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BOOKNOTES Lecture SeriesSince August 2004, Good Day Books has hosted BOOKNOTES, a monthly series of lectures presented on Sunday evenings by authors of books about Japan, past and present, and Japanese, famous and obscure. To be admitted to a BOOKNOTES presentation by an author, a prospective member of the audience must purchase from Good Day Books a new copy of the book on which the author's presentation will be based. Each BOOKNOTES presentation to date has been followed by a lively question-and-answer session and a book signing. A BOOKNOTES presentation by a famous author (e.g., Donald Keene's presentation on Frog in the Well) or on a topical subject (e.g., Akihiko Matsutani's presentation on Shrinking-Population Economics) is typically sold out well before the date of the presentation. SEATING IS LIMITED. Don't show up on the evening of a BOOKNOTES presentation without a ticket. Contact Good Day Books before the date of the presentation to learn whether seats are available for that presentation.
 |  |  | Edward Seidensticker
24 October 2004
| Donald Richie
30 October 2005
| Donald Keene
November 2006
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Speaker: Leigh Norrie, author of Japan: 6,000 Miles on a Bicycle
Topic: "Pedal Pushin' 'Round Japan"
When: Starting at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, 14 September 2008
Admission: Buy a copy of Japan: 6,000 Miles on a Bicyle from Good Day Books
Leigh Norrie was born in 1973 and raised in a North Wales seaside town. He exhibited an enthusiasm for writing that he still remembers was The Drunk Man, written when he was nine, a story with a prophetic title. Most cycling he’d done before he arrived in Japan was on his paper round when he was eleven. He was as surprised as anyone to find himself planning an all-prefecture cycling tour of Japan.
Norrie came to Japan in 1997 to work in one of the more notorious English conversation schools. He didn’t do much sightseeing or studying during his first eight years in Japan, but spent most of his time in bars and in izakayas, and in and out of work. After almost a decade of declining physical health and mental acuity, he decided to tour Japan by bicycle, just to see if he could. He planned not to write a book, but to keep a diary. And a diary he kept, religiously.
Six months' peddling a bicycle around rice paddies, over mountain passes, through tunnels, and along shores gave Norrie a new perception not only of Japan and its people, but also of himself and what was important in his life. Which was, in a word, living.
After finishing his tour in Okinawa, Norrie took a year off, and in January 2007 began reviewing his notes and diary entries. Eighteen months later, he had written his first book: Japan: 6,000 Miles on a Bicycle.
PAST SPEAKERS
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