RaveWorld Literature TodayIn March 2004 Tracy Franz began a journal to document a period of separation from her husband, a Zen monk spending a year at a six-hundred-year-old Buddhist monastery in Japan. The year is a journey for her as much as for her husband, and she immerses herself in reflection and meditation, occupying herself with her job as a teacher and with her hobby, crafting Japanese pottery. Throughout the book, loneliness is a constant companion for Franz, something that she encounters in a myriad of forms ... takes readers on a personal journey of reflection, posing questions that are larger than the life in which they arose. The very act of reading this journal is meditative, prompting a profound stillness worth experiencing and definitely worth recommending.
Masatsugu Ono, Trans. by Angus Turvill
PositiveWorld Literature TodayLion Cross Point is marked by a dichotomy between the inevitability of suffering and the potential for compassion within those moments. Being a child, Takeru is constantly at the mercy of others, and, time and time again, their decisions place him in painful situations. Every step of the way, though, there is someone to help carry him through it, creating a book that is equal parts heart-wrenching and heartwarming.
