Stephen Mansfield is a British writer and photo journalist whose work has appeared in over 60 magazines, newspapers and journals worldwide. He is the author of several books, including Japan: Islands of the Floating World, Japan's Master Gardens and Tokyo: A Biography. He currently resides in Japan where he is a regular book reviewer for The Japan Times. He has also become an authority on Japanese gardens and has traveled all over Japan to visit and photograph both celebrated and little-known gardens. He recently designed and built a Japanese garden at his home in the outer suburbs of Tokyo, a project that took four seasons to complete.Donald Richie (1924—2013), novelist, essayist, journalist, and film scholar, was born in Lima, Ohio, in 1924, but has spent most of the last sixty years witnessing and reporting on the transformation of Japan from postwar devastation to economic powerhouse. He was the author of some forty books of fiction and nonfiction, dozens of speeches and essays, and hundreds of book, film, and arts reviews.

"This survey of the best of Japan's stone gardens may send you into the sort of fugue state in which you wake up to find yourself floating through the airport, boarding pass in hand." --New York Times

Stephen Mansfield is a British writer and photo journalist whose work has appeared in over 60 magazines, newspapers and journals worldwide. He is the author of several books, including Japan: Islands of the Floating World, Japan's Master Gardens and Tokyo: A Biography. He currently resides in Japan where he is a regular book reviewer for The Japan Times. He has also become an authority on Japanese gardens and has traveled all over Japan to visit and photograph both celebrated and little-known gardens. He recently designed and built a Japanese garden at his home in the outer suburbs of Tokyo, a project that took four seasons to complete.Donald Richie (1924—2013), novelist, essayist, journalist, and film scholar, was born in Lima, Ohio, in 1924, but has spent most of the last sixty years witnessing and reporting on the transformation of Japan from postwar devastation to economic powerhouse. He was the author of some forty books of fiction and nonfiction, dozens of speeches and essays, and hundreds of book, film, and arts reviews.

"This survey of the best of Japan's stone gardens may send you into the sort of fugue state in which you wake up to find yourself floating through the airport, boarding pass in hand." --New York Times

Stephen Mansfield is a British writer and photo journalist whose work has appeared in over 60 magazines, newspapers and journals worldwide. He is the author of several books, including Japan: Islands of the Floating World, Japan's Master Gardens and Tokyo: A Biography. He currently resides in Japan where he is a regular book reviewer for The Japan Times. He has also become an authority on Japanese gardens and has traveled all over Japan to visit and photograph both celebrated and little-known gardens. He recently designed and built a Japanese garden at his home in the outer suburbs of Tokyo, a project that took four seasons to complete.Donald Richie (1924—2013), novelist, essayist, journalist, and film scholar, was born in Lima, Ohio, in 1924, but has spent most of the last sixty years witnessing and reporting on the transformation of Japan from postwar devastation to economic powerhouse. He was the author of some forty books of fiction and nonfiction, dozens of speeches and essays, and hundreds of book, film, and arts reviews.

"This survey of the best of Japan's stone gardens may send you into the sort of fugue state in which you wake up to find yourself floating through the airport, boarding pass in hand." --New York Times