Illustrated throughout with beautiful calligraphy, The Fourth Treasure is an original, surprising novel that weaves a suspenseful love story across and through two very different countries, cultures, and generations. Tina Suzuki has just begun her first year of graduate study at the UC Berkeley Institute for Brain and Behavior Studies. Born and raised in San Francisco by her Japanese immigrant mother, Tina knows nothing about the rest of her family, and very little about her cultural heritage. But when her boyfriend’s Japanese calligraphy teacher suffers a stroke and loses his ability to communicate but continues to create magnificent calligraphic art, Tina knows she has stumbled across an ideal research subject. However, getting the sensei to participate in her study poses a series of uncomfortable obstacles for Tina: the jealous opposition of her boyfriend, the political and (romantic) minefield of dealing with her professors and fellow students, and the willful reticence of her ailing mother. It seems that the blank personal history her mother had always presented is in fact a tightly wound scroll full of scandalous secrets. In ways she could have never expected, Tina’s studies will inevitably lead to revelations about her own family. Juxtaposed with Tina’s story is that of the stricken sensei as a younger man, in Kyoto, and the history of the ancient inkstone he carries with him. The inkstone’s history, and the sensei’s art, reach back hundreds of years into a Japanese culture that no longer exists but that continues to reverberate on both sides of the Pacific. As the dual narratives unfold, they are enhanced by intriguing marginalia that illuminate both the sensei’s Japanese calligraphy and Tina’s studies of the brain. The result is a unique, unusually satisfying literary experience.

The Fourth Treasure

Literature & Fiction

Shimoda, Todd

Contemporary

Nan A. Talese

Oh! was selected for National Public Radio's summer reading list of 2009. NPR reviewer Lucia Silva called it "a triumphant kick in the pants for anyone who doubts the future of paper-and-ink books." The mysterious tension between material things and emotional attachment to them oscillates throughout Japanese history and culture. With a keen and sympathetic eye, Todd Shimoda explores an individual's dangerous quest to waken his numb soul to this exquisite reverberation. As in Kawabata Yasunari's famous novella, The Master of Go, the lacrimae rerum of a dying tradition become a river, inexorably flowing toward the ocean of death. Fascinated, the reader cannot help but follow the flow.”Liza Dalby, author of The Tale of Murasaki: A Novel and Geisha Oh! is a hybrid novel, with nonfiction and artwork mixed in. The main storyline follows Zack Hara, a young Japanese American searching for an emotional life while traveling in Japan. Zack finds an ally in a professor and underground poet who introduces him to the concept of mono no aware, roughly translated as the emotive essence of things, or the sadness in beauty. The professor, grieving for a missing daughter, assigns Zack a set of mysterious tasks. Zack’s search for self-discovery turns into a search for the professor’s missing daughter, and draws him into the tragic phenomenon of suicide clubs.

Oh!: A mystery of 'mono no aware'

United States

Chin Music Press Inc.

"Shimoda is a consummate storyteller" Booklist "Shimoda skillfully weaves (these) tales into the narrative, revealing how past events "continue to affect the island, like aftershocks." Earthquakes are an apt metaphor for the social disruptions on the island, and Shimoda links modern earthquake science, ancient Japanese myths on the origin of earthquakes, and an unforgettable cast of characters to create a suspenseful, richly illustrated novel." Publishers Weekly "Husband and wife team Todd and Linda Shimoda’s skills blend seamlessly together to make Subduction a hauntingly beautiful and highly unique novel. The author’s prose and illustrator’s talent give the book a tone and quality that is both rare and memorable." ForeWord "Subduction heaves with a splintered brilliance I could only appreciate after rejoining the parts inside my imagination. Each section slides or grinds along another, but the final whole is a work that stayed with me for weeks afterward." The Japan Times 
Subduction is a timely, seductive mystery set on a tiny, earthquake-plagued island. Endo, a young physician unjustly charged with a patient's death, is banished to the island to care for the few remaining elderly residents. Determined to remain on their crumbling island and resuscitate their defunct fishing industry, the aging islanders plot against all outsiders. After a mysterious death and attacks on Endo and fellow newcomers, he discovers why the islanders don't wish to leave: years ago, jealousies, lust, and violence ripped apart their lives, and the wounds haven't healed. The aftershocks of the islanders' past, as well as Endo's own troubled history, replay violently in the present just as a massive earthquake strikes.
Exquisitely designed with L.J.C. Shimoda's artwork throughout, Subduction also features a sixteen-page illustrated retelling of the myth of Kashima, the god who controls a giant, thrashing catfish that causes earthquakes. The myth offers clues to the mysterious motives of the island's denizens.

Subduction

Literary

A fortuneteller hires a detective to find her missing son in this existential noir mystery. A startling clue leads the detective into the underground worlds of fortunetelling and "pleasure" tours. The missing son reminds him of an old case which ended badly, one he is compelled to reopen. As he investigates both, he finds his life becoming more ghostlike.Todd Shimoda has published four novels on Japanese themes. The books have been translated into six languages with over one hundred thousand copies printed worldwide. Todd was also the recipient of the Hawaii Literary Arts Council's 2010 Elliot Cades Award for Literature.

Why Ghosts Appear

Curator Keizo Yukawa flees a dead-end job in Tokyo to head a new museum devoted to 365 paintings of Mt. Fuji - one for each day of the year - by the eccentric genius Takenoko. Takenoko died a hundred years ago, but his legacy of madness infects each member of the Ono family, who own the Views but disagree about almost everything. Yukawa's manipulation by the Onos and his fascination with an algorithmically controlled daughter lead to many strange happenings and his ultimate disintegration. Threadlike character "bytes" and hundreds of Hokusai-inspired illustrations suggest the nonlinear world below the high-tech veneer of a modern Japan that is increasingly, dangerously fragmented.

365 Views of Mt. Fuji: Algorithms of the Floating World

Action & Adventure

Stone Bridge Press

Antonio & Isaac: The Annotated Account of Phillipe Wolf, Composer & Spy

In this genre-bending, speculative historical novel set in Europe at the height of the Age of Enlightenment, Austrian composer and spy, Phillipe Wolf, sets off an incendiary clash between Isaac Newton and Antonio Stradivari over how to create a perfect violin. Can science and mathematics alone be enough? Or is it a much deeper knowledge that Stradivari will take to his grave? In love with Newton's niece, Catherine Barton, Wolf and Barton compose a perfect score for a perfect violin, while Wolf spies on her jealous employer, infiltrates a violent counterfeiting ring, and leads a surprise attack inside the enemy's fortified citadel. On every page there is surprise, insight, and suspense, and in the end, perhaps, solves the enduring mystery of why 300-year-old Stradivarius violins remain the most revered. With several Newtonesque drawings by the author.

Shimodaworks

Autumn Wind, Weeps

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Shimoda, Todd. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Shimoda, Todd

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Shimoda, Todd. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Fourth Treasure

Oh!: A mystery of 'mono no aware'

Subduction

Why Ghosts Appear

365 Views of Mt. Fuji: Algorithms of the Floating World

Antonio & Isaac: The Annotated Account of Phillipe Wolf, Composer & Spy

Antonio & Isaac: The Annotated Account of Phillipe Wolf, Composer & Spy

Autumn Wind, Weeps

Autumn Wind, Weeps