Longtime skateboard artist Sean Cliver put together this staggering survey of over 1,000 skateboard graphics from the last 30 years, creating an indispensable insiders' history as he did so.Alongside his own history, Sean has assembled a wealth of recollections and stories from prominent artists and skateboarders such as: Andy Howell, Barry McGee, Ed Templeton, Steve Caballero, and Tony Hawk.The end result is a fascinating historical account of art in the skateboard subculture, as told by those directly involved with shaping its legendary creative face.

    At nineteen, Jake Adelstein went to Japan in search of peace and tranquility. What he got was a life of crime . . . crime reporting, that is, at the prestigious Yomiuri Shinbun. For twelve years of eighty-hour workweeks, he covered the seedy side of Japan, where extortion, murder, human trafficking, and corruption are as familiar as ramen noodles and sake. But when his final scoop brought him face to face with Japan’s most infamous yakuza boss—and the threat of death for him and his family—Adelstein decided to step down . . . momentarily. Then, he fought back.In Tokyo Vice, Adelstein tells the riveting, often humorous tale of his journey from an inexperienced cub reporter—who made rookie mistakes like getting into a martial-arts battle with a senior editor—to a daring, investigative journalist with a price on his head. With its vivid, visceral descriptions of crime in Japan and an exploration of the world of modern-day yakuza that even few Japanese ever see, Tokyo Vice is a fascination, and an education, from first to last.

    Nobody knows who created donuts. Or where. Or when. Neptune's core is covered in plastic. "Eleven plus two" is an anagram of "twelve plus one." Five of George Foreman's children are called George Foreman. One of the designers of Barbie used to build missiles. There's a flower that looks like Darth Vader's helmet. Bob Dylan won a Nobel Prize in 2016. There's an Egyptian professor who believes that the pyramids were built by dinosaurs. Abracadabra means "I create as I speak." Tulips used to be worth $1,250 each. There's a group of people who firmly believe that Finland isn't real. Queen Elizabeth I invented gingerbread men.

    Norman Baker said that about his autobiography. Why? He was a jackass. In the pages of this book meet 20 losers, killers, confidence tricksters, and incompetents - the Jackasses of History. For adult readers.

    The spellbinding world of Hiromi Kawakami; the hair-raising horror of Otsuichi; the haunting, poignant prose of Banana Yoshimoto; even the poetic word-play of Yoko Tawada whatever a readers taste, he or she is sure to find something of interest and value in this book, suitable for students at the intermediate level and above. As in real Japanese novels, the text on each page runs from top to bottom and from right to left. Each double-page spread features translations of all the difficult passages. In the back of the book, moreover, is a built-in Japanese-English learners dictionary and a notes section covering issues of nuance, usage, grammar and culture that come up in each story. Best of all, the books comes with a free audio CD containing narrations of the stories, performed by a professional voice actress.

    973 c. 1020), author of The Tale of Genji, is an intimate picture of her life as tutor and companion to the young Empress Shoshi. Told in a series of vignettes, it offers revealing glimpses of the Japanese imperial palace the auspicious birth of a prince, rivalries between the Emperor's consorts, with sharp criticism of Murasaki's fellow ladies-in-waiting and drunken courtiers, and telling remarks about the timid Empress and her powerful father, Michinaga. The Diary is also a work of great subtlety and intense personal reflection, as Murasaki makes penetrating insights into human psychology her pragmatic observations always balanced by an exquisite and pensive melancholy.In his illuminating introduction, Richard Bowing discusses what is known of Murasaki's life, and the religion, ceremonies, costumes, architecture and politics of her time, to explain the cultural background to her vivid evocation of court life. This edition also includes an explanation of Japanese names and dates, appendices and updated further reading.Translated and introduced by RICHARD BOWRING

    Even better, turned out it uses easy-to-find ingredients, and she couldn't believe how simple the techniques are for food this delicious. This terrific cookbook showcases 70 of Amy's favorite recipes, includingTonkatsu (crispy pork cutlets in a tangy sauce) and Onigiri (cute little rice balls stuffed with salmon). A glossary describes the more unusual ingredients and a source list makes it a snap to find and use Japanese specialties such as daikon, miso, and wasabi. It's tasty, it's practical, it's a wow with family and friendsso Let's Cook Japanese Food!

    This widely used undergraduate text is now available in a new edition. Thoroughly updated, the fourth edition includes expanded sections on numerous topics, among which are samurai values, Zen Buddhism, the tea ceremony, Confucianism in the Tokugawa period, the story of the forty-seven ronin, Mito scholarship in the early nineteenth century, and mass culture and comics in contemporary times.

    Which words of French unlock a warm welcome? What should you expect in hotels? Taxis? In cafe restrooms? What is the code for getting great customer service? What is all the fuss about food and French restaurants? Do you know how to charm French waiters? How do you entertain business contacts, intrigue French women and French men?

    The images were taken when Banksy joined Bristol's radical football team The Easton Cowboys on a tour of Mexico to play football against the Zapatista freedom fighters. The new edition also contains sections on the Banksy vs Bristol Museum show, Exit Through The Gift Shop, The Tesco Value Petrol Bomb, an interview with John Nation and more. The book is a celebration of Banksy's street art in his home city of Bristol and places him in the context of 3D, John Nation from the Barton Hill Youth Club, Inkie, Nick Walker and the other artists and musicians who were instrumental in linking Bristol to the original New York hip-hop scene. It is the most revealing account of Banksy's formative years and contains more than one hundred images of his Bristol art, as well as pictures of Banksy at work, many of which have never been published before. Steve Wright, traces Banksy's roots back to the rave culture of the Nineties and draws a rounded picture of an artist who is most famous for being anonymous.

    Memories and dreams in turn conjure their magical counterparts—people without names or pasts, fantastic animals, half-animals, and talking machines that traverse the dark psychic underworld of this writer’s extraordinary fiction.Fervently acclaimed worldwide, Murakami’s wildly imaginative work in many ways remains a mystery, its worlds within worlds uncharted territory. Finally in this book readers will find a map to the strange realm that grounds virtually every aspect of Murakami’s writing. A journey through the enigmatic and baffling innermost mind, a metaphysical dimension where Murakami’s most bizarre scenes and characters lurk, The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami exposes the psychological and mythological underpinnings of this other world. Matthew Carl Strecher shows how these considerations color Murakami’s depictions of the individual and collective soul, which constantly shift between the tangible and intangible but in this literary landscape are undeniably real.Through these otherworldly depths The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami also charts the writer’s vivid “inner world,” whether unconscious or underworld (what some Japanese critics call achiragawa, or “over there”), and its connectivity to language. Strecher covers all of Murakami’s work—including his efforts as a literary journalist—and concludes with the first full-length close reading of the writer’s newest novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

    Together, they made a list of subjects. As Misha talked, Sheila typed. He talked about games, relationships, cities, negotiation, improvisation, Casablanca, conferences, and making friends. His subjects ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. But sometimes what had seemed trivial began to seem important—and what had seemed important began to seem less so.The Chairs Are Where the People Go is refreshing, appealing, and kind of profound. It's a self-help book for people who don't feel they need help, and a how-to book that urges you to do things you don't really need to do.

    Whether investigating the asterisk (*) and dagger (†)--which alternately illuminated and skewered heretical verses of the early Bible--or the at sign (@), which languished in obscurity for centuries until rescued by the Internet, Keith Houston draws on myriad sources to chart the life and times of these enigmatic squiggles, both exotic (¶) and everyday (&).From the Library of Alexandria to the halls of Bell Labs, figures as diverse as Charlemagne, Vladimir Nabokov, and George W. Bush cross paths with marks as obscure as the interrobang (‽) and as divisive as the dash (--). Ancient Roman graffiti, Venetian trading shorthand, Cold War double agents, and Madison Avenue round out an ever more diverse set of episodes, characters, and artifacts.Richly illustrated, ranging across time, typographies, and countries, Shady Characters will delight and entertain all who cherish the unpredictable and surprising in the writing life.

    The latest in the best-selling Isms series, which includes Isms: Understanding Art, Isms: Understanding Architectural Styles and Isms: Understanding Religion, is Isms: Understanding Fashion. Concisely written, this book packs loads of detail into a handy small format, tracing the evolution of costume history and fashion through a series of interconnected trends and movements (a.k.a. "isms") from the Greco-Roman toga and the antebellum hoop skirt to the latest from the runway. This guide is organized chronologically and covers the evolution of costume, the beginning of haute couture, and the rise of fashion as we know it— documented throughout with a combination of line drawings, costume illustration, and fashion photography. It includes an overview of designers from the classic—Coco Chanel, Dior—to the contemporary design greats, such as Tom Ford and Marc Jacobs. While the book traces the influences and links between designers, it also includes patrons, from Marie-Antoinette to Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana, as well as fashion muses from Sarah Bernhardt to Sarah Jessica Parker. Related topics such as accessories and accoutrements are included as well. Anyone interested in costume and fashion will delight in this book.

    Then a catastrophic 1990 stock-market crash ushered in what the Japanese call their "lost decades." The end of the boom times should have plunged Japan into irrelevance. But in Pure Invention, Matt Alt argues that's precisely when things got interesting--when once again, Japan got to the future a little ahead of the rest of us.Japan made itself rich after the Second World War by selling the world what it needed, in the form of better cars, appliances, and microprocessors. But it conquered hearts through wildly creative pop culture that responded to modern life in new ways. As social compacts and safety nets evaporated, in rushed a revolution of geeky gadgets, gizmos, and flights of fancy. Hello Kitty, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and illustrated entertainment empires like Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z were more than marketing hits. They transformed Japan into the world's forge of fantasies, and they transformed us as we consumed them: karaoke making everyone a star, emoji rewriting the rules of human communication, virtual game-worlds offering escapes from reality and new perspectives on it.By turns a nostalgia trip and a secret history, Pure Invention is the story of an indelible group of Japanese craftsmen, artists, businesspeople, geniuses, and oddballs. It is also an unsung chapter of globalization, in which Japanese dreams formed a new blueprint for global pop culture--and may have created the modern world as we know it.