Visibly Lost: Selected Personal Essays

Visibly Lost is a collection of personal essays by writer and photographer David R Munson, drawn primarily from a year-long writing challenge in which he published two new essays every week on his blog, Somewhere in Japan. Most are short, intimate dispatches written close to the moment, and all carry some connection to life in Japan, where Munson has lived for over a decade.

The essays range widely in subject and mood: the pleasures and philosophy of aimless wandering, the textures of daily life in and around Tokyo, the quiet strangeness of earthquakes and convenience stores and trees that have been pruned into stumps, the difficulty of feeling at home anywhere, and the slow work of learning to be honest with yourself. Taken together, they form a portrait of a particular kind of life, observant and unhurried, and genuinely fond of getting lost.

Munson writes with an understated warmth and a photographer’s eye for the specific detail. These are essays that trust small things to carry real significance, and that find in the ordinary surfaces of daily life something worth looking at carefully.