The Roads to Sata: A 2000-Mile Walk Through Japan

ALAN BOOTHS CLASSIC OF MODERN TRAVEL WRITING Traveling only along small back roads Alan Booth traversed Japans entire length on foot from Soya at the countrys northernmost tip to Cape Sata in the extreme south across three islands and some 2 000 miles of rural Japan. The Roads to Sata is his wry witty inimitable account of that prodigious trek. Although he was a city personhe was brought up in London and spent most of his adult life in TokyoBooth had an extraordinary ability to capture the feel of rural Japan in his writing. Throughout his long and arduous trek he encountered a variety of people who inhabit the Japanese countrysidefrom 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. Traveling 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.