Showing results by narrator "Brian Nishii" in All Categories

We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life. Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world—a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves.

The classic samurai novel about the real exploits of the most famous swordsman. Miyamoto Musashi becomes a reluctant hero to a host of people whose lives he has touched and by whom he has been touched. Inevitably, he has to pit his skill against the naked blade of his greatest rival.

In The Gateless Gate, one of modern Zen Buddhism's uniquely influential masters offers classic commentaries on the Mumonkan, one of Zen's greatest collections of teaching stories. This translation was compiled with the Western listener in mind, and includes Koan Yamada's clear and penetrating comments on each case. Yamada played a seminal role in bringing Zen Buddhism to the West from Japan, going on to be the head of the Sanbo Kyodan Zen Community.

In this highly listenable and provocative book, Dr. Jason Fung sets out an original, robust theory of obesity that provides startling insights into proper nutrition. In addition to his five basic steps - a set of lifelong habits that will improve your health and control your insulin levels - Dr. Fung explains how to use intermittent fasting to break the cycle of insulin resistance and reach a healthy weight - for good.

In recent years, intermittent fasting - restricting calorie intake for a set number of hours or days - has become an increasingly popular diet strategy. While some in the medical community initially dismissed the idea as a dangerous fad, recent research not only validates the safety of fasting for weight loss but also offers compelling evidence of wide-ranging health benefits, from reversal of diabetes and other metabolic disorders to enhanced cognitive function and increased longevity.

The long-awaited new novel from Haruki Murakami, his first in six years, revisits a Town his listeners will remember, a place where a Dream Reader reviews dreams and where our shadows become untethered from our selves. A love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for these strange post-pandemic times, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.

On the shattered surface of the earth, there is a metropolis that lives amid the garbage thrown down from the inhabitants of a sky city floating above it. Welcome to Iron City. A lonely doctor specializing in cyborg repair, Ido, is doing his best to help the citizens of Iron City. Hugo, a young man surviving on a life of crime, spots the ultimate steal: an object that will unearth secrets from his own past. And Vector, the most powerful businessman in the city, has his sights set on a new technology that will change the future of Iron City forever....

Ryokan (1758–1831) is, along with Dogen and Hakuin, one of the three giants of Zen in Japan. But unlike his two renowned colleagues, Ryokan was a societal dropout, living mostly as a hermit and a beggar. He was never head of a monastery or temple. He liked playing with children. He had no dharma heir. Even so, people recognized the depth of his realization, and he was sought out by people of all walks of life for the teaching to be experienced in just being around him.

Our understanding of cancer is slowly undergoing a revolution, allowing for the development of more effective treatments. For the first time ever, the death rate from cancer is showing a steady decline...but the “War on Cancer” has hardly been won. In The Cancer Code, Dr. Jason Fung offers a revolutionary new understanding of this invasive, often fatal disease - what it is, how it manifests, and why it is so challenging to treat.

You will not believe what you are reading - even though it all feels so real. Only a man like Smilin’ Jack could monetize civil war. After the infamous business tycoon launches a hit TV show that pits American and Confederate gladiators in brutal battles, his grisly spectacle draws the attention of psychopaths across the nation.

The Complete Book of Five Rings is an authoritative version of Musashi's classic The Book of Five Rings, translated and annotated by a modern martial arts master, Kenji Tokitsu. Tokitsu has spent most of his life researching the legendary samurai swordsman and his works, and in this book he illuminates this seminal text, along with several other works by Musashi.

Haruki Murakami’s highly anticipated first novel in six years follows the narrator as his enduring memory of his formative teenage relationship leads him to the mysterious City, and a disruption to the barriers between the real and shadow worlds.

Training the Samurai Mind gives an insider's view of the samurai world: the moral and psychological development of the warrior, the ethical standards they were meant to uphold, their training in both martial arts and strategy, and the enormous role that the traditions of Shintoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism had in influencing samurai ideals.

Sometimes, in order to ascend to Heaven, it is necessary to descend into the depths of Hell. It is precisely this path that Yang will have to walk in order to master himself and his new abilities. It is there that he will meet a former enemy who may become his close friend and ally.

Recognized throughout the world for his brilliance as a novelist and playwright, Yukio Mishima is also noted as a master of the short story in his native Japan, where the form is practiced as a major art. Nine of Yukio Mishima’s finest stories were selected by Mishima himself for translation in this book; they represent his extraordinary ability to depict a wide variety of human beings in moments of significance. Often his characters are sophisticated modern Japanese who turn out to be not so liberated from the past as they had thought.

After defeating the demon who took over the clan's abode, Yang was initiated at the family altar, which made him one step closer to fulfilling his mission—reviving the great Raven clan. His path now leads to the most dangerous place in the Jade Empire—its capital. The journey of a thousand li begins with the first step, no matter how hard it is. Along the way, the young champion will face many dangers and gain new opportunities under the watchful eye of his new mentor.

I discover a "lost" aunt, separated from our family due to racism and discrimination against the disabled. She had a mental disability due to childhood meningitis. She was taken away in 1942 when all Japanese Americans were considered the enemy and imprisoned. She then became a "ward" of the state. We believed she had died but 70 years later found her alive and living a few miles from our family farm. How did she survive? Why was she kept hidden? How did both shame and resilience empower my family to forge forward in a land that did not want them?

Mas Arai's best friend, Haruo, is getting married, and he has grudgingly agreed to serve as best man. But when an ancient Japanese doll display of Haruo's fiance goes missing, the wedding is called off with fingers pointed at Haruo. To solve the mystery and to save Haruo's life, Mas must untangle a web of secrecy, heartbreaking memories, and murder.

“Congratulations, you’ve won the lottery!” shouts the angel Prapura to a formless soul. The soul hasn’t been kicked out of the cycle of rebirth just yet - he’s been given a second chance. He must recall the biggest mistake of his past life while on "homestay" in the body of 14-year-old Makoto Kobayashi. It looks like Makoto doesn’t have a single friend, and his family don’t seem to care about him at all. But as the soul begins to live Makoto’s life on his own terms, he grows closer to the family and the people around him and sees their true colors more clearly.

Newly minted an Elder of the Verdant Green Waters sect, sword prodigy Elder Cheng Zhao Wan—the Sundering Blade—is forced to leave the sect to fulfill an old obligation. A benefactor from the past is injured and has demanded Elder Cheng locate his assailant. Forced to listen to the ramblings of a dying old man, amidst a small and unfamiliar sect, who Elder Cheng can trust is unknown. Was the injury nothing more than happenstance, or is something more dire afoot?