Tonight, June 15 at 7 p.m., Darvill’s Bookstore will host a book reading, signing and discussion with Andy Couturier, author of “A Different Kind of Luxury: Japanese Lessons in Simple Living and Inner Abundance.”
“For those frustrated with our current culture of overwork, stress, and constant want, finding true satisfaction can seem impossible,” said the author’s representative. “Yet an alternative to our hectic way of life does exist.”
“A Different Kind of Luxury” profiles eleven men and women “raised in the tumult of Japan’s industrial powerhouse [who] have made the transition to sustainable, deeply fulfilling lives in the mountains of Japan,” said the representative.
Based on Couturier’s popular articles in The Japan Times, the volume is filled with stories about real people who have created an abundance of time for contemplation, connecting with nature, artistic practice, and contributing to their communities.
People profiled include: Akira Ito, an ex–petroleum engineer who has become a painter and children’s book illustrator and explores the role of chi (life energy) in the universe through art and traditional Chinese music; Kogan Murata, who grows rice and crafts elegant bamboo flutes that he plays for alms in the surrounding villages; and Jinko Kaneko, a fine artist and fabric dyer who runs a Himalayan-style curry restaurant in the Japan Alps.
Andy Couturier is a Puschart Prize-nominated writer and the author of Writing Open the Mind. He has contributed to Adbusters, MIT Press, The Oakland Tribune, The Japan Times, Kyoto Journal, Creative Nonfiction, and The North American Review. Couturier lived in Japan for four years, working as a teacher and journalist, and working on environmental causes.
He currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and runs a center for courses in writing called The Opening. Couturier is available for interviews and presentations, and readers are invited to ask him questions about the book at the Different Kind of Luxury blog. For more information, contact publicity@stonebridge.com.
