Brian Nishii has narrated 79 audiobooks on Listento.it by 83 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 4,417 ratings. The most-rated is The Obesity Code.
Training the Samurai Mind
Summary
Through the ages, the samurai have been associated with honor, fearlessness, calm, decisive action, strategic thinking, and martial prowess. Their ethos is known as bushido, the Way of the Warrior-Knight. Here, premier translator Thomas Cleary presents a rich collection of writings on bushido by warriors, scholars, political advisors, and educators from the 15th century through the 19th century that provide a comprehensive, historically rich view of samurai life and philosophy. Training the Samurai Mind gives an insider's view of the samurai world: the moral and psychological development of the warrior, the ethical standards they were meant to uphold, their training in both martial arts and strategy, and the enormous role that the traditions of Shintoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism had in influencing samurai ideals. The writings deal with a broad range of subjects - from military strategy and political science, to personal discipline and character development. Cleary introduces each piece, putting it into historical context, and presents biographical information about the authors. This is an essential listen for anyone interested in military history and samurai history, and for martial artists who want to understand strategy.
©2008 Thomas Cleary (P)2014 Audible Inc.
The Temple of the Golden Pavillion
Summary
A hopeless stutterer, taunted by his schoolmates, Mizoguchi feels utterly alone until he becomes an acolyte at a famous temple in Kyoto. But he quickly becomes obsessed with the temple's beauty, and cannot live in peace as long as it exists.
©1959 Copyright information US: Copyright 1959 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. This translation Copyright Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1959. Originally published in Japanese as Kinkakuji. (P)2010 Audible, Inc
Spring Snow
Summary
The first novel of Mishima's landmark tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. Spring Snow is set in Tokyo in 1912, when the hermetic world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders -- rich provincial families unburdened by tradition, whose money and vitality make them formidable contenders for social and political power. Among this rising new elite are the ambitious Matsugae, whose son has been raised in a family of the waning aristocracy, the elegant and attenuated Ayakura. Coming of age, he is caught up in the tensions between old and new -- fiercely loving and hating the exquisite, spirited Ayakura Satoko. He suffers in psychic paralysis until the shock of her engagement to a royal prince shows him the magnitude of his passion, and leads to a love affair that is as doomed as it was inevitable.
©1972 Copyright 1972 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Originally published in Japan as Haru no Yuki by Shinchosha Company, Tokyo, in 1968. c. 1968 by Yukio Mishima (P)2010 Audible, Inc
The Sound of Waves
Summary
Set in a remote fishing village in Japan, The Sound of Waves is a timeless story of first love. A young fisherman is entranced at the sight of the beautiful daughter of the wealthiest man in the village. They fall in love, but must then endure the calumny and gossip of the villagers.
©1956 Copyright 1956 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright renewed 1984 by Meredith Weatherby. Originally published in Japan as Shiosai. (P)2010 Audible, Inc
Ametora
Summary
Look closely at any typically "American" article of clothing these days, and you may be surprised to see a Japanese label inside. From high-end denim to oxford button-downs, Japanese designers have taken the classic American look - known as ametora, or "American traditional" - and turned it into a huge business for companies like Uniqlo, Kamakura Shirts, Evisu, and Kapital. This phenomenon is part of a long dialogue between Japanese and American fashion; in fact many of the basic items and traditions of the modern American wardrobe are alive and well today thanks to the stewardship of Japanese consumers and fashion cognoscenti, who ritualized and preserved these American styles during periods when they were out of vogue in their native land. In Ametora, cultural historian W. David Marx traces the Japanese assimilation of American fashion over the past 150 years, showing how Japanese trendsetters and entrepreneurs mimicked, adapted, imported, and ultimately perfected American style, dramatically reshaping not only Japan's culture but also our own in the process.
©2015 W. David Marx (P)2016 Audible, Inc.
Hexarchate Stories
Summary
The essential short story collection set in the universe of Ninefox Gambit. An ex-Kel art thief has to save the world from a galaxy-shattering prototype weapon.... A general outnumbered eight-to-one must outsmart his opponent.... A renegade returns from seclusion to bury an old comrade.... From the incredible imagination of Hugo- and Arthur C. Clarke-nominated author Yoon Ha Lee comes a collection of stories set in the world of the best-selling Ninefox Gambit. Showcasing Lee's extraordinary imagination, this collection takes you to the very beginnings of the Hexarchate's history and reveals new never-before-heard stories.
©2019 Yoon Ha Lee (P)2019 Recorded Books
Snow Country
Summary
The story of the doomed love affair of a wealthy sophisticate, Shimamura, and the geisha Komako, at a mountain hotspring resort in western Japan, one of the snowiest regions on earth.
©1984 Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (P)2010 Audible, Inc.
The Story of Sushi
Summary
Everything you never knew about sushi: its surprising origins, the colorful lives of its chefs, and the bizarre behavior of the creatures that compose it. Trevor Corson takes us behind the scenes at America's first sushi-chef training academy, as eager novices strive to master the elusive art of cooking without cooking. He delves into the biology and natural history of the edible creatures of the sea, and tells the fascinating story of an Indo-Chinese meal reinvented in 19th-century Tokyo as a cheap fast food. He reveals the pioneers who brought sushi to the United States and explores how this unlikely meal is exploding into the American heartland just as the long-term future of sushi may be unraveling. The Story of Sushi is at once a compelling tale of human determination and a delectable smorgasbord of surprising food science, intrepid reporting, and provocative cultural history.
©2007 Trevor Corson (P)2010 Audible, Inc.
If Cats Disappeared from the World
Summary
Our narrator’s days are numbered. Estranged from his family, living alone with only his cat, Cabbage, for company, he was unprepared for the doctor’s diagnosis that he has only months to live. But before he can set about tackling his bucket list, the devil appears with a special offer: in exchange for making one thing in the world disappear, he can have one extra day of life. And so begins a very bizarre week.... Because how do you decide what makes life worth living? How do you separate out what you can do without from what you hold dear? In dealing with the devil, our narrator will take himself - and his beloved cat - to the brink. If Cats Disappeared from the World is a story of loss and reconciliation, of one man’s journey to discover what really matters in modern life. This beautiful tale is translated from the Japanese by Eric Selland, who also translated The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide. Fans of The Guest Cat will also surely love If Cats Disappeared from the World.
©2018 Genki Kawamura (P)2018 Macmillan Digital Audio
The Tale of Genji, Volume 1
Summary
Murasaki Shikibu, born into the middle ranks of the aristocracy during the Heian period (794-1185 CE), wrote The Tale of Genji, widely considered the world's first novel, during the early years of the 11th century. Expansive, compelling, and sophisticated in its representation of ethical concerns and aesthetic ideals, Murasaki's tale came to occupy a central place in Japan's remarkable history of artistic achievement and is now recognized as a masterpiece of world literature. The Tale of Genji is presented here in a flowing new translation for contemporary listeners, who will discover in its depiction of the culture of the imperial court the rich complexity of human experience that simultaneously resonates with and challenges their own. Washburn embeds annotations for accessibility and clarity and renders the poetry into triplets to create prosodic analogues of the original.
©2015 Dennis Washburn (translation) (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Culture Hacks
Summary
International business requires a deep level of industry insight but also a keen understanding of the cultural differences that impact how business is done. If you’re an American working in China or Japan for the first time, you may not realize the way each culture thinks and reasons is quite different from your own, which can lead to frequent misunderstandings. You may be unaware, for example, that Americans reason in a linear manner, Chinese in a lateral manner, and Japanese intuitively. Or that Japanese view the world in literal terms, while Americans and Chinese are more balanced between abstract and literal. You won’t see about these differences in a typical business etiquette book, but they are foundational to the way each culture considers and conducts their business. In Culture Hacks, Richard Conrad draws on his 25 years of experience living and working in Asia to explain the different ways Americans, Chinese, and Japanese think, reason, and interpret the world. He’ll equip you to successfully navigate unfamiliar territory by offering best practices and recommendations for interacting with and understanding each other.
©2019 Richard Conrad (P)2019 Richard Conrad
To Hold Up the Sky
Summary
From New York Times best-selling author Cixin Liu comes a short story collection of captivating visions of the future and incredible re-imaginings of the past. In To Hold Up the Sky, Cixin Liu takes us across time and space, from a rural mountain community where elementary students must use physics to prevent an alien invasion; to coal mines in northern China where new technology will either save lives of unleash a fire that will burn for centuries; to a time very much like our own, when superstring computers predict our every move; to 10,000 years in the future, when humanity is finally able to begin anew; to the very collapse of the universe itself. Written between 1999 and 2017 and never before published in English, these stories came into being during decades of major change in China and will take you across time and space through the eyes of one of science fiction's most visionary writers. Experience the limitless and pure joy of Cixin Liu's writing and imagination in this stunning collection. Stories included are: "Contraction" "Full Spectrum Barrage Jamming" "The Village Teacher" "Fire in the Earth" "Time Migration" "Ode to Joy" "Mirror" "Sea of Dreams" "Cloud of Poems" "The Thinker" This program is read by: Vikas Adam, Feodor Chin, Greg Chun, Robert Fass, Catherine Ho, Natalie Naudus, Brian Nishii, P. J. Ochlan, Emily Woo Zeller, and Nancy Wu A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books
©2020 Cixin Liu (P)2020 Macmillan Audio
John Gielgud's Hamlet (Dramatized)
Summary
This outstanding historical recording made in 1941 for radio is widely regarded as one of the finest Hamlet performances ever, and one of John Gielgud's greatest moments. Though he went on to record it for commercial release, nothing matched this recording in the BBC studios, made before the days of editing.
Public Domain (P)2006 Naxos AudioBooks
Bushido: The Soul of Japan (AmazonClassics Edition)
Summary
Inazo Nitobé's Bushido: The Soul of Japan is a poetic inquiry into the ethos of his homeland. Through a study of the way of the samurai, Nitobe identifies the seven virtues most widely recognized by the Japanese: rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, veracity, honor, and loyalty. In sharing these moral guidelines, handed down over generations, Nitobe gives the world unique insight into a previously unexplored code of honor. Written in English and only translated years later into Japanese, Bushido was an inspiration to many Western leaders, including two US presidents - Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. After centuries, the samurai principles are now applied around the world and recognized as universal ideals. Revised edition: Previously published as Bushido: The Soul of Japan, this edition of Bushido: The Soul of Japan (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.
Public Domain (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Sky Above, Great Wind
Summary
Ryokan (1758-1831) is, along with Dogen and Hakuin, one of the three giants of Zen in Japan. But unlike his two renowned colleagues, Ryokan was a societal dropout, living mostly as a hermit and a beggar. He was never head of a monastery or temple. He liked playing with children. He had no dharma heir. Even so, people recognized the depth of his realization, and he was sought out by people of all walks of life for the teaching to be experienced in just being around him. His poetry and art were wildly popular even in his lifetime. He is now regarded as one of the greatest poets of the Edo Period, along with Basho, Buson, and Issa. He was also a master artist-calligrapher with a very distinctive style, due mostly to his unique and irrepressible spirit, but also because he was so poor he didn't usually have materials: His distinctive thin line was due to the fact that he often used twigs rather than the brushes he couldn't afford. He was said to practice his brushwork with his fingers in the air when he didn't have any paper. There are hilarious stories about how people tried to trick him into doing art for them, and about how he frustrated their attempts. As an old man, he fell in love with a young Zen nun who also became his student. His affection for her colors the mature poems of his late period. This collection contains more than 140 of Ryokan's poems, with selections of his art, and of the very funny anecdotes about him.
©2012 Kazuaki Tanahashi (P)2014 Audible Inc.
Summer of the Big Bachi
Summary
In the foothills of Pasadena, Mas Arai is just another Japanese-American gardener, his lawnmower blades clean and sharp, his truck carefully tuned. But while Mas keeps lawns neatly trimmed, his own life has gone to seed. His wife is dead. And his livelihood is falling into the hands of the men he once hired by the day. For Mas, a life of sin is catching up to him. And now bachi - the spirit of retribution - is knocking on his door. It begins when a stranger comes around, asking questions about a nurseryman who once lived in Hiroshima, a man known as Joji Haneda. By the end of the summer, Joji will be dead, and Mas' own life will be in danger. For while Mas was building a life on the edge of the American dream, he has kept powerful secrets: about three friends long ago, about two lives entwined, and about what really happened when the bomb fell on Hiroshima in August 1945. A spellbinding mystery played out from war-torn Japan to the rich tidewaters of LA's multicultural landscape, this stunning debut novel weaves a powerful tale of family, loyalty, and the price of both survival and forgiveness.
©2004 Naomi Hirahara (P)2015 Audible Inc.
The Great Passage
Summary
A charmingly warm and hopeful story of love, friendship, and the power of human connection. Award-winning Japanese author Shion Miura's novel is a reminder that a life dedicated to passion is a life well lived. Inspired as a boy by the multiple meanings to be found for a single word in the dictionary, Kohei Araki is devoted to the notion that a dictionary is a boat to carry us across the sea of words. But after thirty-seven years creating them at Gembu Books, it's time for him to retire and find his replacement. He discovers a kindred spirit in Mitsuya Majime - a young, disheveled square peg with a penchant for collecting antiquarian books and a background in linguistics - whom he swipes from his company's sales department. Led by his new mentor and joined by an energetic, if reluctant, new recruit and an elder linguistics scholar, Majime is tasked with a career-defining accomplishment: completing The Great Passage, a comprehensive 2,900-page tome of the Japanese language. On his journey, Majime discovers friendship, romance, and an incredible dedication to his work, inspired by the bond that connects us all: words.
©2012 Shion Miura (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Translation © 2017 Juliet Winters Carpenter.
A Man
Summary
A man follows another man's trail of lies in a compelling psychological story about the search for identity, by Japan's award-winning literary sensation Keiichiro Hirano in his first novel to be translated into English. Akira Kido is a divorce attorney whose own marriage is in danger of being destroyed by emotional disconnect. With a midlife crisis looming, Kido's life is upended by the reemergence of a former client, Rié Takemoto. She wants Kido to investigate a dead man - her recently deceased husband, Daisuké. Upon his death she discovered that he’d been living a lie. His name, his past, his entire identity belonged to someone else, a total stranger. The investigation draws Kido into two intriguing mysteries: finding out who Rié's husband really was and discovering more about the man he pretended to be. Soon, with each new revelation, Kido will come to share the obsession with - and the lure of - erasing one life to create a new one. In A Man, winner of Japan’s prestigious Yomiuri Prize for Literature, Keiichiro Hirano explores the search for identity, the ambiguity of memory, the legacies with which we live and die, and the reconciliation of who you hoped to be with who you’ve actually become.
©2018 Keiichiro Hirano. Translation © 2020 by Eli K. P. William. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
The Heart of Meditation
Summary
His Holiness the Dalai Lama provides intimate details on an advanced meditation practice called Dzogchen using a visionary poem by the 19th-century saint Patrul Rinpoche, author of the Buddhist classic Words of My Perfect Teacher. The Dalai Lama deftly connects how training the mind in compassion for other beings is directly related to - and in fact a prerequisite for - the very pinnacle of Buddhist meditation. He presents his understanding, confirmed again and again over millennia, that the cultivation of both compassion and wisdom is absolutely critical to progress in meditation and goes into great depth on how this can be accomplished. While accessible to a beginner, he leads the listener in very fine detail on how to identify innermost awareness - who we really are - how to maintain contact with this awareness, and how to release oneself from the endless stream of our thoughts to let this awareness, always present, become consistently apparent.
©2016 Dalai Lama Trust (P)2016 Audible, Inc.
Samurai Rising
Summary
Minamoto Yoshitsune should not have been a samurai. But his story is legend in this real-life saga. This epic warrior tale may sound like a novel, but this is the true story of the greatest samurai in Japanese history. When Yoshitsune was just a baby, his father went to war with a rival samurai family - and lost. His father was killed, his mother captured, and his surviving half-brother banished. Yoshitsune was sent away to live in a monastery. Skinny, small, and unskilled in the warrior arts, he nevertheless escaped and learned the ways of the samurai. When the time came for the Minamoto clan to rise up against their enemies, Yoshitsune answered the call. His daring feats and impossible bravery earned him immortality.
©2016 Pamela S. Turner (P)2016 Recorded Books