The Book of Yokai
Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore
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Narrated by:
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Tim Campbell
About this listen
Monsters, ghosts, fantastic beings, and supernatural phenomena of all sorts haunt the folklore and popular culture of Japan. Broadly labeled yokai, these creatures come in infinite shapes and sizes, from tengu mountain goblins and kappa water spirits to shape-shifting foxes and long-tongued ceiling-lickers. Currently popular in anime, manga, film, and computer games, many yokai originated in local legends, folktales, and regional ghost stories.
Drawing on years of research in Japan, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the history and cultural context of yokai, tracing their roots, interpreting their meanings, and introducing people who have hunted them through the ages. In this delightful and accessible narrative, listeners will explore the roles played by these mysterious beings within Japanese culture and will also learn of their abundance and variety through detailed entries on more than 50 individual creatures. The Book of Yokai provides a lively excursion into Japanese folklore and its ever-expanding influence on global popular culture. It also invites listeners to examine how people create, transmit, and collect folklore, and how they make sense of the mysteries in the world around them. By exploring yokai as a concept, we can better understand broader processes of tradition, innovation, storytelling, and individual and communal creativity.
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Almost 40 years since its original publication, Drawing Down the Moon continues to be the only detailed history of the burgeoning but still widely misunderstood Neo-Pagan subculture. Margot Adler attended ritual gatherings and interviewed a diverse, colorful gallery of people across the United States, people who find inspiration in ancient deities, nature, myth, even science fiction. In this revised edition, Adler takes a fascinating and honest look at the religious experiences, beliefs, and lifestyles of modern America's Pagan groups.
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Important history lesson but missing elements
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The Pun Also Rises
- How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More Than Some Antics
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Story
The Pun Also Rises is an authoritative yet playful exploration of a practice that is common, in one form or another, to virtually every language on earth. At once entertaining and educational, this engaging book answers fundamental questions: Just what is a pun, and why do people make them? How did punning impact the development of human language, and how did that drive creativity and progress? And why, after centuries of decline, does the pun still matter?
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Punderful Little Book
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Red
- A History of the Redhead
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- Narrated by: Jacky Colliss Harvey
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Red is a brilliantly told, captivating history of red hair throughout the ages. An audiobook that breaks new ground, dispels myths, and reinforces the special nature of being a redhead, with a look at multiple disciplines, including science, religion, politics, feminism and sexuality, literature, and art. With an obsessive fascination that is as contagious as it is compelling, author Jacky Colliss Harvey (herself a redhead) begins her exploration of red hair in prehistory and traces the redhead gene as it made its way out of Africa with the early human diaspora.
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Pushing Past Stereotypes
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Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue
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A survey of the quirks and quandaries of the English language, focusing on our strange and wonderful grammar. Why do we say "I am reading a catalog" instead of "I read a catalog"? Why do we say "do" at all? Is the way we speak a reflection of our cultural values? Delving into these provocative topics and more, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue distills hundreds of years of fascinating lore into one lively history.
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Great for casual linguists
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William Blake vs the World
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A wild and unexpected journey through culture, science, philosophy, and religion to better understand the mercurial genius of William Blake.
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Best book ever
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Jewish Comedy
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In a major work of scholarship both erudite and very funny, Jeremy Dauber traces the origins of Jewish comedy and its development from Biblical times to the age of Twitter. Organizing his book thematically into what he calls the seven strands of Jewish comedy - including the satirical, the witty, and the vulgar - Dauber explores the ways Jewish comedy has dealt with persecution, assimilation, and diaspora through the ages. He explains the rise and fall of popular comic archetypes such as the Jewish mother, the JAP, and the schlemiel and schlimazel.
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Not funny
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In this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language, linguistics expert David Crystal draws on words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences, and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first definitively English word was written down in the fifth century ("roe", in case you are wondering). Featuring Latinate and Celtic words, weasel words and nonce-words, ancient words ("loaf") to cutting edge ("twittersphere") and spanning the indispensable words that shape our tongue ("and", "what") to the more fanciful ("fopdoodle"), Crystal takes us along the winding byways of language.
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Random but entertaining
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The Secret History of the World
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Here, for the first time, is a complete history of the world based on the beliefs and writings of secret societies, researched with the help of an initiate of more than one secret society.
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Not for beginners
- By Being of Light on 09-13-12
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Secrets and Mysteries of the World
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For those of us who have always been fascinated by the unexplained, or inadequately explained, secrets and mysteries of this world, psychic Sylvia Browne now comes to our rescue. From the Great Pyramid to Stonehenge, Sylvia reveals amazing facts behind some of the world's most mysterious sites.
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Utter, utter crap
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Nicholas Black Elk
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Since its publication in 1932, Black Elk Speaks has moved countless readers to appreciate the American Indian world that it described. John Neihardt’s popular narrative addressed the youth and early adulthood of Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux religious elder. Michael F. Steltenkamp now provides the first full interpretive biography of Black Elk, distilling in one volume what is known of this American Indian wisdom keeper whose life has helped guide others. Nicholas Black Elk: Medicine Man, Missionary, Mystic shows that the holy-man was not the dispirited traditionalist commonly depicted in literature....
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Great overview of little known subject.
- By cosmitron on 09-06-18
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The Secret History of Magic
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If you read a standard history of magic, you learn that it begins in ancient Egypt with the resurrection of a goose in front of the Pharaoh. You discover how magicians were tortured and killed during the age of witchcraft. You are told how conjuring tricks were used to quell rebellious colonial natives. The history of magic is full of such stories, which turn out not to be true. Behind the smoke and mirrors, however, lies the real story of magic.
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Snoozefest
- By Eric Myers on 06-22-19
By: Peter Lamont, and others
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Woeful narration.
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Step into the tranquil and profound world of Shinto with "Shinto: A Beginner's Guide." This book is your gateway to exploring the ancient spirituality that lies at the heart of Japan's cultural and natural beauty. Discover the Essence of Shinto: Unveil the mysteries of Shinto, where every mountain, river, and tree is imbued with the sacred presence of kami. Learn how these spirits influence and guide the daily lives of those who honor them. This guide makes the complex philosophy of Shinto accessible and engaging, allowing you to integrate its wisdom into your own life. Immerse in Cultural ...
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What listeners say about The Book of Yokai
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kevin H
- 04-08-21
wish it was longer
lovely book about a fascinating subject. just wish it was longer. overall a very enjoyable experience
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- Ryan
- 09-09-21
informative but uneven
a decent resource for the academic history of Yokai as covered by the first half of the book, however I found the second half to be weaker and much more of a surface level look at actual Yokai mythology and lore
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- RhondaLibbey
- 12-05-23
So good
I loved this book. The personal accounts, the research, the insight this author brings is great! The narrator has a wonderful voice too!
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- Grace K
- 10-10-20
a scholarly work
it reads very much like a research paper, but it's very informative. I was not as fond of the narration
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1 person found this helpful
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- Daniel Pushcarich
- 06-03-21
A great supplementary book for japanese history.
Incredible pronunciation, and stellar performance. Tim Campbell must have studied before he read this one.
Foster's research is definitely not for the beginner. this book is at least at the intermediate level. very good for people who have a grasp on part of japanese history and culture.
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- stacey d ward
- 10-06-19
interesting to listen to, but the codex drags ...
I thought the first half, which talked about the studies of yokai and the way the impacted Japanese thought and society, was interesting. Some of the individual yokai descriptions in the codex may have dragged on longer than they needed to, but a listing like that wasn't really designed to be read out loud, I guess.
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- Julieanne
- 06-04-19
Pt 2 was delightful (+no cringey pronunciations!!)
I think one's opinion on this entire book as a whole will be based on on how much you already know about Yokai before reading this book and/or what you want out of the listening experience.
Personally, I'm fascinated with Yokai and knew a fair amount about them, so I really wanted a book compiling different Yokai and the lore/tales associated with them.
I would say the 2nd part of this audiobook (The Yokai Codex) delivered on this. The author gives brief summaries of each Yokai, usually including what they're believed to look like, their behavior/purpose, and if they've been portrayed in any famous media (books/anime/video games/a LOT of Studio Ghibli/etc.). I really loved how the Yokai were separated into different categories of where they were known to occur (Wilds, Water, Countryside, Village & City), it really organized them and kind of installed a curiosity of how these Yokai might interact with one another!
The 1st part of the book (Yokai Culture) was much more focused on... something else? I would say if you've never been exposed to Yokai or Japanese culture in any shape or form, the first part of the book will really help you understand the cultural reasoning/merit behind Yokai. Most of this section is just the author talking about his experiences in researching this book, which (no offense intended to Foster because he did a GREAT job compiling and translating this rather isolated lore) was kind of boring and dry at times.
To be honest, I definitely would've skipped the 1st half of this book had I known the actual Yokai stories were in the 2nd half.
All in all, this book was a nice summary of Yokai! My only comments are
1) For one or two Yokai, I really wish there had been more in-depth information provided. Some had too brief of summaries to really understand their "character" or purpose within the world of Yokai. It also would've been interesting to hear about the relationships between different Yokai, in the same vein as Roman/Greek mythology (assuming there's any evidence of hypothetical interactions)
2) It would've been convenient if Audible had bookmarks within the audiobook to be able to locate each individual Yokai for future re-listening
P.S. Last note- The narrator did an AMAZING job, thank you SO MUCH for getting someone who could actually pronounce Japanese!! It saved the listener from 9 hours of cringe (& it even helped me realize a few puns/connections between yokai names and certain characters/product names because of the correct pronunciation!)
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- grahamthebookman
- 03-19-21
One of the most scholarly books on Yokai!
Dr. Foster provides excellent scholarship and insight into the world of Yokai! Must read!
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- richard
- 11-23-19
Almost complete
I really quite enjoyed this audiobook, and have no criticism of it, except that there is so much description of the yokai that it would have been VERY, VERY nice to have had a supplemental attached PDF with pictures.
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- andrew pappas
- 02-12-20
A top notch study on Yokai
This book is more than a encyclopedia of yokai, but a insight into their nature
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