Hot off the presses from CMP: Big in Japan, the debut novel of M. Thomas Gammarino, a riotously serious and deadly funny story of haunted prog rock composer Brain Tedesco. Ron Currie Jr. calls Brain "the perfect hero for the Age of Anxiety" and PF Kluge calls the novel "seductive and devastating." Buy it now (free shipping to Canada and the US) or check out the book's website for more information.
Oh! is an intricate mystery by Todd Shimoda, with artwork by Linda Shimoda. NPR calls this ambitious book "a triumphant kick in the pants for anyone who doubts the future of paper-and-ink books." Buy it now (free shipping to Canada and the US) or check out the book's website for more information.
Keep informed of all our upcoming projects. Rest assured all email addresses are kept strictly confidential and used only for this list.
Curing Japan's America Addiction is an explosive look at the US-Japan relationship, and judging by the number of politicians and business leaders who turned out to celebrate the book's release this summer, it is going to send ripples throughout the Japanese establishment.
Read Mr. Morita's weekly commentary from Tokyo here.
The book is available on Amazon, at your local bookstore and directly from us:
US$15
US / Canada:
US$15 + $5 s/h
International Orders:
We offer free shipping for all orders in the US and Canada through August, and charge just $5 for shipping to the rest of the world.
Mr. Morita argues that President Bush and former Prime MInister Junichiro Koizumi have all but destroyed Japan's once-burgeoning middle class. He says Japan needs to step back from the US and reevaluate this relationship, which has become more like an addiction than a friendship. Mr. Morita—a rare political analyst who spends more time in the provinces than the capital—tells us what the Japanese people really think about the last eight years of military buildup and market fundamentalism. In a nutshell, they are as fed up with the course of things as we are. Read this book to find out how to put the US-Japan relationship on more stable ground.
Through 20 interviews with key figures in the Tokyo art world and 8 essays by art specialists, Art Space Tokyo fleshes out a thorough exploration of the Tokyo art world and the issues that revolve around these spaces.
More details and pre-order sale information on the Art Space Tokyo homepage.
"Smart and lively and thoughtful and moving, like a good Studs Terkel without encyclopedic pretensions."
— Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, author of the best-selling A Series of Unfortunate Events
"An eye-opening, detailed look at the private, intimate lives of Japanese women ... This is an intelligent and authoritative work, covering everything from adultery to sex volunteers and the role of fortune tellers in Japanese romance. It is at once illuminating and entertaining, credible and so engrossing you will find it difficult to put down."
— Robert Whiting, author of Tokyo Underworld, The Meaning of Ichiro and You Gotta Have Wa
A narrative map of the world.
As people travel through an environment that is new or foreign to them, they often develop brief, intimate and intense memories that combine their emotions, experience and sense of place. This can happen spontaneously and in places that are taken for granted or overlooked by regular commuters. The end result is a private, internal map of a city. Our goal is to illuminate these personal mappings into a greater whole through short narratives tied to and describing these spacial/emotional relationships. As the number of narratives increases, one hope for the site is that it will become an alternative resource for looking at cities worldwide.
Hitotoki is a collaboration between Chin Music Press and Tokyo design firm AQ.
Pioneering investigative reporter Jason Berry's new novel.
"Last of the Red Hot Poppas will make you laugh and it will make you think rather more deeply than will make you comfortable, and in these wildly disjointed times that means this novel is not only a richly enjoyable read but an essential one." - Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
Set in southern Louisiana, Poppas is a murder mystery, a ribald comedy and a spiritual drama all wrapped into one. And speaking of wrapping, we've wrapped Poppas in an A2 poster by New Orleans artist Leslie Staub. To order or to read more about the book (including a sample chapter (.pdf link)), visit our Poppas page.
"What's your favorite Katrina book?" a friend asked me last week. And I really couldn't say. They're all different, each fulfilling a personal vision, each adding something to our common narrative. Sometimes my favorite book is a little anthology, "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?," a gorgeous little small-press title edited by University of New Orleans English professor David Rutledge."
- Susan Larson, The Times-Picayune, August 2006
This anthology of art and essays winds through the streets of the Big Easy toward a deeper understanding of just what this great, wounded city means to the United States. Features essays by Jason Berry, Toni McGee Causey, Sarah K. Inman, C.W. Cannon, Ray Shea, David Rutledge and Rex Noone and beautiful reproductions of 19th century engravings of the city.
If you're interested, read on. And check out our Voices of New Orleans blog for the latest from the Crescent City.
Coffee and literature have always made quite a team. There's nothing like opening a good book in your favorite cafe, a steaming cup of coffee by your side. But canned coffee and literature is downright lethal. It's headache-inducing and desperate. Cannedcoffee.com is the urban response to cowboy poetry, a prose inspired by Japan's multicolored vending machines full of hot and cold coffee cans.
Cannedcoffee.com features reviews of the canned stuff, coffee-inspired literature and a store with a unique e-book and canned coffee posters. The site is updated every Monday morning; it is meant to make that meager cup of joe from the corporate coffee pot taste just a tad bit better.
"A crack of the widemouth lid released notes of hazelnut, caramel and amaretto. Not a bad start. The coffee itself was not Elmer's Glue white, as I had feared, but rather a pleasant beige.
An expert sip accompanied by a professional smacking of the (huge and rubbery) lips was in order, so that's what happened next. This sip gave rise to many random thoughts that are difficult to parse now that I'm naked and agitated and very, very drunk."
Buzztracker is software that visualizes frequencies and relationships between locations in the Google world news directory.
It's our attempt to show you how interconnected the world is: big events in one area ripple to other areas across the globe. Connections between cities thousands of miles apart become apparent at a glance.
Continue reading about buzztracker on its homepage.
"[A] brainscan of human activity." "Things like Buzztracker are the reason to go online in the first place. Kudos!" "Innovative and Excellent. Most useful eye-candy ever." "Wow. This is a great way to track news coverage." "Awesome perspective shifter." "Superb! What a great way to find [out] about what is making the world buzz." "Sweet, very clean; beautiful.. love it!" "This is extraordinary."
Travel past the temples and tourist sites and into the mind of modern Japan with this anthology of essays. This first offering from Chin Music Press is the literary equivalent of a knockdown pitch. Sixteen stories and essays by different writers destroy the many stereotypes about Japan. Say farewell to Madame Butterfly and the samurai ethic, and say hello to a complex nation that makes both a frustrating and fascinating home. This collection includes stories on everything from taking out the garbage to cheating on your spouse. It also has an irreverent and informative glossary of real-world Japanese terms, four-color artwork and a Zen whiskey priest who would make Graham Greene proud.
"Kuhaku is much more than accounts of modern Japanese living; we are also treated to the emotional landscape of the Japanese people."
Todd Shimoda, author:
The Fourth Treasure, and 365 Views of Mt. Fuji
