Tokyo come non l'avevo mai immaginata: la storia e la geografia di una città multiforme ricreata attraverso la ricerca delle campane che segnavano l'ora nella Tokyo antica, capitale degli shogun e chiusa all'Occidente.
Un viaggio nel tempo, una meditazione sul suo trascorrere e sulla sua impermanenza, l'evocazione di luoghi e persone che hanno costituito il tessuto della città.
Affascinante.

This was such a beautiful read with perfectly atmospheric descriptions of little moments and observations in Tokyo. It was a real pleasure to read and easy to get lost in. Wholeheartedly recommended for anyone interested in some Japanese culture and general observations of life.

THE BELLS OF OLD TOKYO

To describe The Bells of Old Tokyo as a travel book would be inaccurate, but not egregiously so.

It’s true that Anna Sherman’s book takes readers on an idiosyncratic tour of Tokyo. Before modern times, bells in each of Tokyo’s districts were the timekeeping mechanisms of the day, with each bell in turn having some historical or cultural significance. Hence, The Bells of Old Tokyo is Sherman’s journey through these districts to find these bells—or in many cases, not.

Yet while Sherman does provide vivid descriptions of where she goes—from areas as broad as Roponggi to locales as specific as the Imperial Hotel In Chiyoda—one would probably need some basic familiarity with Tokyo beforehand to really appreciate the book, and it would be impossible to retrace the author’s steps and take that same journey. Nor was that the intention. To the extent that it is a travel book, The Bells of Old Tokyo is not the kind that provides a guided tour of places of interest or of the sights you might want to see in this or that place in Tokyo. No: it’s the kind where the author waxes philosophical about her experiences when she went there.

That’s why it’s more accurate to describe The Bells of Old Tokyo as a memoir.

But a memoir of what exactly? On one level, it is the memoir of an expat living in Japan and thereby of getting more and more acquainted with the country’s language and history and culture (and of an outsider coping with the aftermath of the Sendai earthquake and tsunami).

On another level, a “meta” level, and as the title implies, it’s also a memoir of that journey Sherman took to find the old bells around Japan’s capital city, of the people she met and the friends she made as the project took shape, and of the various things she learned along the way.

While the concept of this book is interesting -- to tell the story of Tokyo through the bells throughout the city that told the time, the book is a hot mess. The author takes a scattered approach. Each chapter is called after a bell but it might be about the area as it is or as it was. It might include history. Or it might be a commentary on some aspects of Japanese life.

Worse all this is mixed up with little or no transition. And she assumes that her reader is familiar with the map of Tokyo so she mentions streets & districts with little context, making her reader confused.

And most chapters have encounters at her favorite coffee shop 9not in these districts) and in other places.


Even if the subject deeply ins\terests you, as it does me, this book will leave you confused.

A gorgeous read a book of thought meditation a book of Old Tokyo of bell ringers of history .A book of the present a book of a special coffee house ,poetry in the way the coffee is poured in a daily ritual.A book to be savored so literary a book to be savored read slowly,#netgalley#macmillanpicador