Cuter本棚～九大図書館で読めるオススメの一冊～: Osusume Japan: The Japan We Recommend

The guidebook introduces the most precious academic collections in Kyushu University.
You see lots of pictures of the followings: horizontal scrolls (emakimono) which are described in some schoolbooks in Japan, rare and antiquarian books deriving from foreign culture and millions of specimen of insects all over the world.
We also would like you to see the following database on rare book collections:
http://catalog.lib.kyushu-u.ac.jp/en/search/browse/rare

The selection includes popular Japanese folk tales such as Momotaro (Peach Boy) and Kaguyahime (The Shining Princess) both in plain Japanese and in English.
The tales lead you to enjoy talking with Japanese students and come in touch with an aspect of premodern Japanese culture.

Murakami Haruki is a contemporary Japanese novelist and his works have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally.
In addition, he is an iconic figure of Japanese postmodern literature for his unreal, humorous work focusing on the loneliness and empty mindedness of Japanese people in last 20th.
This book is his maiden work, written in 1979. Similar to many of his other works, it has a story written in the first-person, called “I novel” which is Japanese traditional type of novel.
If you want to learn about Japanese culture or mentality, please do have a look!

If you can’t understand what Japanese people are thinking, you should read the book. For example, in Japanese society, there is often a big gap between one’s true intentions and words.
What the Japanese are thinking? Why they does so?
In the book, Ruth Benedict, who is American cultural anthropologist, clearly analyzed Japanese thinking pattern and the antecedents in terms of “shame culture”.
Although today, that is often criticized for a strong bias against Japanese society, it is a monumental work about Japanese mentality.

俳句や短歌、詩、童謡、名ゼリフなど古典から現代に至るまで、様々なジャンルの日本文化を感じられる文が収められています。
日本語と英語で記されているため、日本語のリズム感や雰囲気を味わうと同時に英語ではこのような表現になるのかという驚きや発見がありました。
お気に入りのフレーズを探してみてください。

池波正太郎の食日記からお酒好きの方必見のメニューを厳選！
旬・食べ時（朝・昼・晩）・簡単な料理の手ほどきが紹介されています。
読んでいると食べたい！と思う料理がたくさん出てくるかと思いますので、ぜひ実践されてみてください。
食事って楽しいな、大切だなと思い出させてくれる一冊です。

I was only 15, when I first saw Jakuchu’s paintings.
A teen-ager who rarely reads newspapers, eyes were glued to the newspaper. But the reality was bitter.
It was in Tokyo, and I was 2years-old citizen of Fukuoka. Few years later, Jakuchu-exhibition was finally held in Fukuoka.
It was like a dream and I was grinning for a few days. All of his paintings are marvelous.
But this time, I fell in love with the Rain Dragon(p52). Not like the other dragons, he’s so cute, unique and funny.

This book introduces various kinds of pictures and art-works related to Tōkaidō, one of the most famous road in Japan.
From Hiroshige Utagawa to Shikō Munakata, and modern artists.
I was deeply impressed by the work of Nara Yoshitomo in p109. At first sight, it is cute, but… What do you think?

日本の根深い歴史的背景に触れることができるという観点から選びました。
沖縄との対比で使われる「本土」という言葉の中には、やはり、わが国のマイノリティ文化が存在しています。
主人公である少女ふうちゃんが、ひたむきにそうした根深い問題と向き合う姿は泣けます。

日本のスクールカーストの問題を描いた青春ものとして選びました。
主人公の五感を通して描き出される、学校を介した人間関係のありようは、決して爽快なものではありません。
でも、その暗さの中にあるリアリティは本物です。本作は、2003年に芥川賞を受賞した作品でもあります。

この本では九州地方について書かれています。とくに、九州地方の現在ができるまでの歴史について文章や写真を使って紹介されています。
紹介されている場所は、福岡をはじめ長崎や熊本など、著者が九州地方を回ってそれぞれの地方についての歴史の情報を集めたこと、またその人が外国の人であることに感動させられました。

この本は福岡について書かれた本の中で詳しい情報のある本の1つだと思います。
歴史だけではなく、街並み、自然、公園、海沿い等も紹介され、行き方まで紹介されています。
地図も載っており、行きたい場所を探すにはとても便利な本です。

Robot, Spaceship, Invention, Future, Dream, ... Shinichi Hoshi, a famous novelist in Japan, has developed Japanese SF mind from 1950s.
He wrote over a thousand short-short stories. Japanese students are very familiar with his works because some of them appear in elementary school or Junior high school textbook.