The Bells of Old Tokyo: Travels in Japanese Time

Description

In The Bells of Old Tokyo, Anna Sherman explores Japan and revels in all its wonderful particularity. As a foreigner living in Tokyo, Sherman's account takes pleasure and fascination in the history and culture of a country that can seem startlingly strange to an outsider. Following her search for the lost bells of the city - the bells by which its inhabitants kept time before the Jesuits introduced them to clocks - to her personal friendship with the owner of a small, exquisite cafe, who elevates the making and drinking of coffee to an art-form, here is Tokyo in its bewildering variety. From the love hotels of Shinjuku to the appalling fire-storms of 1945 (in which many more thousands of people died than in Hiroshima or Nagasaki), from the death of Mishima to the impact of the Tohoku earthquake of 2011. For fans of The Lonely City, and Lost in Translation, The Bells of Old Tokyo is a beautiful and original portrait of Tokyo told through time.

Anna Sherman was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. She studied Greek and Latin at Wellesley College and Oxford before moving to Tokyo in 2001. The Bells of Old Tokyo is her first book.

Sherman's is a special book. Every sentence, every thought she has, every question she asks, every detail she notices, offers something. The Bells of Old Tokyo is a gift . . . It is a masterpiece. * Spectator * [Sherman's] perambulations around the bells yield fascinating, frequently moving narratives . . . In Tokyo's every nook and cranny, she finds the possibility of something profound, something elevating. * New Statesman * A subtle, beautifully written meditation . . . Profoundly moving . . . The bells of old Tokyo are no longer heard, but this lyrical yet serious work deserves ringing endorsement. * Literary Review * Delightful . . . Bells is unknowable, but brilliantly so. * Japan Times * A completely extraordinary book, unlike anything I have read before. At once modest in tone and vast in scale and ambition . . . Delicately wrought, precise, lucid and strange as a dream. -- Olivia Laing Beautifully written, surprising, original and humane . . . A truly stunning debut. -- Joanna Kavenna The Bells of Old Tokyo is part personal memoir, part cultural history, but wholly unique. The fragile, fragmentary poetry of its prose so beautifully captures the transience of Tokyo time, the constant cycle of destruction and reconstruction, and the nostalgia for that which has been lost and yet wonder at all that remains to be found. It is the best book I have read about Tokyo written this century, and deserves to take its place alongside the works of Donald Richie, Edward Seidensticker and Paul Waley as one of the great interpretations of this great city. -- David Peace It is very possible - refreshingly, exhilaratingly, possible - for a great book to exist that is all at once a memoir, a travelogue, a history book, and an examination of what defines a culture and its people: their customs, arts, architecture, habits, and priorities. That is what The Bells of Old Tokyo is. It is also a masterwork. * Books and Bao * Good travel writing is often hard to come by - it's a delicate balance of bringing a destination to life while also informing of its noteworthy aspects, but Anna Sherman does so flawlessly. * Japan Today * A staggering reassembling of an ancient city turned neon metropolis . . . An exceptional and exceptionally original piece of writing. * The Big Smoke * A fascinating portrait of a city and its people, epic and intimate at the same time * The Weekly Times * Only a handful could match Sherman for respectful curiosity, detailed knowledge and sensitivity to her surroundings. * Canberra Times * A reading treasure . . . A work of literary art . . . Magnificent both in its content and in the exquisite, lyrical writing of its author. * Cape Times * In her haunting, beautiful debut travel narrative, Anna Sherman takes the reader along on her quest to find the bells of old Tokyo, illuminating a lost world hidden in plain sight . . . The Bells of Old Tokyo paints an intricate, rich portrait of this labyrinthine city . . . as much a history of Japan as it is a travelogue. * South China Morning Post * Sherman's writing is elegant and accessible, and the story of Tokyo quickly becomes the story of time itself. -- Best Books of Summer 2019 * Uproxx * A beautifully written evocation of a place and a philosophical inquiry into the nature of time itself. An astonishing gift. * Shelf Awareness * A tour-de-force mapping, in four dimensions, of the amazing place we call "Tokyo." I realized I barely know the city . . . So much is dealt with so beautifully - Mishima, the 1945 firebombs, the tangle that is Shinjuku . . . Wonderful . . . -- Liza Dalby An enchanting read, drawing you into Sherman's Tokyo world in a way that makes you wonder why you shouldn't fly there right this minute, with her book as the only guide you'll ever need. -- Xu Xi