Why read Memories of Silk and Straw?

Book cover of Memories of Silk and Straw: A Self-Portrait of Small-Town Japan

Book description

Interviews with a blacksmith, cotton dyer, undertaker, farmer, butcher, geisha, carpenter, hangman, midwife, and fisherman document life in a small Japanese town during the early part of this century

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Why read it?

1 author picked Memories of Silk and Straw as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Amy Chavez

Author

Saga was a country doctor who, after work hours, interviewed his patients about their lives. While this book was published way back in 1974, the stories he uncovers helped me understand the foundations of Japanese country folk today.

From life on the Tone River, where fishing families lived on their vessels, to farming families, where infanticide was accepted due to lack of birth control methods, Dr. Saga’s interviews are ripe with detail and confessions of the good times and the bad of his compatriots in Showa era Japan, before and after WWII.

From Amy's list on Japan’s countryside.