Super Sushi Ramen Express: One Family’s Journey Through the Belly of Japan

In this entertaining read, Booth, the Copenhagen correspondent for Monocle magazine, makes it delectably clear that Japanese food is a whole lot more than sushi. Informed by a Japanese colleague that he has never tasted real Japanese food, Booth sets forth with his family to eat his way through the Land of the Rising Sun. With only three months to digest an ancient tradition, Booth heroically chows down from Hokkaido to Okinawa. Crowning his pilgrimage is a final supper at an exclusive restaurant that embodies the subtle dining pleasures and philosophies of a cuisine shaped by scarcity, seasonal change, and the fruits of the sea. As a narrator, Booth is both genial and informed, deploying his two sons as comic foils while he performs his “innocent abroad” character with aplomb. There’s more to Booth than meets the eye, and his access to Japanese celebrities makes him an unlikely everyman; at times, this persona comes across as a shtick. But Booth redeems even the most pro forma moments with smooth prose, assiduous research, and tireless fieldwork. A chapter on diet and aging seems misplaced. Otherwise, Booth’s immersion in a remarkable cuisine is both engaging and convincing. Agent: George Lucas, InkWell. (Sept.)