Description: Yuki Hirano is just out of high school when his parents enroll him, against his will, in a forestry training program in the remote mountain village of Kamusari. No phone, no internet, no shopping. Just a small, inviting community where the most common expression is 'take it easy.' At first, Yuki is exhausted, fumbles with the tools, asks silly questions and feels like an outcast. Kamusari is the last place a city boy from Yokohama wants to spend a year of his life. But as resistant as he might be, the scent of the cedars and the staggering beauty of the region have a pull. Yuki learns to fell trees and plant saplings. He begins to embrace local festivals, he's mesmerized by legends of the mountain, and he might be falling in love. In learning to respect the forest on Mt Kamusari for its majestic qualities and its inexplicable secrets, Yuki starts to appreciate Kamusari's harmony with nature and its ancient traditions.
Brief description:
Shion Miura made her fiction debut in 2000 with Kakuto suru mono ni maru (A Passing Grade for Those Who Fight). In 2006, she won the Naoki Prize for her story collection Mahoro ekimae Tada Benriken (The Handymen in Mahoro Town). Her other novels include Kaze ga tsuyoku fuiteiru (The Wind Blows Hard), Kogure-so monogatari (The Kogure Apartments), and Ano ie ni kurasu yonin no onna (The Four Women Living in That House). Fune o amu (The Great Passage, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter) received the Booksellers' Award in Japan in 2012 and an Earphones Award and was made into an award-winning motion picture. Miura has also published more than fifteen collections of essays and is a manga aficionado.
Review Quotes:
Praise for The Easy Life in Kamusari
"Fans of all ages should enjoy the author's blend of the traditional and the contemporary." --Kirkus Reviews
"Miura (The Great Passage, 2017) takes readers on a journey with Yuki, a directionless young man, to the remote mountainside villages of Japan where the trees are plentiful, but cell reception is minimal. Miura lovingly depicts the shifting seasons and the challenges they bring to those who work in the forestry industry in Japan's mountains." --Booklist
"This tender and kaleidoscopic novel centers a young Japanese city boy and his coming-of-age in a remote village." --Ms. Magazine
"This is the perfect novel to read if you plan to reconnect with nature this year and stop spending so much time staring at screens. When teenager Yuki Hirano's parents send him to a forestry training program far from the city (or even cell signal), it feels like a punishment. But as he learns his way around the forest, gets to know the trees, and discovers mountain legends, he finds much to love about Mt. Kamusari." --Book Riot
"I closed the pages in whole-hearted support of author Shion Miura's call to slow down and appreciate and respect nature, especially as I think more about traveling responsibly in our age of climate change and a global pandemic. As Yuki learned about the culture and way of life around Mount Kamusari over the span of a year--celebrating each season and the festivals that surround them--I began to wonder if one can truly know a new place without spending a full year there." --Undomesticated Magazine
Praise for The Great Passage
Winner of an Earphones Award, Fiction
"Mastery of words may not result in masterly communication, and a great dictionary, like a love story, is 'the result of people puzzling over their choices'--a classic tension that has made The Great Passage a prizewinner in Japan, as well as both a successful feature film and an animated television series." --The New York Times
"Swirling with witty enchantment, The Great Passage proves to be, well, utterly great. Readers should be advised to get ready to sigh with delighted satisfaction and awe-inspiring admiration." --Booklist (starred review)
"The Great Passage has a philosophy of thoughtfulness and dedication to words that any reader will understand...Miura's prose--and Carpenter's translation--glides along, smooth and precise, with flashes of quiet poetry." --Metropolis
"The Great Passage is interwoven with romantic love stories, but ultimately it is the passion of the characters, their friendship, and their devotion to their task that direct and complete the narrative and turn it from simply a good book to a great one." --Talia Franks, Three Percent