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Showing 1 - 20 of 8716 items
By Chris Broad. 2023
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER'Chris Broad explores Japan in all its quirky glory..Endlessly fascinating!'Will Ferguson, author of Hokkaido Highway Blues'Carves a…
unique path across Japan bringing him into contact with far too many cats, heartening renewal in Tohoku, and even pizza with Ken Watanabe.'Iain Maloney, author of The Only Gaijin in the Village'Fascinating, fact-packed and very funny..An excellent and enjoyable read for the Japan-curious. I loved it and learned a lot.'Sam Baldwin, author of For Fukui's Sake: Two years in rural JapanWhen Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan he wondered if he'd made a huge mistake. With no knowledge of the language and zero teaching experience, was he about to be the most quickly fired English teacher in Japan's history?Abroad in Japan charts a decade of living in a foreign land and the chaos and culture clash that came with it. Packed with hilarious and fascinating stories, this book seeks out to unravel one the world's most complex cultures.Spanning ten years and all forty-seven prefectures, Chris takes us from the lush rice fields of the countryside to the frenetic neon-lit streets of Tokyo. With blockbuster moments such as a terrifying North Korean missile incident, a mortifying experience at a love hotel and a week spent with Japan's biggest movie star, Abroad in Japan is an extraordinary and informative journey through the Land of the Rising Sun.Number one Sunday Times bestseller, August 2023By Narine Nikogosian. 2009
Return to Beauty offers regimens made from fresh ingredients that can be found right in your kitchen. With recipes for…
winter, spring, summer, and fall, you can look beautiful throughout the year. Narine Nikogosian's natural and inexpensive products can be whipped up in less than ten minutes. Have a jar of honey in your pantry? Mix it with a few crushed walnuts to create a sensual, aromatic scrub for oily skin. Use dabs of cottage cheese to lighten undereye circles, or almond oil to rehydrate cracked lips. Narine also provides recipes based on astrological signs, such as for Scorpio, a Gracious Grapefruit Mask made of grapefruit, egg yolk, and soothing honey to rejuvenate your skin even after a late night. Narine is from a long line of Armenian women who have been harnessing the powers of nature to create everlasting beauty. For the first time, she reveals her secrets so that you can have star-worthy skin.By Ken Wells. 2004
Do beer yeast rustlers really exist? Who patented the Beer Goddess? How can you tell a Beer Geek from a…
Beer Nazi? Where exactly is Beervana? Does Big Beer hate Little Beer? Ken Wells, a novelist, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and longtime Wall Street Journal writer, answers these questions and more by bringing a keen eye and prodigious reportage to the people and passions that have propelled beer into America's favorite alcoholic beverage and the beer industry into a $75 billion commercial juggernaut, not to mention a potent force in American culture. Travels with Barley is a lively, literate tour through the precincts of the beer makers, sellers, drinkers, and thinkers who collectively drive the mighty River of Beer onward. The heart of the book is a journey along the Mississippi River, from Minnesota to Louisiana, in a quixotic search for the Perfect Beer Joint -- a journey that turns out to be the perfect pretext for viewing America through the prism of a beer glass. Along the river, you'll visit the beer bar once owned by the brewer Al Capone, glide by The World's Largest Six Pack, and check into Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel to plumb the surprisingly controversial question of whether Elvis actually drank beer. But the trip also includes numerous detours up quirky tributaries, among them: a visit to an Extreme Beer maker in Delaware with ambitions to make 50-proof brew, a look at the murky world of beer yeast rustlers in California, and a journey to the portals of ultimate beer power at the Anheuser-Busch plant in St. Louis, where making the grade as a Clydesdale draft horse is harder than you might imagine. Entertaining, enlightening, and written with Wells's trademark verve, Travels with Barley is a perfect gift -- not just for America's 84 million beer enthusiasts, but for all discerning readers of flavorful nonfiction.By June Ambrose, Richard Buskin. 2006
So you probably won't be attending your own movie premiere or collecting a Grammy Award this year. That doesn't mean…
you can't look like you're ready for the red carpet and fawning paparazzi. In Effortless Style, June Ambrose, the celebrity fashion stylist and designer who's shaped the looks of some of the biggest names in entertainment -- including Jay-Z, Missy Elliott, Kelly Ripa, and Mariah Carey -- reveals the industry secrets that can help anyone exude genuine star power, regardless of body type or budget. The key to looking and feeling like a celebrity lies in defining your own unique style and adapting it to each situation. The result is a look as natural as a second skin. In clear step-by-step instructions, Ambrose shows how people can improve the way they present themselves to the world, whether it's for a first date or an important meeting, and in turn boost their overall mood and self-confidence. Using examples from her work molding celebrities' images, she teaches women (and their men) how to define and enhance their look, with chapters devoted to topics such as knowing what clothes work for each body type, how to accessorize like a star, the importance of tailoring clothes so that an off-the-rack suit fits like a custom-made Armani, and much more. She offers tricks of the trade -- from choosing the perfect lingerie to handling bad hair days -- and provides a welcome list of wardrobe essentials and perennial fashion don'ts. With this must-have style guide every woman, whether girl next door or top executive, will be able to unleash her inner VIP -- effortlessly.By Alua Arthur. 2024
A deeply transformative memoir that reframes how we think about death and how it can help us lead better, more…
fulfilling and authentic lives, from America’s most visible death doula."A truly unique, inspiring perspective on the time we have, what we do with it, and how we let go of this world.... There is no one I'd trust more to guide me through an understanding of death, and how it informs life." — Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Mad Honey and The Book of Two Ways"Briefly Perfectly Human is a beautiful, raw, light-bringing experience. Alua's voice is shimmering, singular, and pulses with humor, vulnerability, insight, and refreshing candor.... Be prepared for it to grab you, hold you tight, and raise the roof on the power of human connection." — Tembi Locke, author of From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding HomeFor her clients and everyone who has been inspired by her humanity, Alua Arthur is a friend at the end of the world. As our country’s leading death doula, she’s spreading a transformative message: thinking about your death—whether imminent or not—will breathe wild, new potential into your life.Warm, generous, and funny AF, Alua supports and helps manage end-of-life care on many levels. The business matters, medical directives, memorial planning; but also honoring the quiet moments, when monitors are beeping and loved ones have stepped out to get some air—or maybe not shown up at all—and her clients become deeply contemplative and want to talk. Aching, unfinished business often emerges. Alua has been present for thousands of these sacred moments—when regrets, fears, secret joys, hidden affairs, and dim realities are finally said aloud. When this happens, Alua focuses her attention at the pulsing center of her clients’ anguish and creates space for them, and sometimes their loved ones, to find peace.This has had a profound effect on Alua, who was already no stranger to death’s periphery. Her family fled a murderous coup d’état in Ghana in the 1980s. She has suffered major, debilitating depressions. And her dear friend and brother-in-law died of lymphoma. Advocating for him in his final months is what led Alua to her life’s calling. She knows firsthand the power of bearing witness and telling the truth about life’s painful complexities, because they do not disappear when you look the other way. They wait for you.Briefly Perfectly Human is a life-changing, soul-gathering debut, by a writer whose empathy, tenderness, and wisdom shimmers on the page. Alua Arthur combines intimate storytelling with a passionate appeal for loving, courageous end-of-life care—what she calls “death embrace.” Hers is a powerful testament to getting in touch with something deeper in our lives, by embracing the fact of our own mortality. “Hold that truth in your mind,” Alua says, “and wondrous things will begin to grow around it.”By David Boyer. 2007
First comes love; then comes marriage. . . . But in between there's the bachelor party.Lesbian strippers, dwarf tossing, boozy…
confessions, missing grooms -- modern bachelor party lore is enough to terrify any jittery bride. But what's real and what's testosterone-fueled legend? For the first time, Bachelor Party Confidential offers an uncensored and comprehensive look at what men do when women aren't invited. You may think you've heard the stories . . . but you have no idea. Filled with unforgettable firsthand accounts culled from totally anonymous interviews with more than a hundred men from around the globe, Bachelor Party Confidential journeys to the heart of one of man's last and most closely guarded secrets. To get the whole story, David Boyer talks to everyone from Vegas revelers mid-party, religious grooms, horny best men, and unconventional bachelors to reluctant wives, pricey strippers, bachelor party planners, and other behind-the-scenes players. The result is alternately hilarious, sexy, poignant, and truly eye-opening.By Robin Romm. 2009
When Robin Romm's The Mother Garden was published, The New York Times Book Review called her "a close-up magician," saying,…
"hers is the oldest kind [of magic] we know: the ordinary incantation of words and stories to help us navigate the darkness and finally to hold the end at bay." In her searing memoir The Mercy Papers, Romm uses this magic to expand the weeks before her mother's death into a story about a daughter in the moments before and after loss. With a striking mix of humor and honesty, Romm ushers us into a world where an obstinate hospice nurse tries to heal through pamphlets and a yelping grandfather squirrels away money in a shoe-shine kit. Untrained dogs scamper about as strangers and friends rally around death, offering sympathy as they clamor for attention. The pillbox turns quickly into a metaphor for order; questions about medication turn to musings about God. The mundane and spiritual melt together as Romm reveals the sharp truths that lurk around every corner and captures, with great passion, the awe, fear, and fury of a daughter losing her mother. The Mercy Papers was started in the midst of heartbreak, and not originally intended for an audience. The result is a raw, unsentimental book that reverberates with humanity. Robin Romm has created a tribute to family and an indelible portrait that will speak to anyone who has ever loved and lost.By Andrew Meredith. 2014
“A darkly funny memoir about family reckonings” (O, The Oprah Magazine)—the story of a young man who, by handling the…
dead, makes peace with the living.Andrew Meredith’s father, a literature professor at La Salle University, was fired after unspecified allegations of sexual misconduct. It’s a transgression that resulted in such long-lasting familial despair that Andrew cannot forgive him. In the wake of the scandal, he frantically treads water, stuck in a kind of suspended adolescence—falling in and out of school, moving blindly from one half-hearted relationship to the next. When Andrew is forced to move back home to his childhood neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia and take a job alongside his father as a “remover,” the name for those unseen, unsung men whose charge it is to take away the dead from their last rooms, he begins to see his father not through the lens of a wronged and resentful child, but through that of a sympathetic, imperfect man.Called “artful” and “compelling” by Thomas Lynch in The Wall Street Journal, Meredith’s poetic voice is as unforgettable as his story, and “he tucks his bittersweet childhood memories between tales of removals as carefully as the death certificates he slips between the bodies he picks up and the stretcher-like contraption that transports each body to the waiting vehicle” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). “Potent” (Publishers Weekly), and “ultimately rewarding” (The Boston Globe), The Removers is a searing, coming-of-age memoir with “lyrical language and strong sense of place” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).By Vyvian Raoul. 2018
Advertising Shits in Your Head calls ads what they are—a powerful means of control through manipulation—and highlights how people across…
the world are fighting back. It diagnoses the problem and offers practical tips for a DIY remedy. Faced with an ad-saturated world, activists are fighting back, equipped with stencils, printers, high-visibility vests, and utility tools. Their aim is to subvert the advertisements that control us. With case studies from both sides of the Atlantic, this book showcases the ways in which small groups of activists are taking on corporations and states at their own game: propaganda. This is a call-to-arts for a generation raised on ads. Beginning with a rich and detailed analysis of the pernicious hold advertising has on our lives, the book then moves on to offer practical solutions and guidance on how to subvert the ads. Using a combination of ethnographic research and theoretical analysis, Advertising Shits in Your Head investigates the claims made by subvertising practitioners and shows how they affect their practice.By Gabriel Kuhn. 2018
Soccer has turned into a multi-billion-dollar industry. Professionalism and commercialization dominate its global image. Yet the game retains a rebellious…
side, maybe more so than any other sport co-opted by money makers and corrupt politicians. From its roots in working-class England to political protests by players and fans, and a current radical soccer underground, the notion of football as the “people’s game” has been kept alive by numerous individuals, teams, and communities. This book not only traces this history, but also reflects on common criticisms: soccer ferments nationalism, serves right-wing powers, and fosters competitiveness. Acknowledging these concerns, alternative perspectives on the game are explored, down to practical examples of egalitarian DIY soccer! Soccer vs. the State serves both as an orientation for the politically conscious football supporter and as an inspiration for those who try to pursue the love of the game away from televisions and big stadiums, bringing it to back alleys and muddy pastures. This second edition has been expanded to cover events of recent years, including the involvement of soccer fans in the Middle Eastern uprisings of 2011–2013, the FIFA scandal of 2015, and the 2017 strike by the Danish women’s team.By Michael Dawson, Catherine Gidney, Donald Wright. 2018
From Timbits to totem poles, Canada is boiled down to its syrupy core in symbolic forms that are reproduced not…
only on t-shirts, television ads, and tattoos but in classrooms, museums, and courtrooms too. They can be found in every home and in every public space. They come in many forms, from objects—like the red-uniformed Mountie, the maple leaf, and the beaver—to concepts—like free healthcare, peacekeeping, and saying “eh?”. But where did these symbols come from, what do they mean, and how have their meanings changed over time? Symbols of Canada gives us the real and surprising truth behind the most iconic Canadian symbols revealing their contentious and often contested histories. With over 100 images, this book thoroughly explores Canada’s true self while highlighting the unexpected twists and turns that have marked each symbol’s history.By Louise Gray. 2009
“World music” is an awkward phrase. Used to describe the hugely multifaceted nature of a range of, typically, non-English language…
popular musics from the world over, it’s a tag that throws up as many problems as it does solutions. Louise Gray’s No-Nonsense Guide to World Music attempts to go behind the phrase to explore the reasons for the contemporary interest in world music: who listens to it and why? Through chapters that focus on specific areas of music, such as rembetika, fado, trance music and new folk, it explores the genres that have emerged from marginalized communities, music from conflict zones, and music as a form of escapism.By Randle W. Nelsen. 2007
Fun & Games & Higher Education ranges from Wayne’s World to hot-rodding, from automobility to the popular phenomenon know as…
the tailgate party, from German sociologist George Simmel to Canadian Media Guru Marshall McLuhan–all in the interests in exploring North American obsession with play-and particularly the intersection between education, work, and leisure.By Martine Delvaux. 2016
Everywhere you look patriarchal society reduces women to a series of repeating symbols: serial girls. On TV and in film,…
on the internet and in magazines, pop culture and ancient architecture, serial girls are all around us, moving in perfect sync—as dolls, as dancers, as statues. From Tiller Girls to Barbie dolls, Playboy bunnies to Pussy Riot, Martine Delvaux produces a provocative analysis of the many gendered assumptions that underlie modern culture. Delvaux draws on the works of Barthes, Foucault, de Beauvoir, Woolf, and more to argue that serial girls are not just the ubiquitous symbols of patriarchal domination but also offer the possibility of liberation.By José Vadi. 2024
A memoir-in-essays about how skateboarding re-defines space, curates culture, confronts mortality, and affords new perspectives on and off the boardChipping…
a board—where small pieces of deck and tape break off around the nose and tail—is a natural part of skateboarding. Novice or pro, you&’ll see folks riding chipped boards as symbols of their stubborn dedication toward a deck, a toy, and aging bodies that will also reach their inevitable end. In Chipped, José Vadi personalizes and expands upon this symbol. Written after finishing his debut collection Inter State: Essays From California, Vadi used these essays to explore his own empathy in aging, and to elaborate on the impact skateboarding has had on culture, power, and art. From tracing a critical mass skater takeover of San Francisco&’s streets, to an analysis of visceral &‘90s skate videos and soundtracks, to the solace found skating a parking lot during a global pandemic, Vadi expands our understanding of the ways skateboarding can alter one&’s life. Vadi acts as a &“ethnographer on a skateboard,&” writing, living, and animating an object, likening the board and skate ephemera to the fear of being discarded, wanting to be seen as useful, functional, living. These essays analyze the legacy of seminal texts like Thrasher Magazine, influential programming giants like MTV, and skateboard artists like Ed Templeton. They imagine jazz composer Sun Ra as a skateboarder to explore sonic connections between skateboarding and jazz, obsessively follow bands, chronicle tours, and discover the creative bermuda triangle Southern California suburbs have to offer. Chipped is an intimate, genre-pushing meditation on skateboarding and the reasons we continue to get up after every fall life throws our way.By Genevieve Kingston. 2024
THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY, LIFE-AFFIRMING MEMOIR YOU WILL EVER READ ABOUT THE POWER OF LOVE.Did I Ever Tell You? reads like…
a novel but is an unforgettable true story. Genevieve (Gwen) Kingston was just eleven years old when her mother passed away, leaving behind a chest filled with gifts and letters to celebrate the milestones of Gwen&’s life and each of her birthdays until age thirty. When Did I Ever Tell You? opens, just three packages remain: engagement, marriage, and first baby. Tracing Gwen&’s coming-of-age, the book reveals a treasure hunt, with each gift and letter unveiling more about her mother, her family, and—ultimately—herself. Like Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner and The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, Did I Ever Tell You? is a riveting book filled with unexpected twists and powerful life lessons. Through her mother&’s fierce and courageous love, Gwen was granted the tools not only to move through grief but to cherish life. For as her mother says in one of her letters: &“love is stronger than death.&”By Brianna Pastor. 2024
“Brianna Pastor is by far one of my favorite new writers. Good Grief is a powerful testament that shows how…
hard the past can be and that overcoming it is possible. If you want to feel seen and deeply moved, read Good Grief. Brianna Pastor has unparalleled talent, let the power of her writing guide you to a better life.”—yung pueblo, #1 New York Times bestselling authorAn expanded edition with over forty brand-new poems of the bestselling poetry collection Good Grief by Brianna PastorWhen Brianna Pastor released her self-published poetry collection, Good Grief, she was blown away by the outpouring of support from people who reached out and said, “Yes. Me too.” For anyone who has struggled with questions of identity or coped with serious emotional issues, including grief, trauma, anxiety, and depression, this collection will help you find hope on the other side.we don’t know how long our pain will last. we assume that because it hurts now, it is probably going to hurt tomorrow. it may even hurt the next day. perhaps it will get worse. but we sleep, and you see, and we do this marvelous thing in our sleep—we mend. And tomorrow is not always what we thought it would be.—from Good GriefBy J. S. Park. 2024
"A heartfelt invitation for grieving readers...An excellent resource for those working their way through loss." —Publishers Weekly, Starred ReviewVeteran hospital…
chaplain to the sick, dying, and bereaved, J.S. Park offers you both the permission and the process for how to grieve and heal at your own pace.In As Long As You Need, J.S. offers an honest and unrushed engagement with grief, decoding four types of grieving—spiritual, mental, physical, and relational—and offering compassionate self-care and soul-care along the way.If you are struggling to process loss, pain, or grief from the last few years or the last few minutes, J.S. is an experienced and deeply empathetic listener and grief catcher who has held the pain and questions of thousands of patients. While social and cultural narratives about grief are dominated by "letting go, moving on, or turning the page" in his nearly decade of service as a chaplain at a major hospital with a designated level one trauma center J.S. understands firsthand how rushing or suppressing grief only adds a suffocating layer of pain on top of the original wound.From his unique window into the stories of the ill, injured, dying, and their families, J.S. offers you:Permission to dismantle all too common myths about grief and replace them with a guilt-free and unrushed approach to navigating your losses.Encouragement for how entering grief, rather than avoiding it, leads to a hard but meaningful holding of your loss.Empathy and hope if you are struggling with a crisis of faith in the midst of grief.Recognition that grief spans a wide narrative of loss: loss of future, faith, mental health, worth, autonomy, connection, and loved ones.Affirmation that your grief is your own. While the DNA of grief might be universal to the human condition, how you experience and process grief is unique to you. From the ER to deliveries to deathbeds across every sort of illness and injury imaginable, J.S. Park has provided meaningful counseling for people in all walks of life and death. Now, through his book he wants to assure you that, while everybody else might rush past your pain, grief is the voice that says, take as long as you need.By Gillian Sze. 2023
By Charles Soukup, Christina R. Foust. 2024
An accessible and engaging introduction to the critical study of popular culture, which provides students with the tools they need…
to make sense of the popular culture that inundates their everyday lives.This textbook centers on media ecology and equipment for living to introduce students to important theories and debates in the field. Each chapter engages an important facet of popular culture, ranging from the business of popular culture to communities, stories, and identities, to the simulation and sensation of pop culture. The text explains key terms and features contemporary case studies throughout, examining aspects such as memes and trends on social media, cancel culture, celebrities as influencers, gamification, "meta" pop culture, and personalized on-demand music. The book enables students to understand the complexity of power and influence, providing a better understanding of the ways pop culture is embedded in a wide range of everyday activities. Students are encouraged to reflect on how they consume and produce popular culture and understand how that shapes their sense of self and connections to others.Essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of media studies, communication studies, cultural studies, popular culture, and other related subjects.