The Cultural Gutter


Book Description

Science fiction, fantasy, comics, romance, genre movies, games all drain into the Cultural Gutter, a website dedicated to thoughtful articles about disreputable art-media and genres that are a little embarrassing. Irredeemable. Worthy of Note, but rolling like errant pennies back into the gutter. The Cultural Gutter is dangerous because we have a philosophy. We try to balance enthusiasm with clear-eyed, honest engagement with the material and with our readers. This book expands on our mission with 10 articles each from science fiction/fantasy editor James Schellenberg, comics editor and publisher Carol Borden, romance editor Chris Szego, screen editor Ian Driscoll and founding editor and former games editor Jim Munroe.




Back When You Called Us Devils 1


Book Description

Yusuke Saito is a normal high school kid...well, normal enough, except that he can't remember anything from his life except the last six months. But when he starts to get confronted by people who insist they're from his past, who allege that he did horrible things to them...suddenly Yusuke's missing memories become crucial to remember. Otherwise, the skeletons in his closet may just make him a skeleton, too...




Pies Are Awesome


Book Description

World-renowned pie artist Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin shares her easy, approachable, and never-before-seen pie art techniques, delicious recipes, and 28 pie art designs centered around holidays and life occasions. Let pie baker extraordinaire Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin take you by the oven mitt and spirit you away to a delicious, magical, new world of pie-sibilities in this first of its kind pie art book! Whether you are a master baker, a little pie-curious, or just want to drool over the pictures while you lounge in your fuzzy socks, Jessica will show you just how easy it is for you to become your own pie-oneering pie artist! The pie art projects in this book are centered around some of our most popular and cherished celebrations in the hopes that they will encourage you to develop your own tasty new traditions with friends and family. The ample step-by-step photos take you through Jessica’s easy-to-follow, groundbreaking pie art techniques, while the friendly and funny (and a bit geeky) writing style encourages experimentation and creative discovery. With Pies Are Awesome, get ready to wow the pants off your crew at your next game night, baby shower, birthday party, or any of the social occasions that call for pie . . . which is, let’s face it, all of them. From decorative patterns to more elaborate themes, the pie art designs in this book, ranging from easy to difficult, for novice and experienced bakers alike, include amazing-looking and -tasting pies to celebrate: Birthdays (children and adults) Weddings Baby Showers New Year's Eve/Day Super Bowl Lunar New Year Valentine's Day Pi Day St. Patrick's Day Easter Mother’s Day Father’s Day Fourth of July Bastille Day Diwali Halloween Day of the Dead Thanksgiving Hanukkah Christmas Pies Are Awesome also includes tricks for working with your own tried-and-true dough recipes and store-bought dough; modifications to personalize projects; and online resources for printable templates, pie communities, friendly challenges, and more.




Sachi's Monstrous Appetite 1


Book Description

Makie’s a boy in love, with his tall, older classmate Sachi. As a sign of his affection, he makes Sachi a special lunch every day. Sachi loves Makie, too, but she has a secret… she’s actually a shapeshifting monster called a watari, and she was drawn to Makie because he smells…delicious! But it’s not just Sachi who’s drawn to Makie’s scent, and soon, he realizes the entire monster world is after him. Fortunately, Sachi’s a watari who eats watari, and she pledges to protect him. But how long can Makie survive, with Sachi’s appetite the only thing between him and a monster’s belly?




Donabe


Book Description

A beautiful and lavishly photographed cookbook focused on authentic Japanese clay-pot cooking, showcasing beloved recipes and updates on classics, with background on the origins and history of donabe. Japanese clay pot (donabe) cooking has been refined over centuries into a versatile and simple method for preparing both dramatic and comforting one-pot meals. In Donabe, Tokyo native and cooking school instructor Naoko Takei Moore and chef Kyle Connaughton offer inspiring Japanese home-style recipes such as Sizzling Tofu and Mushrooms in Miso Sauce and Dashi-Rich Shabu-Shabu, as well as California-inspired dishes including Steam-Fried Black Cod with Crisp Potatoes, Leeks, and Walnut-Nori Pesto or Smoked Duck Breast with Creamy Wasabi–Green Onion Dipping Sauce. All are rich in flavor, simple to prepare, and perfect for a communal dining experience with family and friends. Donabe also features recipes from luminary chefs such as David Kinch, Namae Shinobu, and Cortney Burns and Nick Balla, all of whom use donabe in their own kitchens. Collectible, beautiful, and functional, donabe can easily be an essential part of your cooking repetory.




Life in the Sunshine


Book Description

Sat, Sam, and Trib (a.k.a Triple sundae gang) are teenagers and they love cricket. They spend most of their time watching and playing the sport they love. They dream of making their living in the sport. When they are not playing the game, they put on their thinking cap and come up with alternate versions of important matches or provide parodic answers to questions that have plagued cricket fans over the years. However, fate intervenes in their idyllic life. On 18th April 1986, Javed Miandad hits Chetan Sharma for a six in Sharjah and leaves their cricket viewing life in tatters. The after-effects of this fateful event, continue to haunt them for many years. Their problems don’t end there. Sat fails to graduate from school level cricket to state-level cricket. He is heartbroken by the loss of his dreams and faces a mini identity crisis. How do the boys solve their problems? Will the boys ever recover from that Javed Miandad incident? Will Sat get his mojo back? Come, join the heartwarming ride and find out the answers, as Sat takes you through his nostalgic memories of the sport and narrates his coming of age story, which is deeply influenced by the sport!




I Love You So Mochi


Book Description

Kimi Nakamura loves fashion, and designing clothes, jewelry, and accessories for her friends, but her mother, a professional graphic designer with a long list of clients, wants her to be a serious artist, and is furious when she discovers Kimi has dropped her fine arts class; so Kimi is relieved to be able to visit her normally estranged grandparents in Kyoto during spring break--but what begins as an escape becomes a way to learn about her mother and her Japanese heritage, and to figure out how to move forward with her own life.




We're New at This 1


Book Description

Ikuma Saeki finally married his childhood friend and the girl of his dreams, Sumika. But while years of pining came easily to him, physical closeness does not...and he's having trouble navigating the intimacy that comes with marriage. Sumika, too, is having trouble bridging the gap between friend and lover...what is this innocent couple to do but navigate it together, awkwardness and all!




The Abundance


Book Description

A luminous, bittersweet novel of India and the American midwest, immigrants and their first-generation children, and the power of cooking to bridge the gulfs between them When Mala and Ronak learn that their mother has only a few months to live, they are reluctantly pulled back into the midwestern world of their Indian immigrant parents--a diaspora of prosperous doctors and engineers who have successfully managed to keep faith with the old world while claiming the prizes of the new. More successfully than their children--equally ill at ease with Holi and Christmas, bhaji and barbecue, they are mysteries to their parents and themselves. In the short time between diagnosis and deterioration, Mala sets about learning everything she can about her mother's art of Indian cooking. Perfecting the naan and the raita, the two confront their deepest divisions and failures and learn to speak as well as cook. But when Ronak hits upon the idea of selling their experience as a book and a TV documentary, India and America, immigrant and native-born are torn as never before. With grace, acuity, and wry compassion, Amit Majmudar has written anew the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations in The Abundance.




The Art of the Pitch


Book Description

Through an engaging and humorous narrative, Peter Coughter presents the tools he designed to help advertising and marketing professionals develop persuasive presentations that deliver business. Readers will learn how to develop skills to create the perfect presentation.