Hello, I am crapping out on this one, and I know I have some lurking librarians here, so….Help me Obi-Bun!
Sweet, I got to use that terrible joke twice in one week.
Anyway, I am looking for pregnancy books written in Japanese that are available online or here in the U.S. They would be for a native speaker. I’m looking for anything good, and translations of popular English books are fine. Anything except What to Expect When You’re Expecting, aka “The Evil Book of Fears.” I have crapped out at SPL, Amazon, and Powell’s.
Hospital-focused birth is fine. The recipient is not a spawn-while-you’re-scrambling-eggs type like me.
Thanks, if anyone’s got anything. Email’s whatever at this domain if you don’t want to comment.
Interesting question. I should be doing other things, but I took a quick poke around. If I were looking for that for myself, I’d probably buy it from amazon.jp and try my best to translate every little word into English that I could. They do have a “search in English” feature…
http://global.yesasia.com/en/brPrdDept.aspx/code-j/section-index/did-9844/
This looks right…not being able to read Japanese I am looking at the pictures!
It does look right. I will have to ask some people about that link. I found that website but didn’t go much deeper. What’s hard to find is a page in English that says “here’s Japanese books on the subject.”
Thanks!
Thanks Glover–I see my spam filter caught you up but I have the URL you provided on the back end.
G. Lover’s onto something good. I found one record in the SPL catalog in Japanese with both Pregnancy and Childbirth as LCSH. Its ISBN is 4828862005, in case you want to easily look it up. King County PL seems to have two; try ISBN 4072148997 for one. The other’s from 1984. Good luck!
Also, I tried Open Worldcat: http://www.worldcat.org/. They had many results that I can’t read. Also also, Uwajimaya Village has a bookstore called Kinokuniya. They probably have some good ideas.
Have you tried Amazon’s Japanese site? http://www.amazon.jp. There’s a button on the toolbar to translate.
The first book is a mother/baby Pilates book. The 5th book (pink cover) and the 10th book on the list (green cover) both seem to be straightforward first pregnancy and childbirth guides. The one called “Hot Mama: I am an expectant (or nursing) mother. Some hot information of a cool mother” might be like “The Girlfriends’ Guide to Pregnancy” by Vicki Iovine, or not.
I think I’m going to hit the ‘Waj this weekend.
I was also going to suggest Amazon.co.jp, but when I did a quick search there, most of the books were actually in English. I checked all my regular sources (Powell’s, ABE, Alibris, Addall), and they all came up with nothing. Sad.
There’s a little book shop in Ballard called Epilogue Books; they might be able to help. I stop in there whenever I’m visiting Seattle for work because they have a lot of really strange stuff, and the owner is sometimes able to track down books to meet odd requests.
Enjoy the ‘Waj and get some Men’s Pocky while you’re at it.
I got links from the ‘pedia:
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A6%8A%E5%A8%A0
(scroll all the way down to the last section at the bottom)
which is pretty obvious, but! the sites referenced might in turn have references. If you read Japanese. At a first blush I found this:
http://www.babycom.gr.jp/book/amazon-b.html
which looks about right.
Here’s the webpage for a book written for Japanese women giving birth abroad. It’s available from Sasuga Books. Hope it helps: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.sasugabooks.com/&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%252B%2522japanese%2Bbooks%2522%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D Cheers!
Thanks everyone, if you don’t see your comment right away, it’s because the URL is putting it in the “holding pen” for approval.
Cinzi, that sounds really cool.
Can’t help you find any, but I used to own some – my cousin’s ma is an OB nurse in Japan.
I loved them, really unexpected illustrations and advice. e.g. it is traditionally thought to be unsafe to bathe for a couple WEEKS after birth. So the nurses sneak the new moms into the shower after visiting hours! Nobody needs to be that funky!