Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • A Beginner's Guide to Japan

  • Observations and Provocations
  • By: Pico Iyer
  • Narrated by: Sartaj Garewal
  • Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
  • 3.8 out of 5 stars (9 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
A Beginner's Guide to Japan cover art

A Beginner's Guide to Japan

By: Pico Iyer
Narrated by: Sartaj Garewal
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £7.99

Buy Now for £7.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Abroad in Japan cover art
Horizontal Vertigo cover art
The Foundations of Western Civilization cover art
A History of Japan cover art
Toy Fights cover art
A Brief History of Japan cover art
Touched by the Sun cover art
The Promise cover art
How to Be a Refugee cover art
Serenity at 70, Gaiety at 80 cover art
Open City cover art
36 Views of Mount Fuji cover art
Of This Our Country cover art

Summary

Bloomsbury presents A Beginner's Guide to Japan by Pico Iyer, read by Sartaj Garewal. 

A playful and profound guidebook full of surprising, brief, incisive glimpses into Japanese culture.

Pico Iyer has been living around Kyoto for more than 32 years, but he admits at the outset of this book that he sometimes feels he knows less now than when he arrived. In the constantly surprising audio that follows, he shows how an evening with Meryl Streep, a walk through a ghostly deer park, even a call to the local Apple service centre can open up his adopted home in fresh and invigorating ways.   

Why does anime make sense in an animist culture? How might Oscar Wilde reveal a culture too often associated with conformity? How can Japanese friends in a typical neighbourhood turn every stereotype on its head? His provocations may infuriate you - may even infuriate himself - Iyer confesses in his opening salvo, but maybe it’s only by setting its love hotels next to its baseball stadia, its wild fashions against its eighth-century values, that Japan can be made new again for both the first-time visitor and the jaded foreign resident.

©2019 Pico Iyer (P)2019 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

What listeners say about A Beginner's Guide to Japan

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Disappointed

Way too short for the cost. The jumpy writing style is annoying, flicking jarringly between unrelated points every few seconds, few of them elaborated on to any satisfactory degree. Not sure what the point of it is. The narrator is good though.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

You'll Need A Sieve To Get What You're Looking For

Hmm... This wasn't quite what I was expecting when I heard the sample. I've always been fascinated by Japan and its people. It's true to say that the more I learn about the people and their culture, the less I understand. Japan is an enigma to most westerners and so whenever I have an opportunity to read something that sheds light on the place and the people, I jump at it.

This book does indeed contain a number of interesting observations. The problem i had with this book was having to sieve through the somewhat verbose and rather arty prose to get from it what I had been expecting. The author is clearly a very intelligent man, but the book has so many quotes from rather obscure writers that it becomes as much a lesson in philosophy as something of real easily digestible substance.

Narration was fine, although I didn't really like the accents, particularly the American ones, affected here.

In summary, the book felt more like a piece of modern art: More style than substance and, at times, came across as a little pretentious in how the relevant information was delivered.

If you can get this in a sale,as I did, and you have a strong interest in Japanese culture, then by all means get this book. It does have some interesting facts as well as present the listener with a flavour of the oddities of Japanese culture, but there is a fair bit of wading through some waffle to get there.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Best book on Japan

This is by far the best book I have read on Japan. Excellent narration. Thank you

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!