My new couch reading, again off the kitchen shelves (which, when emptied, I can use as a larder, something I've never needed before) is The City of Yes, about a Canadian guy who goes to teach English in Japan at the same time I was doing the same thing. Bitter experience led me to contemplate making a rule about never reading male-authored books about Japan, but this was already on the shelf, so... And here he is, on his way to Saitama which fits his notions of the back of beyond, free from cities and gaijin (and a fast ten minute train ride from my dorm on the outskirts of said prefecture.) It takes him three or four hours by car to get there, and he says he goes by way of Niigata which is on the other side of the Japan Alps and a good way up the Japan Sea coast, so I'm not surprised if it did.
But I wish to go on record as saying, I have no confidence in this book. Thank you.
