in government funding during 2012–2017, but Japanese plant biologists continue to enjoy international esteem in many fields of scholarship.