By Corinne Kennedy

Dokusho no Aki - 読書の秋, or “Autumn, The Season for Reading” is a common saying in Japan, and it’s a popular time of the year for all kinds of themed reading lists to be published. As the days grow colder and the nights get longer here in Seattle, books are a welcome companion.

For your fall enrichment, and in anticipation of the Seattle Japanese Garden’s 60th anniversary next year, Corinne Kennedy has compiled an eclectic list of 10 titles that she recommends: works on Japanese plants & garden design, Seattle’s parks, and the Seattle Japanese Garden; memoirs, haiku poetry & the practice of mindfulness; and two novels by Japanese authors.

NON-FICTION (Japanese plants & garden design, Seattle’s parks, and the Seattle Japanese Garden):

· Cherries, Lanterns, and Gates: Japanese and Japanese-American Cultural Gifts in Seattle's Parks, by Paul Talbert (2014). Written by the president of the board of local non-profit Friends of Seward Park, this book reveals the history of “cherry diplomacy” in Seattle. To promote friendship and economic ties between Japan and the Pacific Northwest, gifts of trees and structures (lanterns and torii gates) were made to Seattle’s parks. These included the many flowering cherry trees planted at Seward Park & Green Lake, along Lake Washington Boulevard, and at other Seattle locations.

· Enhance Your Garden with Japanese Plants: A Practical Sourcebook, by Judy Glattstein (1996). A valuable resource, rather than a book to read all at once, this is a very readable general guide to plants native to Japan. It should appeal to visitors particularly interested in our garden’s plants or in adding Japanese plants to their own gardens, “Japanese-styled” or not. The author – a landscape consultant, lecturer and botanical garden instructor, provides in-depth descriptions of groundcovers, vines, trees, shrubs and perennials, and gives advice on plant selection and care.

· Quiet Beauty: The Japanese Gardens of North America, by Kendall H. Brown (2013). With insightful writing and beautiful photos, this book features 26 Japanese-style public gardens in the U.S. and Canada. As noted on the jacket, “The history, style, and special functions of each of the gardens is examined, offering an insight into the ingenuity and range of Japanese-style landscaping on foreign soil.” Our Seattle Japanese Garden, including its historical and aesthetic importance, is covered in this comprehensive work. Brown’s earlier book, Japanese-Style Gardens of the Pacific West Coast (1999), is also well worth reading.

· The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan’s Cherry Blossoms, by Naoko Abe (2019). This is the fascinating story of a wealthy Englishman who spent decades discovering, preserving, breeding and sharing many ornamental cherry tree varieties & cultivars – and returned to Japan one that had become extinct there. Includes important information about Japan's history and culture.

· Washington Park Arboretum Bulletin, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Summer 1990 Issue, honoring the 30th Anniversary of the Seattle Japanese Garden). One of many Arboretum Bulletin issues with articles about the Seattle Japanese Garden, this issue is almost entirely devoted to our garden and other Japanese-style gardens in the Pacific Northwest: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/236523#page/1/mode/1up

Follow these links to read articles on our garden in other WPA Bulletin issues: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/236632#page/1/mode/1up

https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/237273#page/1/mode/1up

Misty Sunday Morning – autumn photo of the Seattle Japanese Garden and winner of First Place in this year’s Photography Member Contest. (photo: Mary Ann Cahill)

NON-FICTION (memoir, poetry and mindfulness)

· Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells, by Pico Iyer (2019). A memoir about "aging, death, and family fracturing as seen through the lens of Japanese culture." Written by a British/East Indian/American novelist and journalist who spends part of each year in Japan with his wife Hiroko.

· Haiku: The Poetry of Nature, ed. by David Cobb (2002). Described as “a celebration of the art of Japanese painting and poetry” and “the perfect haiku reader for the meditative soul,” this collection of 60 classic haiku poems showcases the form’s focus on nature. Richly illustrated, and featuring both the original Japanese and English translations, the collection “displays the beauty, serenity, and simplicity of haiku,” and includes historical and biographical information.

· No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering, by Thich Nhat Hanh (2014). On a recent garden tour, while we were looking at our garden’s “mud flowers” (water lilies, because Japan’s sacred lotus isn’t cold hardy here), a visitor recommended this slim volume. Its author “offers practices and inspiration for transforming suffering and finding true joy. He shares how the practices of stopping, mindful breathing, and deep concentration can generate the energy of mindfulness within our daily lives.” The title is a succinct expression of the Buddhist metaphor of lotus flowers emerging from the mud in which they grow, blooming cleanly on the water’s surface.

FICTION (classic and contemporary novels by Japanese authors):

· Kokoro, by Natsume Soseki (1914; translated by Meredith McKinney, 2010). According to the book’s jacket, "No collection of Japanese literature is complete without Kokoro, the last novel Natsume Soseki completed before his death in 1916. Published here in the first new English translation in more than fifty years, Kokoro - meaning "heart" - is the story of a subtle and poignant friendship between two unnamed characters, a young man and an enigmatic elder whom he calls "Sensei”… [It reveals], in the seemingly unbridgeable chasm between his moral anguish and his student's struggle to understand it, the profound cultural shift from one generation to the next that characterized Japan in the early twentieth century."

· The Memory Police, by Yoko Ogawa (1994; translated by Stephen Snyder, 2019). This newly translated novel, “an elegantly spare dystopian fable” praised for its “quiet, poetic prose,” is a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for Translated Literature. According to another reviewer, “One of Japan’s most acclaimed authors explores truth, state surveillance and individual autonomy. Ogawa’s fable echoes the themes of George Orwell’s 1984, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, but it has a voice and power all its own.”

Note: for reading lists on other themes, see blog articles from past years: in November 2018, works translated from Japanese into English (classic memoir, classic fiction and contemporary fiction); in October 2017, histories of Japanese-Americans in the Pacific Northwest and Japanese-American artists in the Pacific Northwest; in November 2016, Japanese-American fiction and Japanese gardens & garden design; and in November 2015, works of fiction and non-fiction, by Japanese and Japanese-American authors.

Corinne Kennedy is a Garden Guide, frequent contributor to the Seattle Japanese Garden blog, and retired garden designer.

The Essential Reading List for 2019

By Corinne Kennedy