Even Monkeys Fall From Trees: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs, with a foreword by Edward G. Seidensticker, is a collection of the hundred most common Japanese proverbs, with direct translations and their English equivalents. A delightful window into the heart of everyday Japan, Even Monkeys Fall From Trees is an indispensable guide for the traveler, student, or businessman or anyone curious about the culture of Japan.

Gou ni itte wa, gou ni shitagae, runs an old Japanese proverb: Obey the customs of the village you enter.   Just don't overdo things.   It may already be too late for Cricket Collins, a recent Ivy League graduate who travels to Osaka for his first real job as an English instructor. The time is late 1970s, with Japan quickly becoming the new find-yourself region that India was to the backpack set in the 1960s. From pachinko parlors to paper cranes,...

David Galef's stories, whether longer or as tiny one-page wonders, can contain both humor and fear. In this work the ordinary slips easily into the allegorical, into the dream and sometimes into the nightmare, often leaving the reader with moments of narrative that will stick like a sharp-edged image from a memorable poem or painting. Galef's vision blossoms in a twenty-first century America, but its roots stretch back to the terror behind the oldest...