Others have written of Booth's excellent prose and attention to detail. The people he meets, their conversations, the endless roads and paths his blistered feet take him, are all genuine and revealing. For travelogue, this is nearly ideal.

Too, Booth's premises for each of his trips are fascinating choices: following a summer path of author Osamu Dazai, tracing the retreat of the last Samurai, etc. This is not tourist writing, and the gaijin Booth--fluent in language and custom or not--is not always warmly welcomed in space unused to foreign drop-ins. Frequently I wondered at his choices and mistakes along the way (for instance, trusting the directions of disagreeing school children), but I can honestly say I have made equally inconceivable errors in my own travels. He's honest as we might expect about events.

Still, the read felt a bit long to me, and this is perhaps because I found not every detail or moment compelling or noteworthy (perhaps some editing) and perhaps because I am unused to travelogue as a genre. I do not seek the escapist substitute for travel that many readers want. Far better for me to know how Booth thinks/reflects on what he encounters than on how many ryokans he must visit before finding a room for the night. Booth leans on this latter type of detail and leaves us to make sense of much of the rest. 

In the end, though, I got what I came for and more: some real experiences in rural Japan (what I missed in my own trip there) and some discoveries of its history that we seldom find elsewhere.