all books all the time

The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living - Russ Harris. ( Read more... )

A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki. ( Read more... )

Among Others - Jo Walton. ( Read more... )

Keeping up with the Germans: A History of Anglo-German Encounters - Philip Oltermann. ( Read more... )

Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch. ( Read more... )

A Stranger in Olondria - Sofia Samatar. ( Read more... )

Understanding the European Union: A Concise Introduction - John McCormick. ( Read more... )

Cart and Cwidder - Diana Wynne Jones. ( Read more... )

Straight from the Heart: Gender, Intimacy, and the Cultural Production of Shojo Manga - Jennifer S. Prough. ( Read more... )

A Sociology of Japanese Ladies' Comics: Images of the Life, Loves, and Sexual Fantasies of Adult Japanese Women - Ito Kinko. ( Read more... )

Japan Pop!: Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture - Edited by Timothy J. Craig. This is a generally pleasing overview of Japanese cultural studies -- I think (though I haven't checked; I'm just going by the feel of the book) largely by Western, if not US, scholars. It was published in 2000 & I'd be really curious as to how some of the topics discussed have morphed since then; for example, I was interested in James Stanslaw's article on how female pop stars use English (or not) to assert certain things about themselves & their image, & I'd imagine this has developed much further in the last 11 years.

I also liked William Lee's piece talking about how popular TV shows (most recently -- & that's not v. recent anymore -- Crayon Shin-chan) use nostalgia about a certain type of family to draw in viewers, especially for shows that may have already been airing for decades & that rely on the appeal of a certain mythic timeless good-old-days social structure. One article by Anne Allison about Sailor Moon & her reception in the US retreads old ground for me (though it probably wasn't old when the book was published... ) about localization of Japanese anime, but also points out that part of the reason Sailor Moon wasn't nearly as popular in the US was because kids found her annoyingly "girly" for a superhero. For all those who posit the US as feminist light years ahead of other countries (including Japan), well, yes, look at that: US kids rejecting someone for trying to be both a superhero & feminine. Hm.

Other stuff I liked: Christine Yano talking about the continuing appeal of enka; Hiro R. Shimatachi on karaoke-induced culture clashes (though again, this is something I suspect has changed a lot since publication); & Hiroshi Aoyagi on pop idols as tools for pan-Asian identity. Anyway: a nice overview, and now I have to see what's been written in English more recently on some of these same subjects.

Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism - Patricia Hill Collins. ( Read more... )

Rocket Girls - Housuke Nojiri, translated by Joseph Reeder. ( Read more... )

Chains of Babylon: The Rise of Asian America - Daryl J. Maeda. ( Read more... )

Succubus Heat - Richelle Mead. ( Read more... )

Mechademia 3: Limits of the Human - Edited by Frenchy Lunning. ( Read more... )

Mechademia 4: War/Time - Edited by Frenchy Lunning. ( Read more... )

Half World - Hiromi Goto. ( Read more... )

Ash - Malinda Lo. ( Read more... )

Moxyland - Lauren Beukes. ( Read more... )

Returning My Sister's Face And Other Far Eastern Tales of Whimsy and Malice - Eugie Foster. ( Read more... )

Liar - Justine Larbalestier. ( Read more... )

The Other Lands - David Anthony Durham. ( Read more... )

The Choir Boats - Daniel A. Rabuzzi. ( Read more... )

The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture - Edited by Roger J. Davies and Osamu Ikeno. ( Read more... )

Popco - Scarlett Thomas. ( Read more... )

For those of you reading on LJ: I've now imported this journal onto Dreamwidth, but will continue to cross-post to LJ (with comments at DW only; more info in the footer at the bottom of this entry).

Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World - Edited by Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss, and C. Lee Harrington. ( Read more... )

Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism - Koichi Iwabuchi. ( Read more... )

The Artist's Way: A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self - Julia Cameron. ( Read more... )

Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. ( Read more... )

All She Was Worth - Miyuki Miyabe. ( Read more... )

Banker to the Poor: The Story of the Grameen Bank - Muhammad Yunus with Alan Jolis. ( Read more... )

Second-Class Citizen - Buchi Emecheta. ( Read more... )

Ten Little Indians - Sherman Alexie. ( Read more... )

Strangers - Taichi Yamada, translated by Wayne P. Lammers. ( Read more... )

The Dew Breaker - Edwidge Danticat. ( Read more... )

Walking a Tightrope: New writing from Asian Britain - Edited by Rehana Ahmed. ( Read more... )

Sour Sweet - Timothy Mo. ( Read more... )