Product Description: Offering an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural examination of East Asian culture, these essays include readings of film, television and visual and literary texts which reflect the historical condition as well as the impulses driving East Asian culture today.

Product Description: Offering an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural examination of East Asian culture, these essays include readings of film, television and visual and literary texts which reflect the historical condition as well as the impulses driving East Asian culture today.

A comprehensive resource for the beer lover profiles the new breed of craft beers and the breweries that produce them, giving histories of the beers, different types of ratings, and details about the taste of each one. 20,000 first printing.

Product Description: The Beer Renaissance is in full swing, and home brewing has never been more popular. According to the American Homebrewers Association, there are currently 1.2 million home brewers in the country, and their numbers keep rising. Tired of the stale ale, bland beer and lackadaisical lagers mass-produced by the commercial labels, Americans are discovering the many advantages of brewing their own batch of that beloved beverage: superior aroma, color, body and flavor...read more

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After spending sixteen years in prison for the murder of his wife, Shiro Kikutani adjusts to his freedom and the intensity of life in Tokyo while living with the memory of his crime. Reader's Guide included. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

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Product Description: Recognized as a master of Italian cinema, Vittorio De Sica is perhaps best known and most respected for his critically acclaimed neorealist films of the period 1946-55. As this anthology reveals, however, his production was remarkably multifaceted...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Inspired by a real-life murder of a fourteen-year-old boy, this startling novel set in the underbelly of Japan focuses on a disenfranchised Japanese teenager and his violent inclinations. Reprint.

After strangling her husband, Masako Katori, a middle-aged wife and mother working the night shift at a Tokyo factory, enlists the aid of four co-workers to conceal the crime.

Product Description: Your credit scores are the most vital tools you have to unlock your financial power. Having lower credit scores means that you will pay higher interest rates for your car loan, home mortgage, and credit cards. Low credit scores could cause you to be turned down for credit, be denied insurance, or in some states even be charged more for your utilities...read more

Product Description: Childhood Autism provides clinicians with a comprehensive guide for working with autistic children and their families. It offers practical assistance with early diagnosis, cutting edge treatment options and goals, interdisciplinary insights, and available resources...read more

A trio of novellas from the Akutagawa Prize-winning author explores the mysteries of love, motherhood, fertility, obsession, innocence, and cruelty, in the stories of a lonely teenage girl who falls in love with her foster brother, a young woman who records her pregnant sister's daily moods in a journal, and a woman who revisits her old college dormitory outside of Tokyo. Original. 30,000 first printing.

Product Description: Green living begins at home, and New Green Home Solutions tells you how. Most of the energy-derived pollution we produce comes as a direct result of our homes - how we heat them, how we cool them, how we keep them well-lit and full of things that make our lives so comfortable...read more

Product Description: Authors Dave Bonta and Stephen Snyder of USA Solar Stores illustrate exceptional homes that are groundbreaking not only in their use of renewable energy but also in their commitment to recycling and repurposing materials used in construction and reducing the impact on the surrounding environment through sensitive building methods...read more

Product Description: Historian David Marcus spent his entire life studying one single day. In 2010, the prime minister of Israel was assassinated in what was dubbed the ""Longest Day in History."" The events that followed were linear, ominous and unstoppable as the nuclear weapons were launched...read more

Originally published in 1918, Rivalry is regarded as the masterpiece of Nagai Kafu, a Japanese novelist known for his brilliant renderings of Tokyo in the early years of modern Japan. Stephen Snyder offers the first English translation of the complete, uncensored text, which has long been celebrated as one of the most convincing and sensually rich portraits of the geisha profession. Rivalry tells a sweeping story in which sexual politics compete with sisterly affection in a world ruled by material transaction. Komayo is a former geisha who, upon the death of her husband, must return to the "world of flower and willow" to escape poverty. A chance encounter with an old patron, Yoshioka, leads to a relationship in which both lovers hope to profit: Yoshioka believes Komayo can restore his lost innocence; Komayo plans to use Yoshioka's patronage to compete in the elaborate music and dance performances staged by her fellow geisha. Yoshioka is eager to ransom Komayo, but as she considers his offer, Komayo falls in love with Segawa, a young actor who promises to turn the talented geisha into the finest dancer in the Shimbashi quarter. Though her feelings for Segawa are genuine, Komayo is eager to use her lover's position to become the lead performer among her peers. Her ambition even tempts her to take on a third patron known only as the "Sea Monster," a repellent but wealthy antiques dealer whose deep pockets promise to shoot Komayo to the height of celebrity. Though she finds herself at the pinnacle of a glittering career, Komayo nevertheless becomes the target of a bitter rivalry between her three lovers that leaves her both thrilled and exhausted, both brutalized and redeemed. Kafu's compelling tale takes readers from the intimate corners of the geisha house to the back rooms of assignation, from the dressing areas of the great kabuki theaters to the lonely country villa of a theater critic and connoisseur of Shimbashi women. His lush depictions of architecture and costumes and his incisive descriptions of urban life and individual motive provide a vivid backdrop for Komayo's struggle-one woman's absorbing quest to find fame, affection, and financial security in the refined but ruthless theater of Shimbashi. (10/1/07)