Tokyo Commute : Japanese Customs and Way of Life Viewed from the Odakyu Line Paperback / softback

A unique take on modern life in Japan's capital city.

A Japan of trains, every day to and fro, carriage scenes and theatre, vistas from the window, advertising posters.

Each to be savoured through a specific Tokyo line - the Odakyu.

Pitched as creative text and line-graphics, Tokyo Commute: Japanese Customs and Way of Life Viewed from the Odakyu Line offers on-track and off-track observations.

A gallery of mirrors, musings, memories. This is less documentary than iconography, a poetics of Japanese routine and etiquette.

It offers a wry diary of month-and-weekday observations, a 'map' of Shinjuku as key station and gathering-place, a run of notable Tokyo locations - from the National bunraku theatre to a Kawasaki sludge recycling centre.

Other Odakyu travel involves the Hakone open air art gallery, Narita as both airport and temple complex, Yokohama as history and Chinatown.

Essential reading for first-time, and second-time visitors, and even regular commuters.