Reflections on the City

Another Bangkok

From the author of Another Kyoto and Lost Japan, a rich, personal exploration of the culture and history of Bangkok, and an essential guide for anyone visiting the city 
 
Alex Kerr has spent over thirty years of his life living in Bangkok. As with his bestselling books on Japan, this evocative personal meditation explores the city's secret corners. Here is the huge, traffic-choked metropolis of concrete high-rises, slums and sky trains; but also a place of peace and grace. Looking afresh at everything from ceramics to Thai dance, flower patterns to old houses, Kerr reveals one of Asia's most kaleidoscopically complex cities. Another Bangkok will delight both those who think they know the city well and those visiting for the first time.

Kerr's way of questioning and puzzling through is hugely enjoyable in its own right, and pleasingly infectious.

Captivating, informal ... Kerr is the perfect guide.

Rich ... Kerr's combination of instinct and erudition serve him well ... there is something fresh and chirpy about the text, even when it deals with the most esoteric or arcane of subjects.

Alex Kerr is an American writer and Japanologist whose previous books include Lost Japan, Dogs and Demons and Another Kyoto (with Kathy Arlyn Sokol). He was the first foreigner to be awarded the Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize for the best work of non-fiction published in Japan. First visiting Bangkok in the 1970s, since 1990 he has lived half of each year in Kyoto, the other half in Bangkok.

One of Asia's most extraordinary cities, Bangkok is also one of the most baffling. It is filled with remarkable people and glittering golden palaces and temples, but is also a maze of concrete and twisting overhead utility wires. Alex Kerr has spent over thirty years of his life living in Bangkok and is uniquely qualified to write about it. As with his bestselling books on Japan (Lost Japan and Another Kyoto), he revels in the secret, tucked-away corners, the great contemporary artists and the sheer wonder of so many aspects of Thai dance and design. While deploring the loss of much of old Bangkok, he is never merely nostalgic for a past but finds inspiration in Thailand's dynamic modern fusions. 
 
Another Bangkok will delight both those who think they know the city well and those visiting for the first time. Kerr is a uniquely wry and eloquent guide to everything from ceramics to puppetry, from flower patterns to old houses.

Another Kyoto

Another Kyoto is an insider's meditation on the hidden wonders of Japan's most enigmatic city. Drawing on decades living in Kyoto, and on lore gleaned from artists, Zen monks and Shinto priests, Alex Kerr illuminates the simplest things - a temple gate, a wall, a sliding door - in a new way. 
 
'A rich book of intimate proportions ... In Kyoto, facts and meaning are often hidden in plain sight. Kerr's gift is to make us stop and cast our eyes upward to a temple plaque, or to squint into the gloom of an abbot's chamber' Japan Times 
 
'Kerr and Sokol have performed a minor miracle by presenting that which is present in Kyoto as that which we have yet to see. I know that I will never pass a wall, or tread a floor, or sit on tatami the same way again' Kyoto Journal

By exposing the convenient demarcations which define Kyoto, Alex Kerr and Kathy Sokol have deconstructed Kyoto cliche´s and in the process have produced a surprising and refreshing addition to Kyoto lore. 
... Kerr and Sokol have performed a minor miracle by presenting that which is present in Kyoto as that which we have yet to see. I know that I will never pass a wall, or tread a floor, or sit on tatami the same way again. 
... Another Kyoto is a kind of rapturous rupture which explodes the field of cultural, social, and poetic possibilities.

Alex Kerr is an American writer, antiques collector and Japanologist. Lost Japan is his most famous work. He was the first foreigner to be awarded the Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize for the best work of non-fiction published in Japan. 
 
Kathy Arlyn Sokol is a non-fiction author, interviewer and Emmy award-winning narrator who has spent over 30 years in Kyoto. Her book RasTa Time on Bob Marley's life &amp; legacy will soon be released in English.

Another Kyoto is a matchless guide to a great city, It is the fruit of Alex Kerr's half-century of living in Japan and of lore gleaned from people he's met along the way: artists, Zen monks and Shinto priests, Japanese literati, and expat personalities from days past, such as legendary art dealer David Kidd. Kerr turns what we thought we knew about Kyoto inside-out, revealing the inner ideas behind simple things like walls, floors, and sliding doors. 
 
After this book, one can never walk through a Zen gate in the same way again.

Lost Japan

An enchanting and fascinating insight into Japanese landscape, culture, history and future. 
 
Originally written in Japanese, this passionate, vividly personal book draws on the author's experiences in Japan over thirty years. Alex Kerr brings to life the ritualized world of Kabuki, retraces his initiation into Tokyo's boardrooms during the heady Bubble Years, and tells the story of the hidden valley that became his home. 
 
But the book is not just a love letter. Haunted throughout by nostalgia for the Japan of old, Kerr's book is part paean to that great country and culture, part epitaph in the face of contemporary Japan's environmental and cultural destruction. 
 
Winner of Japan's Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize, and now with a new preface. 
 
Alex Kerr is an American writer, antiques collector and Japanologist. Lost Japan is his most famous work. He was the first foreigner to be awarded the Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize for the best work of non-fiction published in Japan.

One of the finest books about Japan written in decades

Alex Kerr is an American writer and Japanologist whose previous books include Lost Japan and Another Kyoto. He was the first foreigner to be awarded the Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize for the best work of non-fiction published in Japan.

The Fall of Modern Japan

Dogs and Demons

The decades of Western adulation for the Japanese 'economic miracle' failed to notice a key point: that in the pursuit of this miracle the Japanese had turned their country into a degraded, concrete shambles - a wilderness of bad planning, corruption and crowding. Now that the miracle is at an end and Japan seems set to remain in the economic doldrums it must become apparent to everyone that one of the world's greatest cultures has ruined itself almost beyond repair. Alex Kerr's wonderful book conveys vividly and furiously both the dazzling nature of Japanese culture and how the bureaucrats of a country he loves have poisoned and ruined it.

Alex Kerr

Panoramic . . . what Kerr does so well as a writer is delve into the smaller details that other scribes overlook . . . the best books are about the reader, mindful of their wants and needs, while the author remains in the background where he or she can more effectively transmit the story and its meaning. Kerr excels at this, even while telling what is a highly personal story

Compelling, beautiful . . . Alex Kerr finds humor at the heart of wisdom and enlightenment

Playful and accessible . . . superb calligraphy . . . those who loved Kerr's Lost Japan or his most recent Bangkok Found will remember, as they read this latest offering, the reasons they have enjoyed his work: Kerr's deep understanding of culture and his refined aesthetic sensibilities, qualities that allow him to capture the world he writes about in a way that is always compelling

An erudite and charming book . . . Alex Kerr delves into the Japanese soul in Finding the Heart Sutra . . . both a primer and a paean to one of the central texts to Buddhism

Alex Kerr

Praise for Finding the Heart Sutra

Panoramic . . . what Kerr does so well as a writer is delve into the smaller details that other scribes overlook . . . the best books are about the reader, mindful of their wants and needs, while the author remains ...

Compelling, beautiful . . . Alex Kerr finds humor at the heart of wisdom and enlightenment

Playful and accessible . . . superb calligraphy . . . those who loved Kerr's Lost Japan or his most recent Bangkok Found will remember, as they read this latest offering, the reasons they have enjoyed ...

Panoramic . . . what Kerr does so well as a writer is delve into the smaller details that other scribes overlook . . . the best books are about the reader, mindful of their wants and needs, while the author remains ...

Compelling, beautiful . . . Alex Kerr finds humor at the heart of wisdom and enlightenment

Playful and accessible . . . superb calligraphy . . . those who loved Kerr's Lost Japan or his most recent Bangkok Found will remember, as they read this latest offering, the reasons they have enjoyed ...

Panoramic . . . what Kerr does so well as a writer is delve into the smaller details that other scribes overlook . . . the best books are about the reader, mindful of their wants and needs, while the author remains ...

Compelling, beautiful . . . Alex Kerr finds humor at the heart of wisdom and enlightenment

Playful and accessible . . . superb calligraphy . . . those who loved Kerr's Lost Japan or his most recent Bangkok Found will remember, as they read this latest offering, the reasons they have enjoyed ...

Books by Alex Kerr

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