Cathy N. Davidson - 36 Views of Mount Fuji: On Finding Myself in Japan

AppealingNo one could have tried harder to fathom Japanese culture [than Davidson]. The result is a series of illuminations not unlike the sudden break in the clouds that finally lets her glimpse Mount Fuji from the window of a bullet train.Francine Prose, New York Times Book Review

Intelligent, sympatheticand quick-witted.Elizabeth Ward, Washington Post Book World

Davidson is a droll guide and a questing soul. Her observations of Japanese women, and of the nighttime Floating World of barsare particularly sympathetic and astute. In traveling halfway around the world, Davidson discovers how to abide with herself.Elle

Beautifully written 36 Views of Mount Fuji resonates like one of the Japanese temple bells Davidson so hauntingly describes: profound, clear, and unforgettable. I did not want to putitdown.Susan Allen Toth, author of Blooming: A Small-Town Girlhood

Luminous Nuanced and passionate, [Davidsons] book achieves what many travel writers can only aspire to: the sense of being both inside and outside of a culture at the same time and the profound feeling that this journey has indeed led her to someplace she has always wanted to go.Booklist

Empathy infuses Davidsons reactions to the Japanese and lifts this graceful, balanced account of her experiences in their country above the ordinary. Her charmingly drawn word-pictures resonate.Publishers Weekly

A delightful read, offering insight not only into Japan but into the adventure of living in a foreign culture anywhere in the world.Mary Catherine Bateson, author of Composing a Life

Brilliant, wise, and wittyas enjoyable a read as Peter Mayles A Year in Provence. Any Westerner who thinks they understand, or wants to understand, the contrasts between Japanese culture and our own, or who thinks that its virtues can be transplanted to another culture, must read this book.Louise DeSalvo, author of Virginia Woolf

Davidson is uniquely equipped for this journey, armed with intelligence, warmth, and a feminist consciousness that makes her seek out, in Japan, the hidden women as well as the more evident men.E. M. Broner, author of A Weave of Women

Alovely book. It offers both the most balanced view of Japan I have encountered and a gripping personal journey. Strong and delicate, it resembles the Japanese people Cathy Davidson describes.Marilyn French, author of The Womens Room

Davidson is a sensitive observer, finely attuned to the behavioral nuances that define a culture. And she is equally perceptive of her own responses to Japan.Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Perceptive, frank, and personalone of the best explanations of Japanese culture, and our problems in understanding it, that has come along in years.Library Journal

SuperbA jewel 36 Views of Mount Fuji is several books in one, and each one is a delight. Davidson writes in the higher tradition of elegant memoirsgracefully, thoughtfully, humorously.Trenton Times

This book is honest and even-handed, respecting the complexity of the mystery that is Japan. It is a book that should be read by anyone serious about learning more of this fascinating country.Lincoln Journal-Star

DelightfulReads like a wonderful, intimate letter from a friend. Davidsons book is brimming with understated emotion and insightfully plumbs the spiritual dimensions of both cultures.Virginian-Pilot and Ledger-Star

Top drawergrows like a novel and takes on unusual richness as it keeps reinvesting itself in earlier scenes and people.Kirkus Reviews

Parts of this very personal American teachers Japanese memoir, like the delicate chapter about her Nigawa neighbors reactions to a Christmas season death in her husbands family, had us crying. Trust us. Try it.New York Daily News

Beautifully written 36 Views of Mount Fuji is not a travel book in the usual sense. It is a book about a much deeper process, the way in which another culture can infiltrate us and make us different people. It opened my eyes to the beauty of another culture and also made me appreciate aspects of my own.Raleigh News and Observer

EvocativeA revealing mosaic of word-pictures of Japan and the Japanese. Here are cameos of friends and acquaintances, a wealth of experiences, some funny, some tragic, all revealing, moments that interpret and explain, or surprise and bewilder.Anniston Star