Thirty essays tell the author's story of life in the mountains of the Kii Peninsula of Japan. From Jean Haskell's Foreword: “What struck me first about these accounts is how similar the industries of charcoal production, logging, and reforestation in Japan are to coal production, logging, and reforestation in Appalachia. Like coal, charcoal production was a boom-or-bust line of work ... Ue-san's descriptions of life in logging camps—moving logs on sleds, and rafting logs down river—will ring familiar to those who know the history of logging in Appalachia. His attitudes about the wanton cutting of virgin forests, rampant logging that leads to floods and erosion, the replanting of pulp wood forests to replace hard-woods, and the resulting change in mountain scenery in the last twenty to thirty years is a litany frequently voiced in Appalachia. He attributes many of the current problems in the mountains to the absentee ownership of land.”