Topics include: making the right decisions; how to enhance work; and managing a meaningful business. It aims to identify key principles for business success.

    This clearly written history explains how a country embedded in the traditions of Shinto, Shoguns and Samurai has achieved stupendous economic growth and dominance in this century.

    When he is persecuted by angry fans for being a dirty player, Reggie is forced to confront his own guilt and decide whether he can continue to play his senior season and beyond.

    It also involves a Japanese society that’s been called one of the most distinctive on Earth. If there were a Japanese version of Captain America, this would be his origin story.

    "Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, I swear I will find you again," he promised, and Yoko never stopped believing he would return. Her ten-year-old daughter Soko, born out of this brief passionate affair that marked her mother for ever, has had her life shaped by Yoko's constant yearning, as the desperate search for the elusive man of her dreams means moving house more times than either of them can remember. The two travel through life on what Yoko calls "God's boat," moving from town to town, and for Soko from school to school, just as the narrative too shifts between the perspectives of the daughter and her mother, tracing them through the years as little by little the story of Yoko's past emerges, and Soko tries to somehow build herself a future.This haunting and sensitive novel combines the everyday patterns of the lives of mother and daughter, their rituals, their conversations, while always beyond these ordinary daily events lies what is hidden by Yoko's seemingly unshakeable certainty: the spectre of madness and the indescribable pain of loss, so inextricably linked to the dazzling joy that only love can bring.

    Their search for Answers takes them to Japan where M. Bison, using his minions including Cammy, Vega, and Sagat, keeps a close eye on Ryu for reasons unknowns. This draws the attention of Hong Kong Interpol agent Chun-Li and US Special Ops officer Guile who each bear their own personal grudge against the evil Shadaloo syndicate.This volume collects the main stories in the first six issues of the hit Street Fighter comic book series and well as the rare, hard-to-find issue #0.

    In Japan, one goes there to cleanse the soul. Bathing in Japan is about much more than cleanliness: it is about family and community. It is about being alone and contemplative, time to watch the moon rise above the garden.Along with sixty full-color illustrations of the light and airy baths themselves, The Japanese Bath, delves into the aesthetic of bathing Japanese style and the innate beauty of the steps surrounding the process. The authors explain how to create a Japanese bath in your own home. A Zen meditation, the Japanese bath, indeed, cleanses the soul, and one emerges refreshed, renewed, and serene.

    Published only recently, it set sales records in the millions of copies and soon crossed over to other media as well--first as a radio and TV drama, then as a blockbuster movie. The popularity of the novel has spread across Asia as well, with hugely successful translations into Korean and Chinese. In the West, readers may be reminded of The Bridges of Madison County, another best-selling novel of blazing midlife passion--one with a very different outcome.Here the lovers are Kuki, a 54-year-old employee in a publishing company, and Rinko, a childless, 37-year-old woman unhappily married to a cold fish of a husband, a professor of medicine. Stuck in a dead-end job and an uneventful marriage, Kuki is irresistibly drawn to Rinko from their first encounter, seeing through her demure demeanor to the passionate woman beneath. She returns his feelings with ever-increasing abandon, despite lingering fears about where her sexual awakening may lead her. In the end, both are prepared to risk all for their relationship: family, career, and social standing, even life itself.The story contrasts the lovers' defiantly freewheeling passion--described in imaginative, smoldering detail--with a rigid society where people are expected to play a prescribed role, whether as dutiful wife or compliant office worker. In escaping these conventional roles, the lovers often escape the city as well, immersing themselves in the traditional beauties of Japanese nature and art as they give themselves over to each other and the pleasure of the moment. And ultimately they make a much more radical escape: one that will ensure that they are left in peace, to enjoy an abiding love.Perhaps not all the choices they make will seem reasonable, or even understandable, to Western readers. But their story, with elements as modern as yesterday's headlines and as timeless as the tug between love and death, opens a window into the secrets of the Japanese soul.

    Let me tell you a story. An old story, a really old story. Do you know how to play go? You do? First kyu, a player of the first rank? Really? Have you ever competed in a professional qualifying tournament? No? Then you are not, I repeat NOT first kyu! I know, I know. Nowadays all kinds of bad players call themselves first kyu. This story is, however, not about those fake first kyus. It's a story of the real first kyus. There is a guy who runs a smoke shop near Niagara Falls. His name is Shin. On rainy days he keeps staring at the falls and mumbles something like this: "I'm sure they must all be playing for bangneki stakes happily somewhere..." Can you even guess what he is talking about? If not, just hold on and listen to what I'm going to tell you. Only about a handful of people know this story. So listen up." Thus begins a compelling, insightful, and haunting tale of love, sacrifice, the search for excellence, and Go- the world's oldest game. About The AuthorBorn in Seoul, Korea in 1950, Sung-Hwa Hong graduated from the famed Kyunggi High School, and after serving in the Korean army for three years, immigrated to Vancouver in 1974. He then, in 1981, graduated from the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of British Columbia. Winning the Canadian Go Championship twice, he participated in the World Amateur Go Championship in Japan as the Canadian representative in 1989 and 1995. Married with two children, he practiced family dentistry in Vancouver until his death in 2001. Shortly before he passed away, Dr. Hong made a few small changes to the text for the second printing.

    While haiku most often depicts the natural world, when focused on the elements of love and sensuality, haiku can be a powerful vehicle for evoking the universal experience of love. In this elegant anthology, love is explored through beautiful images that evoke a range of feelings—from the longing of a lover to the passion of a romantic relationship. Written by contemporary Japanese poets as well as by haiku masters such as Basho, Buson, and Issa, these poems share not only the haiku poets’ vision for love, but their vision of the poignant moments that express it.

    The year is 1986, and the strange communal life of this foursome, extending over half a year, from the end of winter to midsummer, makes up the plot,such as it is, of Plainsong, as this ersatz family finds itself growing closer, and lifecontinues—quietly—around them. Part of the generation that grew to prominence following the success of baby boomers like Haruki Murakami, KazushiHosaka’s work chronicles the small moments, the moments without conflict,that most novels work to elide. His characters talk, work, exist; their story is onewhere the tiniest occurrence takes on the proportions of a grand drama.

    

    Many of the ideas in this were carried over into the full series, but there are some interesting differences.

    Snowboard tracks leading away from the trap are the only clue as to who might be responsible. Keegan teaches himself to snowboard so he can find the culprit on the snowboarding slopes. When Keegan discovers that someone has been stealing snowboards and skis at Bear Mountain resort, and the girl he's just met is somehow involved, he must face his fears and test his new snowboarding skills in a run for safety.