"Aiyar is a professional outsider, adept at dropping into an entirely alien culture, and ready to grab hold of it with both hands... she is an accomplished flaneur and enthusiastic student, flinging herself into cultural pursuits and research....While it’s sweet for her to acknowledge that many, many other people have written books about Japan, exactly none of them have picked the exact same things, people and places to write about, and few of them have approached it with her heart and insight."
Jonathan Clements