First published in 1921 and in print ever since, Satow’s “A Diplomat in Japan” is the best eyewitness account of the turmoil that engulfed Japan in the run-up to the 1868 Meiji Restoration. Or as the snappy subtitle has it: “The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period”. Book marketing is certainly one area where progress has been made in the past century.

Satow’s real strength is as an observer and participant in the history of Japan at the time; his superb language skills allowing him to meet and befriend many of the key players in this restoration drama. This book actually downplays his own importance in persuading his diplomatic superiors to throw Great Britain’s covert support behind the pro-Imperial rebels, a diplomatic coup that left Satow’s homeland in the box seat once the Imperialists took power. Satow’s prose is smoothly functional, and in his sympathy  for the dilemmas faced by the contemporary Japanese and his respect for the local culture Satow’s humanity is clearly evident. There are even glimpses of an ultra-dry sense of humour behind the Victorian facade.

The downsides of “A Diplomat in Japan” relate to the poor quality of the editions available. Mine is the 2000 ICG/Tuttle version, which is littered with typos, has tiny font, uses the outdated spellings of Japanese names and places that Satow used but that are tough on the modern reader (e.g. Kioto and Ozaka for Kyoto and Osaka). Even the cover, with its stern picture of the late middle-aged Satow from his much later second posting to Japan, rather than the young diplomat that actually experienced these events, is poorly done. The book is also too long for all but the dedicated historian: there is a gap in this admittedly small market for an abbreviated version aimed at the more general reader.

“A Diplomat in Japan” is not always the easiest of reads, but it remains obligatory for anyone with an interest in this period of history.

Oscar Wilde famously defined a cynic as someone who knew the price of everything but the value of nothing. Self-published authors run the danger of becoming the opposite. We know the value of our books - as measured in blood, sweat and tears - but have little idea how much to charge for e-book copies of our labour of love. Should we set a price of $9.99 because like L’Oreal models we’re worth it? Should we charge $0.99 in imitation of Amanda Hocking in the hope that like her we’ll sell in the millions? Or something inbetween because that vaguely seems about right?

I set the price of “Milligan and the Samurai Rebels” at $4.99 for the first eight months it was on sale, pitching it lower than the price of an e-book by an established author but higher than that for those novels at the trashier end of the scale and/or aimed at the more cost-consciousness younger person market. That still seems about right in terms of value. But as the self-publishing advice manuals say, authors should forget “value” or “worth”. This is not a moral question: price should be set to maximise sales and earnings. Er...OK, but there seems to be a trade-off between those.

This last week I have tried my first experiment, dropping the e-book price to $0.99 (buy before Monday, 11th February - go on, do it now before you miss the bargain of a lifetime weekend!). Because at this lower price I only get 30% from Amazon, not the 70% I was getting at the previous price, my revenue per book has fallen to one-tenth of what it was. And sales? Well, they have doubled, so price does make a difference. From a strictly economic perspective this is a disaster - income from e-book sales is down 80% - but then I’m selling more and like most self-published authors I’m not in this only or even primarily for the money. Let’s see what happens when the price goes back up next week. 

The most interesting part of this experiment is that sales in the US - my and most authors’ largest e-book market - have only slightly ticked up. But sales in the UK have increased dramatically at the lower price. My fellow Brits - you’re cheap b*stards! 

How should citizens in a democracy deal with history? What is being asked and equally importantly what is not being asked? Is the history of Japan both during the Second World War and after misused in the West? These are among the fascinating and important questions the supreme historian of wartime and post-war Japan, John Dower, asks in his collection of essays, “Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering: Japan in the Modern World”. As always with Dower the scholarship and the argumentation are of the very highest order, and while the evidence and the opinions given here often challenge orthodoxy he has no “side”, other than the truth.

This book brings together 11 previously published Dower essays, with introductions to each newly written for this collection. Topics covered include US and Japanese wartime attitudes to each other, satire in post-defeat Japan, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan’s occupation of Manchuria and others. All the essays bring forward interesting and at times surprising evidence while adding to the reader's understanding. The book is full of nuggets, such as the reaction of legendary Hollywood director Frank Capra when asked to make US propaganda films by his government, who upon seeing the surprisingly sophisticated Japanese equivalents said “We can’t beat this kind of thing”. Most disturbingly, for me at least, was the chapter about the US refusal to allow a Smithsonian exhibition about the atomic bombings to show the victims or to discuss views that challenge their necessity. Western criticisms of Japan’s failure honestly to discuss its history are often accurate, so you might think the erstwhile Allies would take care to avoid the same error or would understand that their side fought the war in defence of the very freedom of expression they want to shut down. Sadly not.

Dower remains best known for his magisterial history of the occupation of Japan, “Embracing Defeat”, and to a slightly lesser extent “War Without Mercy”, his shocking record of the racism on both sides of the Pacific in that theatre of World War Two. Those are better starting points for a reader interested in Dower’s work, but this new collection is a welcome addition from the best English language scholar of mid-twentieth century Japan. “Allies good, Axis bad” is indeed the correct four-word summary of the morality of the Second World War, but as John Dower shows us, we are or at least we should be capable of a much more sophisticated analysis.

So, three years after I finished writing “Milligan and the Samurai Rebels” I’m now doing the historical reading needed to write its successor. I should be able to put the first word on the page quite soon. The three years weren’t entirely “off” - editing the novel, trying and failing to get an agent, then publishing and marketing the book myself all took time, as did moving the family from Japan to Switzerland and back again - but nevertheless I’ve been out of the “game” for a good while. The question is: have I still got it? “You never had it!” the Waldorf and Statler in my head roar back.

Is novel writing like riding a bike: no matter how long you haven’t done it for it comes back almost instantly? Is it like speaking a foreign language, where it’s very tough at first when you have to do it again after a long break, but with a bit of effort your ability returns quite quickly? Or is it like the pin code for your blasted bank card - don’t use it for a bit and it’s gone completely? I’ll find out soon I guess.

Preparation for the next book at the moment entails a reading list dominated by Japanese history books, and almost all spare time working my way through the list. Re-reading my own novel is part of that, and that’s always an odd experience - a mixture of horror at every comma that seems less than ideally placed, and relief that some of the bits that are supposed to be funny bear at least some relation to that description. The next step is the planning, although with a novel like mine that sticks quite closely to the actual history at least some of the parameters are already in place. A title is not a necessity at this stage, but I have one anyway - “Milligan and the Reluctant Shogun”. Let’s see if that survives the writing process.

"Shinsengumi", by the marvellously monikered Romulus Hillsborough, tells the true story of the ruthless group of two-sworded killers assembled by the Tokugawa Shogunate to stave off rebellion against its rule. It is not perhaps the best starting point for a history of 1860s Japan, but for those already familiar with the basics of that period this is an extremely well-researched addition to the English language record, if not always the smoothest of reads.

By late 1862, nine years after the enforced re-opening of Japan to the outside world by Western military power, two and a half centuries of Tokugawa rule were in serious danger of coming to an end due to the Shogunate's inability to resist this foreign interference. Like many a regime before and after, the selected response to internal threat was of extreme violence, in this case through a hand-picked group of obsessively loyal, murderous samurai. The result was a five-year reign of terror on the streets of Kyoto, the Imperial capital, during which many of the Shogunate's enemies were slain. Whether this bloodshed slightly accelerated or slightly delayed the demise of Tokugawa rule, which came in 1868 despite the Shinsengumi's best efforts, is a moot point.

Mr Hillsborough's scholarship is impressive. His Japanese language ability allows him to draw on a wide range of original source materials, many of which are referenced for the first time in an English language history, while his feel for the period is sure throughout this book's two hundred or so pages. The shortcomings lie not in the research but in the writing. The subject matter is unavoidably complicated, but not every effort is made to simplify where possible. The more flowery, introductory passages to each chapter are I think a stylistic error, tending to be overblown and frequently relying on Orientalist references to the fickle "Sun Goddess" of fate. Profiles of the main Shinsengumi figures are dumped on the reader in one deluge, rather than sprinkled through the book where appropriate for ease of absorption. In some places unnecessary reference is made to the year using both the Christian and the Japanese Imperial calendars, while in others only the month is given when from the non-linear narrative it is not clear which year is being discussed. For these reasons and others there are times when the reader is confused or distracted and the flow of the story is lost.

So don't read this if you are new to the history of Japan at this time, nor if you want to be carried along by a rollercoaster of a historical narrative. Do read if you want to delve deeper into the historical detail and learn about one of the last bloody throws of the dice by the Tokugawa Shogunate.

One of the interesting parts of the self-publishing experience has been seeing how friends and acquaintances have reacted to the news that I have written a novel. It’s been a great pleasure to see the overwhelmingly positive response, both before and after they read the book. Naturally all first-time authors are concerned how their friends and family will react. Most of all we hope they will buy and read the bloody thing. Next, we hope they will like it. Beyond that the ideal is for the friend-as-reader to enjoy the book to such an extent that they become a cheerleader. Many thanks to those who have done all or part of that.

An unexpected lesson has been that there is little if any correlation between the intimacy of the friendship and the propensity to purchase my novel. I have been pleasantly surprised by those whose links to me are not such as to confer any expectation, but who have been excited by the news and spent their own hard-earned money on my scribblings. Nobody is under obligation of course, but it is odd the contrast with a few people I know much better who have shown limited interest and not bought “Milligan and the Samurai Rebels”. “[So-and-so] bought my book and she doesn’t even like me!” you feel like saying.

The willingness to pick up the metaphorical pom-poms also seems weakly connected to the degree of connection with the author. I have been touched by the promotional efforts made by close and less close friends, and in some cases by those who I am only linked to through my Facebook author profile and have never met. Just this last week a work contact with whom I am friendly but only see a handful of times a year was singing the praises of my novel to other colleagues and saying “I don’t understand why you haven’t bought it!” on more than occasion to the group. I think the answer lies in one of the responses to this colleague: “I don’t really get the time to read these days”. My best guess is that it is not the degree of friendship that is crucial but the extent to which the person in question is a reader of novels in general. Someone who has little interest in reading fiction is unlikely to break the non-habit of a lifetime on my account.

Let's talk about you and me. Let's talk about all the bad sex writing there may be. It's that time of year again when the Bad Sex awards honour (sic) the worst writing about you-know-what of the preceding twelve months. Winner Nancy Huston seems to be critically well regarded in general, which illustrates a point often revealed by these awards - writing about sex can be disastrous even for otherwise excellent authors. Indeed, John Updike, Sebastian Faulks and Norman Mailer are all previous winners.

Jake Adelstein, like his book, is unconventional, entertaining, intelligent and flawed. A Jewish American who acquired Japanese language skills sufficient to be recruited as the first foreigner ever to work for Japan’s top selling newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun (not to be confused with its English offshoot, the Daily Yomiuri), "Tokyo Vice" is the tale of Adelstein's unique experiences, including his near fatal run-in with one of Japan’s major crime bosses and his admirable exposure of an important scandal.

This true story starts off with a frightening encounter with a member of the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza, who threatens Adelstein’s life. From this dramatic opening we return to Adelstein’s early years on the Yomiuri crime beat, which while interesting for the sheer novelty of its gaijin take on the world of Japanese newspaper reporting and routine police work, lacks the drama of the second half of the book. For it is from around the half-way point that this until then merely adequate book takes off, as Adelstein stumbles across information suggesting that a Yakuza kingpin was granted a US visa by the FBI so that he could buy his way to the top of the liver transplant queue at UCLA hospital. 

Is this book written or structured to the very highest standards? Perhaps not. Would we all have made the same judgements as Adelstein? Unlikely, since most of us are both less obsessive and less brave than he. But this is a fascinating story that disabuses those like me who previously saw the Yakuza as a joke mafia, and also touches on the deeper scandal of the tolerance and even support they receive from parts of the Japanese establishment. An important, informative and at times thrilling book.

Remember those childhood threats that you would leave home and never come back? Of course we all grew out of that, er… except for those of us who left our home countries and never went back (at least not yet). It’s a funny thing to do to pack up and leave your home country to live for a long time, perhaps permanently, somewhere else. But it’s increasingly common. How do people end up spending most of their adult lives as foreigners?

There must surely be a different answer to that question for each individual, but in most cases it will be a mixture of positive “pulls”, negative “pushes” and some element of chance. In my own case I left the UK to teach English in Japan because I was finishing university, had no idea what to do, and it was the midst of the early 90s recession so jobs at home were scarce. With no particular knowledge of or interest in Japan, chance played its part in the form of a mature student friend who had himself taught in Japan and recommended it. After five years back in England I little thought that those two years in Japan were anything other than a youthful sojourn, but again chance played its part and I once more headed east to work for at most another two years on a secondment in Japan. Thirteen years later I have never moved back. 

Others’ stories will differ in the detail, but in my experience most will share elements of this tale. Milligan, the fictional hero of my novel, is “pushed” by the prospect of an enforced betrothal and grabs at the sudden chance of a diplomatic posting at the ends of the earth. Given the current economic difficulties there are no doubt many young people now taking jobs outside their own country, and some proportion of those – unbeknownst even to them – may never go home again except to visit. As John Lennon said, “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”.

A crowded island nation at the edge of a continent; a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary government; an imperialist past; a fondness for indirect speech and conversation about the weather; bad teeth. I’m not the first to note the similarities between the UK and Japan. These similarities are real and can have practical consequences, with some Japanese feeling more comfortable with Brits than the brasher American brand of “gaijin”, and many from the UK adapting more easily to the culture shock of Japan than their transatlantic cousins.

But this similarity should not be over-stated. The differences between the UK and Japan still massively outweigh the similarities. Heaven has Japanese food and trains; British parks and comedy. In Hell they eat over-boiled vegetables and are “entertained” (sic) by Japanese “talent” (sic) shows. Even an area of supposed similarity such as the less direct mode of verbal interaction is only a similarity when contrasted with the larger gulf between the American and Japanese manner of speech. Modern Brits are still much more vocal and direct in expressing their opinions than most Japanese. Anyone from the UK will feel much more at home in America or Europe than in Japan.

So there is a large cultural gap between the UK and Japan even in 2012, but it is certainly much smaller than it was in earlier times. The globalised, Americanised culture of the 21st century gives us all a number of shared experiences to discuss as we sip our Starbucks coffee. Imagine, as I have tried to do in my book, how it felt to be a Brit setting foot in Japan 150 years ago. How far from England the traveller must have felt, and how little consolation it must have been that the locals also commented on the rain and had wonky molars.