Basho: The Complete Haiku (Kodansha) collects (apparently for the first time under one cover) all of the haiku written by Matsuo Basho, the revered Zen poet of 17th century Japan. The Penguin edition of Basho’s travel sketches (The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches) has long been a favorite of mine, and this volume makes a wonderful companion piece. Translator Jane Reichhold makes no attempt to wrench the English version of these haiku into the standard 5–7–5 syllable pattern (thankfully, in my opinion), and there will undoubtedly be nit-pickers who debate the merits of her translation, but certainly Basho: The Complete Haiku must be said to be the definitive English-language edition of this work. Reichhold spent ten years on the project of translating and annotating all 1012 haiku, and all those who aspire to fame and glory (if not fortune) through Geist’s irregular “Haiku Night in Canada” could do far worse than to study this book.