Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin (Little Brown)

This is a fairy tale inspired by the author's travels through Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China. The hero of our story is a young girl named Minli. She lives in a small house with her mother and father in the shadow of a large mountain. All the villagers call it Fruitless Mountain because nothing grows on it and no animals or birds make their home there. Minli's family is very poor, as are most of the villagers.  

Although Minli is a child, she is always smiling and ready for adventure. The villagers thinks her name (which means quick thinking) is well suited to her. Sometimes her mother thinks it suits her too well. What makes Minli happiest is hearing her father tell her stories of far away lands, of magic and dragons, of imagined worlds where anything is possible. One of her favorite stories that she likes to have her father tell is how Fruitless Mountain got its name. Minli loves this story and always asks her father what could be done about the barren state of the mountain to which her father always answers, “That is a question you will have to ask the Old Man of the Moon.”

Minli believes her father's story and asks him where she can find the Old Man of the Moon. He tells her that it’s been said he lives on the top of Never-Ending Mountain. Then Minli has a great thought. She tells her father that if she could find the Old Man of the Moon, she could ask him how to change the family's fortune. This time the mother scolds the father for putting such ridiculous thoughts in their daughter's head.

The next day is not an ordinary day. A goldfish seller walks through town calling out “Goldfish. Bring good fortune into your home.” Minli asks the man how a goldfish can bring good fortune to which the man replies, “Don't you know? Goldfish means plenty of gold. Having a bowl of goldfish means your house will be full of gold and jade.” Minli has two copper coins given to her when she was a baby and without another thought, runs back home and offers them to the goldfish man. He only takes one coin and gives Minli a bowl with a goldfish in it. When she brings it home, her mother is not pleased, saying it’s just another mouth to feed.

Minli thinks about what her mother said and sneaks out at night to set the fish free. She sighs just like her mother and says out loud if she can only go to Never-Ending Mountain, then she would be able to ask the Old Man of the Moon how to change her family’s fortune. As she is about to head home, the fish speaks  and says it can show her the way to Never-Ending Mountain.

This is how Minli's true adventure begins – starting with a talking goldfish, then meeting a dragon that can't fly, and having to solve riddles to find her way to Never-Ending Mountain where she can ask the Old Man of the Moon her question. Will she get there? Will her family's fortune change? Are there really talking goldfish and dragons? Only one way to find out--finish reading the story!~Ernie Hoyt

Return to Tsugaru : Travels of a Purple Tramp by Osamu Dazai (Kodansha International)

As a fairly recent transplant from the metropolis of Tokyo to the Tohoku area of Japan, also known as Tsugaru, I have become more interested in exploring the literary history of my newly adopted home. When my wife and I explored our new surroundings last summer, I couldn't help but notice the number of monuments dedicated to one of the area's most prolific writers – Osamu Dazai. I did not know he was originally from Aomori Prefecture. I also didn't know Dazai was a pen name he used. (His given name was Shuji Tsushima.)

I decided to introduce myself to Dazai by reading a book he had been commissioned to write. One of his friends in the publishing business had repeatedly suggested he write a travel piece about his hometown and he willingly accepted. It was meant to be a special volume in the New Fudoki Series.  (Fudoki 風土記means the records of the culture and geography of a province.)

Dazai spends three weeks exploring Aomori Prefecture and says, “Though I was born and brought up in Tsugaru and lived there for twenty years, the only places I knew were Kanagi, Goshogawara, Aomori, Hirosaki, Asamushi, and Owani. Of other towns and villages I knew not the least bit.”

This book was originally published in 1944 by Oyama Shoten and titled Tsugaru.  The English edition was translated by James Westerhoven (who had taught English at Hirosaki University for about ten years) and was published in 1985.

It was by pure coincidence, or maybe it was fate, that my travels with my wife around Aomori Prefecture last year seemed to have followed in the footsteps of Dazai's own wandering. Almost every chapter Dazai wrote was about a village or town we had also visited. Aside from his hometown of Kanagi and the closest large city, Goshogawara, Dazai takes us through towns with names like Kanita, Yomogita, Imabetsu, Minmaya and Cape Tappi.  He also has another goal in mind when he sets out on his trip: to see Take Koshino, the woman who raised him, whom he hasn't seen in thirty years.

What was intended to be a travel guide turns out to be more of a personal journey as Dazai shares with us not only his thoughts about the small towns and hamlets but also offers his opinions on the people of Tsugaru as well. Dazai's novels may have a reputation for being bleak and depressing but this travelogue and reminiscences  take the reader on a journey that's more fascinating than just reading facts about an area’s culture and geography.~Ernie Hoyt

The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong (Penguin Books)

This psychological mystery and suspense novel by Korean author You-Jeong Jeong is one of the most disturbing books I've read in quite a while. The story starts with twenty-six-year-old Yu-jin waking up to the smell of blood. He has been off his medication and thinks he may have passed out after having an epileptic seizure. But that smell of blood...

He is also covered in what he thinks is mud, his clothes are crusty, and his hair is matted. He wonders if he fell in the mud on the way home the night before.  As he slowly tries to remember the details of what happened, the phone rings. It is Hae-jin, his good friend and adopted brother. Hae-jin asks about their mother who had called Hae-jin in the middle of the night. This is so out of character for her that it makes Yu-jin a bit worried. He seems to recall his mother calling his name but wonders was she calling for help? Or was she begging for her life?

He thought he had heard the voice of his brother as well. Yu-jin had a brother named Yu-min. When they were children, they would play a game called “Survival” with their BB guns that shot small plastic pellets. They would shoot each other and the one who got hit the most would win. He remembers a time when he almost lost his BB gun along the bridge of a railway track. He bumped his elbow and dropped his gun. At the same time he could see the train coming towards him, but he didn't want to lose his gun and ran back for it. Although he managed to get his gun, his uniform was torn and his face covered in dirt. He remembers how Yu-Min covered for him at school and he wishes Yu-min were here now to help him. However Yu-min has been dead for a long time.

Yu-jin comes to realize that his clothes and his body aren't covered in mud--he’s covered in blood! He knows he has to deal with the situation himself. He is still unsure of what happened. But he finally has the strength to check on his mother. He finds her lying on the floor with her throat cut from ear to ear. The shock is overwhelming. What to do now? He believes that maybe he should call the police. He think she may have tried to fight off a burglar in the night. He dials the emergency number only to come to realize what the police would think--“a dead woman with her throat cut, lying in a pool of blood next to her dazed, bloodied son.”

This is only the beginning of the mystery as we learn of another murder. A young woman was found with her throat cut, dumped into the sea. She was found in an area where Yu-jin would run at night.

The deeper you read, the deeper you are pulled into the mind of Yu-jin. More mysteries begin to unfold. Why was Hae-jin adopted? Exactly how did Yu-jin's brother Yu-min and his father die? And if he doesn't have epilepsy, what is he suffering from? Fast-paced and at times more graphic than any slasher film, this book makes it impossible for you to do anything more than read it to get to the bottom of its mystery.~Ernie Hoyt

The Quantum Spy by David Ignatius (Norton)

I'm not a science nerd or should I say I am cyber-impaired? This thriller about a race to make the first working quantum computer, which in theory would be able to decipher any encrypted messages in a short matter of time, is a book that I found fast paced and exciting. The race is between the U.S. intelligence community (aka the CIA) and China's Ministry of State Security, (MSS) who seem to be one step behind the Americans every step of the way. The CIA has discovered that there is a mole in their own department but have no clue as to who it is and how to catch him or her or them. At the same time, Chinese-American field agent Harris Chang is sent to investigate a small company in the US that the CIA believe has been contacted by a front company of the MSS and has been compromised by a Chinese informant.

We next find Chang in Singapore with a Chinese national, one Dr. Ma Yubo. Dr. Ma has been on the take, accepting bribes to support a mistress in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, to keep his daughter in school at Stanford University in the U.S., and to keep his relatives off of his back as they ask him for money and help. Dr. Ma is a scientist who, the Americans know, works for the MSS. What they don't understand is why.

Ma agrees to meet with Gunther Krause, a private wealth advisor for a company called the Luxembourg Asset Management. However, Krause shows up with Chang, much to Dr. Ma's disapproval. Ma soon learns that Krause and Chang work for the same company --the CIA-- and the CIA is determined to get Ma to help them find the mole in the Company. As Chang meets with an unwilling Dr. Ma, he alerts some of his colleagues to search Dr. Ma’s hotel room to find his mijian, a small diary where he wrote his private thoughts. Most Chinese officials have them as they were deemed safer than electronic devices and were to be used to protect the Ministry, but officials knew the diaries were kept for their own protection.

Chang manages to get Dr. Ma to submit to become a CIA “asset”, as they have his mijian. Ma is told if he doesn't cooperate, the notebook will be sent to those authorities in China who investigate corruption within the system.

The CIA had gathered enough information to confirm that there was a mole who had access to top level security items and how the contacts were established. They learned of a Chinese program called Xie (Scorpion) and found that the Chinese asset's name for their mole is Rukou, (Doorway). What they didn't foresee was that Dr. Ma realizes he is not in a win-win situation as Chang has suggested.  Before any of the CIA operatives could prevent him, Dr. Ma hangs himself. Now, with such little information and no way to make contact, how will the CIA find their mole?

David Ignatius is a writer for the Washington Post who has been covering the Middle East and the CIA for over twenty-five years so his descriptions of assignments and covert actions make you feel as if you are really in the story itself as well. Anybody interested in a thriller will enjoy the twists and turns of the novel as it deals with ethics, racism, loyalty, and betrayal in a modern day setting where real change is happening in the world of technology.~Ernie Hoyt