Although Alan Booth was a city person (he was brought up in London and spent most of his adult life in Tokyo) he had an extraordinary ability to capture the feel of rural Japan in his writing. Throughout his long and arduous trek, Booth encountered a variety of people who inhabit the Japanese countryside, from fishermen and soldiers, to bar hostesses and school teachers, to hermits, drunks and tramps. His wonderful and often hilarious descriptions of these encounters are the highlights of these pages, painting a multifaceted picture of Japan from the perspective of an outsider, but with the knowledge of an insider. The Roads to Sata is travel writing at its best: illuminating and disarming, poignant yet hilarious, critical but respectful. Travelling across Japan with Alan Booth, readers will enjoy the wit and insight of a uniquely perceptive guide, and more importantly, they will discover a new face of an often misunderstood nation.
