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Miscellany
Another recent review at the Japan Times: James C. Dobbins' Jōdo Shinshū. This is one of those books I never anticipate getting rid of, even though by now I probably own half of the Japanese books Dobbins cites as sources.
I also wrote a short piece for Néojaponisme about book cover design.
A Tour of Tokyo's Bookstores at AbeBooks. I didn't realize so many were using AbeBooks to sell.
Here's something else I was reading recently: "Translating the Zen Phrase Book", by G. Victor Sōgen Hori. This is the translation that eventually got published as Zen Sand: The Book of Capping Phrases for Koan Practice, I assume (review here; introduction available here [pdf]). Pages 91 onwards are about the details of how Hori presents his translation; note that he provides a kundoku reading, which — I mean, I wonder if anyone is actually using these in their practice, reciting these incantations that are actually the result of semi-mechanically converting a line of written Chinese into a bare-minimum Japanese translation. And some of that Chinese would have wandered in from the Indic branch of IE, of course. Language is amazing.
languagehat:
Oh god, that Tour of Tokyo's Bookstores took me back! "The Maruzen Bookstore is well-worth a trip on its own merits": no kidding; I spent as much time as I could there when I lived in Tokyo in the early '60s. Good thing I didn't know about the Jimbocho district then -- not that it would have done me much good, come to think about it, since I didn't, and don't, read Japanese, but I would have been in ecstasy just walking down the street feeling the presence of all those wonderful books.