any non-fiction books about japan nature/artisans/aesthetics that you loved
a book I’m reading right now and absolutely love fits this description
猫の浮世絵
it’s a 4 book series about cats in Ukiyo-e (浮世絵) which is a very famous art stream during the Edo period from Japan. Some examples is the iconic huge wave print on a scroll, the kabuki actor piece, Hokusai if you heard the name was an Ukiyo-e artist, etc.
It’s written very “lightly” and in a fun manner, sometimes it just describes fun pieces, and sometimes it goes into more cultural concepts and references (from things like the Imperial Regalia of Japan to local legends regarding a cat that kept Buddhistic scrolls safe from mice during a ship voyage, etc).
She does also mentions some famous schools and goes a bit into famous artists or artists that are attributed to having made an impact yet they’re not as famous.
Of course since it’s drawing in the Edo period you also get a glimpse and explanation into some historical and cultural aspects of the era (which is one of the most famous ones in Japan).
Since everything is around each piece that is shown to you it’s very easy to pinpoint what is what even when you don’t know words that are more technical to the field, and if you read it on bookwalker and have a translate app you can copy-paste things you don’t know to google, or simply look into things that interest you from the book, without much effort (as in you don’t need to start drawing kanji or go through lists from radicals, etc to find words).
