READERSVOICE.COM aims to give a few samples from secondhand books. The best place to find books like these is at charity bookstores and op shops. These places are a gold mine for book lovers, because of the random aspect of the books available. The books are sometimes very good, very rare and very cheap. This issue features a selection of fascinating books on Japanese culture. The first book featured included a few supernatural tales.

A common spirit story in Japan comes under the heading The Ghost that Cared for a Child:

The wife of a certain farmer at Hashira-Mura, who was in her last month of pregnancy, died of a sudden illness. On the forty-ninth night after her death, the forty-nine rice cakes that had been offered before the tablet of the deceased in the temple disappeared. People grew suspicious and examined the graveyard, finding a big hole dug beside a new grave. The relatives talked over the matter and decided to open the tomb in the presence of the village officials. When they dug up the coffin and opened it, they saw that the corpse looked as if death had just occurred. Still more strange to say, it embraced a baby in the sleeves of its shroud, and the baby had grown fat and was licking a piece of rice cake which he was holding in his hands. All the people were astounded at the sight. The child had been born alive in the coffin after the funeral ceremony had been performed…

-see Folk Legends of Japan by Richard M. Dorson, Published by Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1982.