**THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER'Offers a variety of Buddhist techniques to help us feel calmer every day . . . Nothing has changed . . . and everything has changed . . . I feel calmer and more centred' Sunday Times**What if we could learn to look instead of see, listen instead of hear, feel instead of touch? Former monk Ryunosuke Koike shows how, by incorporating simple Zen practices into our daily lives, we can reconnect with our five senses and live in a more peac...

Bardium is a tightly guarded city where magic, miracles, and illusions aren’t allowed. Here, in a dimly lit room, a young boy named Norman is being interrogated. He’s asked about Unlaw—supernatural monsters who gain abilities from unstable emotion. Four of these beings, all beautiful women, are now hunting each other down, and Norman must sate their desires while dealing with other oddities cropping up all over Bardium. The city is in chaos, and yet, there is hope. Everything will come dow...

'What is the life of a human being - a drop of dew, a flash of lightning? This is so sad, so sad.'Autobiographical stories from one of Japan's masters of modernist story-telling.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blosso...

Ryünosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan’s foremost stylists - a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. ‘Rashömon’ and ‘In a Bamboo Grove’ inspired Kurosawa’s magnificent film and depict a past in which morality is turned upside down, while tales such as ‘The Nose’, ‘O-Gin’ and ‘Loyalty’ paint a rich and imaginative picture of a medieval Japan peopled by Shoguns and priests, vagrants and peasants. And in later wo...

"In a Grove" is an early modernist short story consisting of seven varying accounts of the murder of a samurai, Kanazawa no Takehiro, whose corpse has been found in a bamboo forest near Kyoto. Each section simultaneously clarifies and obfuscates what the reader knows about the murder, eventually creating a complex and contradictory vision of events that brings into question humanity's ability or willingness to perceive and transmit objective truth. It is the basis for Kurosawa's "Rashoumon...

"In a Grove" (藪の中 Yabu no Naka) is a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa; it first appeared in the January 1922 edition of the Japanese literature monthly Shinchō. Akira Kurosawa used this story as the basis for the plot of his award-winning movie Rashōmon."In a Grove" is an early modernist short story, as well as a blending of the modernist search for identity with themes from historic Japanese literature, and as such is perhaps the iconic work of Akutagawa's career. It presents th...

"In a Grove" is an early modernist short story consisting of seven varying accounts of the murder of a samurai, Kanazawa no Takehiro, whose corpse has been found in a bamboo forest near Kyoto. Each section simultaneously clarifies and obfuscates what the reader knows about the murder, eventually creating a complex and contradictory vision of events that brings into question humanity's ability or willingness to perceive and transmit objective truth. It is the basis for Kurosawa's "Rashoumon...

Clues, secrets, and investigations that challenge every answer. In 30 Mystery & Investigation Masterpieces, a thrilling collection of classic detective and mystery stories brings together some of the most intriguing cases in literature. This anthology features carefully selected tales of crime, deduction, and suspense, where sharp minds unravel complex puzzles and hidden truths slowly come to light. Each story immerses readers in gripping investigations filled with suspects, secrets, and u...

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, ...

Three classic Japanese works with an active table of contents. Works and authors include:"Botchan" By Kin-nosuke Natsume"Rashomon and Other Stories" By Ryunosuke Akutagawa"Selections from Genji Monogatari" By Murasaki Shikibu

"Rashōmon" (Japanese: 羅生門) is a short story by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke based on tales from the Konjaku Monogatarishū. A man considering whether or not to become a thief meets a woman stealing hair from corpses. Their conversation explores the morality of theft.The story was first published in 1915 in Teikoku Bungaku. Despite its name, it provided no direct plot material for the Akira Kurosawa movie Rashōmon, which was based on Akutagawa's 1921 short story, In a Grove.(source: Wi...