MT,

Two books with good introductions to Japanese Gardens and pruning methods are "Creating Japanese Gardens", Ortho Books, ISBN 0-89721-148-0, and the similar Sunset book on Japanese gardens, whose title and bibliographic info I don't have handy.

More-in depth is "A Japanese Touch for Your Garden" by K. Seike, M. Kudoh, and David Engel; publ. by Kodansha, ISBN 4-7700-1661-1. (They're being modest, it's not just a "touch.")

The Smith and Hawken book "Pruning" has been recommended for overall principles of pruning (not solely Japanese-garden-style).

The Journal of Japanese Gardening (there's a link at www.jgarden.org) is the most detailed and specific source I know of for Japanese-style pruning, with the possible exception of:

Searching this forum for "pruning" or "pruning pine."

Hope this helps,

- Evelyn