The Bells of Old Tokyo : Travels in Japanese Time

As read on BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week'Shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year AwardLonglisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize'A completely extraordinary book . . . Delicately wrought, precise, lucid and strange as a dream' - Olivia Laing, author of The Garden Against TimeFor over 300 years, Japan closed itself to outsiders, developing a remarkable and unique culture.During its period of isolation, the inhabitants of the city of Edo, later known as Tokyo, relied on its public bells to tell the time.In her remarkable book, Anna Sherman tells of her search for the bells of Edo, exploring the city of Tokyo and its inhabitants and the individual and particular relationship of Japanese culture - and the Japanese language - to time, tradition, memory, impermanence and history. Through Sherman’s journeys around the city, we hear a series of hauntingly memorable voices in the labyrinth of the Japanese capital.An aristocrat plays in the sea of ashes left by the Allied firebombi