The Japanese: Everyday Life in the Empire of the Rising Sun, by Jean-Claude Courdy (Harper & Row, 269 pp., $22.95)
Anybody who thinks the Japanese are “folks just like us” really should read this book. “Folks,” yes; but “just like us,” definitely not—nor like any other people in the world. In this chatty, yet erudite, account, Courdy (who lived in Tokyo for seven years as head of the French Radio Television Bureau there) acts as a conduit for the Japanese experience, sprinkling it with personal anecdotes, historical essays, and interesting oddments. Each little piece tells its own story; taken
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