Reviews

One of the 86 Greatest Travel Books Of All Time
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“Fast-paced, readable and highly entertaining.” 
—Sunday Express

“The mysteries of Japan and father-son relationships prove to be rich subjects, especially for a writer at the peak of his powers, and they make for an entertaining and uplifting book… Neither memoir nor travel book, but one of those hybrids that can so easily go wrong, but that here goes life-affirmingly right.’ 
Sunday Times (London)

“Quietly elegant prose…he is one of the finest novelists working in the English language’ 
Daily Telegraph (London)

“Humorous and touching. His disarming honesty is one of the book’s pleasures. The beauty of this writing is in its openness and wit, its variety and sense of adventure.” 
—New Statesman

“It is the sheer lack of pretension that makes this understated account of travel so illuminating’ 
—Financial Times 
(London)

“Through a series of narrative diversions, odd anecdotes and warm honesty in his detailing of the relationship between himself and Charley, this historical smart although slim book is a joyous distraction until Carey produces his next novel.” 
—The List

Wrong About Japan, Carey’s slight but enjoyable travelogue, goes on to investigate the deep “real Japan” roots of all the pop art that resonates the world over.” 
—The Scotsman

“This slim volume, about their adventures, is not the first to punctuate Mr. Carey’s string of stunning novels, and it is a pleasure to read.” 
—Economist

“It’s difficult to categorise this book – it’s partly a memoir, partly a travel journal, partly a tale of father and son – but that doesn’t detract from it. Illustrated throughout, it is fast-paced, readable and highly entertaining.” 
Sunday Express (London)

Wrong About Japan reveals a different facet of Carey’s writing: the prose is less of a high-wire performance, but still supple, sensuous and deeply alluring. There’s a gorgeous nonchalance, a tranquil fluidity. The tone is sometimes journalistic, in the old-fashioned, literal sense: parts of the travelogue almost read like extracts from a diary, unmediated by much of a desire to polish them into art. Fans of Carey’s astonishing formal dexterity may expect him to subvert the conventions of the writerly travel tome, the better to say something breathtakingly original or strange. If that doesn’t happen a lot it doesn’t really matter. Before long, you start feeling you’re a fellow traveler on the trip as the rhythms of the book begin to coax you in.” 
Irish Times

“This artful emotional tango between father and son is what makes Wrong About Japanso curious and affecting.” 
—Scotland on Sunday

“It should also be pointed out that Wrong About Japan does not proceed directly towards its vouchsafed conclusions, but rather wanders slowly towards them in that slightly soft-drug kind of prose that makes Carey’s work so enjoyable, so charming and sometimes so infuriating… Carey is a writer of unusual energies and imaginative scope who is always determined to avoid the usual lethargies and drowsiness of any given genre’ 
—Guardian 
(London)

“Curious and affecting . . . physically diminutive but emotionally huge.” 
—The Denver Post

“A tale of fame, infatuation and murder, thrillingly rendered in the feisty and fearless prose for which Carey is renowned.” 
Bloomberg.com

“Manga and anime . . . become not only a key for unlocking Japanese culture, but a bridge over the generational divide between the author and his son. . . . Moving.” 
—The New York Times Book Review

“A pleasure to read.” 
—Economist

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