[NON-FICTION] Hitori de (on my own) : travels in Japan
Hitori de (on my own) : travels in Japan, by Alice Hoskins. First reading.
How could I pass this up? The back of the book all but screamed, "Spunky older lady tackles Japan and loves it, and it loves her back!" Unfortunately, the inside dedication chimed in with a subliminal round of "Published by a small press with a regrettable choice of copy editor", and made my grammar-bitch senses do rather more than tingle. Happily, it wasn't representative of the whole memoir; there were still some errors that had gone unnoticed somewhere between pen and press, but it wasn't as bad as, say, anything of David Eddings' that has ever seen print.
Ms. Hoskins wrote this memoir on her third visit to Japan, a trip that lasted three months. While there, she travelled the country extensively, staying with friends and acquaintances she'd met after her first visit many years earlier. Hitori de is simply her journal, kept faithfully for her entire stay. It includes simple accounts of visits to shrines and museums, of the generous hospitality of old and new friends, and a variety of her own sketches. (Some of her artwork can be seen here.) This is a matter-of-fact, good-natured tale of a journey, with some bits of history and her own personal interest tossed into the mix where appropriate.
She has written a second book, Issho Ni (Let's Go Together): More Travels in Japan, which I would be interested in reading. It doesn't seem to be listed at Amazon.ca or at my local library, sadly. Google is being less than helpful about her--I'm unable to determine whether she currently lives in Nova Scotia or Ontario, although she did have a solo art exhibit in 2004.
How could I pass this up? The back of the book all but screamed, "Spunky older lady tackles Japan and loves it, and it loves her back!" Unfortunately, the inside dedication chimed in with a subliminal round of "Published by a small press with a regrettable choice of copy editor", and made my grammar-bitch senses do rather more than tingle. Happily, it wasn't representative of the whole memoir; there were still some errors that had gone unnoticed somewhere between pen and press, but it wasn't as bad as, say, anything of David Eddings' that has ever seen print.
Ms. Hoskins wrote this memoir on her third visit to Japan, a trip that lasted three months. While there, she travelled the country extensively, staying with friends and acquaintances she'd met after her first visit many years earlier. Hitori de is simply her journal, kept faithfully for her entire stay. It includes simple accounts of visits to shrines and museums, of the generous hospitality of old and new friends, and a variety of her own sketches. (Some of her artwork can be seen here.) This is a matter-of-fact, good-natured tale of a journey, with some bits of history and her own personal interest tossed into the mix where appropriate.
She has written a second book, Issho Ni (Let's Go Together): More Travels in Japan, which I would be interested in reading. It doesn't seem to be listed at Amazon.ca or at my local library, sadly. Google is being less than helpful about her--I'm unable to determine whether she currently lives in Nova Scotia or Ontario, although she did have a solo art exhibit in 2004.