In this celebratory publication, we now have the chance to observe Richie himself—the man, the novelist, essayist, journalist, and film scholar—and through him the Japan that has evolved from postwar turmoil to postmodernist materialism.

In addition to editor Arturo Silva's extended appreciation of Richie—"The Great Mirror"—the book presents a hundred excerpts and miscellanea that wind thematically through Richie's long writing career:

• In "Prologue," Richie writes of his childhood longings in Ohio and about being a foreigner in Japan.
• In "Japan: Early" are some of the first accounts from Richie's unpublished Japan Journals and one of his finest essays on style and aesthetics, "Japanese Shapes."
• "Japan: Film" contains a selection from Richie's brilliant book on director Yasujiro Ozu, a memoir of Richie's career as a film critic, and some notes for a speech on Buddhism in Japanese film (Richie studied Zen with Daisetsu Suzuki in Kamakura).
• In "Japan: People" are portraits of actors Toshiro Mifune and Chishu Ryu, of an early expatriate (Pierre Loti), and of a few ordinary Japanese met along the way.
• The section "Japan: Fiction" highlights Richie's prowess as a storyteller, wit, and acute observer of himself and others. Included are several "Zen inklings," plus excerpts from the collection A View from the Chuo Line, the delightful Tokyo Nights, and the excursionary novel—Richie's masterpiece—The Inland Sea.
• In "Japan: Later" are several pieces on nontraditional Japan: Tokyo, modern Hiroshima, sex, and television. Included here is Richie's own list of "the best books on Japan."
• Finally, in "Epilogue," Richie discourses on a key Asian aesthetic—emptiness—and how it has been filled in and destroyed by Japan's rampant modern materialism. There are reflections on time and change, including a piece from the Japan Journals dated New Year's 1999, thus circling back to that December arrival in Okinawa more than fifty years earlier.