JQ Magazine: Book Review – ‘Professor Risley and the Imperial Japanese Troupe: How an American Acrobat Introduced Circus to Japan—and Japan to the West’
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By Jessica Sattell (Fukuoka-ken, 2007-08) for JQ magazine. Jessica is a freelance writer, and was previously the publicist for Japan-focused publishers Stone Bridge Press and Chin Music Press. She is interested in the forgotten histories of culture, and has often considered running away and joining the circus. We’re still riding the “Cool Japan” […]
JQ Magazine: Book Review – ‘The Buddha in the Attic’
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By Liz Mathews (Hiroshima-ken, 2005-06) for JQ magazine. Liz is the JETAA New York Book Club wrangler. I would like to start by saying that the JETAANY Book Club discussed reading Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic for at least five months before choosing it for our fall meeting. This is notable because 1) […]
JQ Magazine: Book Review – ‘Salvation of a Saint’
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By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction. (Click image for an exclusive sample from the audiobook) With more twists and turns than a mountain route through the Japanese Alps, Keigo Higashino’s latest murder mystery Salvation of a Saint is a seamless, well-constructed suspense novel with all the […]
JQ Magazine: Book Review – ‘Heart of a Samurai’
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By Rashaad Jorden (Yamagata-ken, 2008-2010) for JQ magazine. Rashaad worked at four elementary schools and three junior high schools on JET, and taught a weekly conversion class in Haguro (his village) to adults. He completed the Tokyo Marathon in 2010, and was also a member of a taiko group in Haguro. You might know that under the policy of […]
JQ Magazine: Book Review – ‘Orchards’ Is Elegant, Powerful, Profound
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By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction. Meet Kanako Goldberg. Half Japanese, half Jewish, the teenage narrator of Holly Thompson’s breathtaking 2011 novel Orchards is more bagels and lox than natto and rice. After the suicide of her classmate in New York, Kanako is sent by her Japanese mother to […]
JQ Magazine: Book Review – ‘Monkey Business Volume 2’
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By Greg Anderson, (Fukuoka-ken, 1990-1992) for JQ magazine. Greg is part of the fourth class of the JET Program, which began in 1987. He is currently employed as an auditor with the U.S. Treasury Department and is a new member of the JETAA New York book club. Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan is an […]
JQ Magazine: Book Review – ‘Shiro’ and ‘Otaku Spaces’
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By Preston Hatfield (Yamanashi-ken, 2009-10) for JQ magazine. Preston moved from San Francisco to New York City in January 2012 and is now accepting submissions from people who want to be his friend. Abduct him from his house in the middle of the night, or find him on Facebook and ask about his JET blog […]
JQ Magazine: Book Review – ‘Project Japan: Metabolism Talks’
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By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction. What does it mean to be a Japanese architect, and is this distinction even worth making? According to Rem Koolhaas, the legendary architect and co-author of the book Project Japan: Metabolism Talks, the answer is […]
By Tim Martin (Fukui-ken, 2006-08) for JQ magazine. Tim works as a research assistant in a neuroscience lab, and is an avid swing and blues dancer in New York City. He runs a humanist/atheist blog, The Floating Lantern, and is looking for ways to make a difference in people’s lives. Fukui is a rural, out-of-the-way […]
JQ Magazine: Book Review – ‘Tomo: Friendship through Fiction: An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories’
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By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction. If you could know your future cause of death, would you choose to know? This is the question posed by “Yamada-san’s Toaster,” one of the short stories in the new fiction anthology Tomo: Friendship […]
JQ Magazine: Book Review – ‘Life After the B.O.E. the Book’
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By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona works at a literary agency in New York City. She is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction. Flexibility and a sense of humor have long been predictors of a successful JET participant. And with good reason. After all, let’s face it: life […]
JQ Magazine: Book Review – ‘Aftershock: Artists Respond to Disaster in Japan’
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By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona works at a literary agency in New York City. She is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction. Composed in the wake of the catastrophic events of 3/11, Aftershock is something of a series of love letters to Japan written in the […]
JQ Magazine: Book Review – ‘The Beautiful One Has Come,’ short stories by JET alum author Suzanne Kamata
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By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona works at a literary agency in New York City. She is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction. I began reading Suzanne Kamata (Tokushima-ken, 1988-1990)’s new collection of short stories with no idea what to expect and a sense of up-for-anything […]
JQ Magazine: Book Review – Natsume Soseki’s ‘Kokoro’ Takes New Translation to Heart
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By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona works at a literary agency in New York City. She is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction. In a magazine article published earlier this year, crooked former banker Bernie Madoff told the public that despite his lies, despite the lives left […]
JQ Magazine: Book Review – “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet”
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By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona works at a literary agency in New York City. She is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction. A former Japanese colleague of mine once described his homeland to me as an “island of repression.” He spoke with mixed emotion of the […]
