Bøker av David Chart

Akiko Tanahata liked her normal life in Japan, with a clerical job and a serious boyfriend. Shinto shrines were just places to visit at New Year. But that all changed when she sought shelter from a sudden downpour, and found herself in an impossible space, confronted by a great serpent. Now the serpent will not leave her alone, and she can see the pollution that is slowly corrupting Kawasaki. As her normal life is taken apart by forces beyond her control, Akiko must learn about the kami, and take control of her own future if she is to save her city.David Chart is a Japanese practitioner of Shinto living with his wife and daughter in Kawasaki, where he works for Jinja Honchō, the largest Shinto organisation in Japan. He is the author of An Introduction to Shinto.

Shinto is the traditional religious practice of Japan, but that does not mean that non-Japanese cannot practise it. This short book contains two essays. The first, Shinto for Non-Japanese, discusses the attitudes of most Shinto priests and practitioners to non-Japanese who practise Shinto (generally positive), and a fairly general discussion of how one might go about doing it. The second, Practising Shinto Outside Japan, is a set of detailed instructions for one way that a non-Japanese person could practise Shinto outside Japan, and be clearly practising Shinto rather than something else. Note that this book is a compilation of two essays, one 7,000 words long and one 6,000 words long, and is thus very short.