As he not uncommonly does, Mark Avery published not one but two Sunday book reviews this week.
In his second review for the week, he looks forward to Lev Parikian‘s forthcoming Light Rains Sometimes Fall: a British Year Through Japan’s 72 Seasons, scheduled to be published this coming September by Elliott & Thompson.
I formerly travelled on business regularly to Japan, and I was always delighted – even at times enchanted – by the level to which nature was interwoven into the culture. However in all I have thus far seen and read about this interweaving, I was not yet familiar with the division of the seasons in Japan, as Mark explains, into “four main seasons, each divided into six subsections, and each of those has three parts.” However such subtle and poetic divisions of the seasons by the Japanese do not surprise me in the least.
Mark seemed quite impressed by his advance reading of this soon-to-be-published book, and I hope to get hold of a copy myself sometime soon to see how it aligns with my own experiences in Japan as well.
Links to Dr. Mark Avery’s Sunday book reviews appear in The Well-read Naturalist by special arrangement. You can find all of Mark’s past reviews as well as a wide-ranging collection of his other writings on his Standing Up for Nature website. Mark’s opinions regarding the books he reviews are his own.
