Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa, Karin Muller (nonfiction)

Focus. Harmony. Wa. I wasn't even sure exactly what wa was, but I wanted some.

A decade of Judo practice, service in the Peace Corps, an engagement followed by disengagement, and a dream job as a filmmaker with National Geographic — none of this gave Karin Muller a ready answer to a birthday taunt from her brother: Still looking for the meaning of life?

Anyone who has fallen in love with the Japan of perfectly raked rock gardens and Zen-like equanimity will understand Muller's quest. But since almost everyone has written about it, I resisted reading yet another memoir. Until my Japanese tutor's husband, a man who has experienced his own share of 'lost in translation' moments, assured me it was worth it.

Japanland — despite its often hilarious moments — proved to be a painful read. Dissonant, focused on the wrong things, Muller’s search for harmony often revealed a shocking lack of awareness and consideration of others that was all too reflective of my own clumsy efforts over the years. But Muller gained entree into corners of contemporary and ancient Japan rarely experienced by non-Japanese (or for that matter, by many Japanese).

Over the course of a year, she learned firsthand about sword-making and sumo, the life of a 60-year-old geisha and Kobo Daishi's pilgrimage to 88 temples in search of enlightenment, just to name a few examples.

At the end of her journey she finds herself at a local Judo club with a handful of students half her age and a sensei many years her senior. There she is thrown. And thrown. And thrown again.

Japanland is about being thrown and getting up: a funny, painful, honest foray into what it is like to lose — and find — yourself in another culture.

29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life, Cami Walker (nonfiction)

Cami Walker was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a month after her marriage. Understandably devastated, within the first two years of diagnosis she was sinking into a psychological abyss as the disease changed how she saw herself and what she was able to do. At her lowest point, a friend -- a medicine woman and spiritual adviser named Mbali -- suggested she give 29 gifts over 29 days.

This book about giving was a gift from my sister, so it is fitting that I begin my year of reading women with it. As I followed Cami Walker on her journey -- how she came to it reluctantly, how it transformed her days so she looked beyond her losses to others and discovered what she had to offer -- I admired her fortitude and her struggle to be open to the small blessings of life. It is a cautionary tale on the transience of life, but I found myself wanting less memoir and more reflection on giving. Nonetheless as her website and many television appearances attest, many have been inspired to give more of him or herself as a result. And that's a gift.