The Japanese Trilogy, Book 2


Book Description

When Giorgio Cattoretti enlists the help of Elaine Brogan to track down the international serial killer he unknowingly let loose on the world, Elaine reluctantly agrees. She believes that the deranged murderer knows the location of The Factory, the illegal passport production facility that she’s been after for months. When Elaine and Luna Faye ask to be put in charge of the case, they’re forced to cooperate with a team of competing foreign crime specialists who, above all else, must not learn the killer’s true identity. Elaine’s relentless pursuit takes her from Lyon, France, to Kiev, Ukraine, to Budapest Hungary, to Dubai, UAE, and finally, to Barcelona, Spain. Join Elaine, Luna and The Cat on another fast-paced, high-stakes Lust, Money & Murder adventure!




Japanese Mind


Book Description

In The Japanese Mind, Roger Davies offers Westerners an invaluable key to the unique aspects of Japanese culture. Readers of this book will gain a clear understanding of what makes the Japanese, and their society, tick. Among the topics explored: aimai (ambiguity), amae (dependence upon others' benevolence), amakudari (the nation's descent from heaven), chinmoku (silence in communication), gambari (perseverance), giri (social obligation), haragei (literally, "belly art"; implicit, unspoken communication), kenkyo (the appearance of modesty), sempai-kohai (seniority), wabi-sabi (simplicity and elegance), and zoto (gift giving), as well as discussions of child-rearing, personal space, and the roles of women in Japanese society. It includes discussion topics and questions after each chapter. All in all, this book is an easy-to-use introduction to the distinguishing characteristics of Japanese society; an invaluable resource for anyone--business people, travelers, or students--perfect for course adoption, but also for anyone interested in Japanese culture. Next in this series: Now available separately, Japanese Culture: The Religious and Philosophical Foundations is a fascinating journey through Japan's rich cultural history.




The Japanese Trilogy, Book 3


Book Description

Thanks to Elaine Brogan, Giorgio Cattoretti finally finds himself behind bars in one of the worst maximum security penitentiaries in Europe. He’s desperate to find a way out. Meanwhile, Elaine and Luna Faye continue their effort to track down The Factory, even though their boss has ordered them to drop the case. A rapidly-unfolding series of events leads Elaine to Japan, where she is pitted not only against Cattoretti and the Yakuza criminals but, to her astonishment, even her own husband. The last book of The Japanese Trilogy reaches an explosive climax that will have you turning the pages faster and faster until you reach the very end.




Tokyo Dreaming


Book Description

Return to Tokyo for a royal wedding in Emiko Jean's New York Times bestseller Tokyo Dreaming, the sequel to beloved rom-com Tokyo Ever After! When Japanese-American Izumi Tanaka learned her father was the Crown Prince of Japan, she became a princess overnight. Now, she’s overcome conniving cousins, salacious press, and an imperial scandal to finally find a place she belongs. She has a perfect bodyguard turned boyfriend. Her stinky dog, Tamagotchi, is living with her in Tokyo. Her parents have even rekindled their college romance and are engaged. A royal wedding is on the horizon! Izumi’s life is a Tokyo dream come true. Only. . . Her parents’ engagement hits a brick wall. The Imperial Household Council refuses to approve the marriage citing concerns about Izumi and her mother’s lack of pedigree. And on top of it all, her bodyguard turned boyfriend makes a shocking decision about their relationship. At the threat of everything falling apart, Izumi vows to do whatever it takes to help win over the council. Which means upping her newly acquired princess game. But at what cost? Izumi will do anything to help her parents achieve their happily ever after, but what if playing the perfect princess means sacrificing her own? Will she find a way to forge her own path and follow her heart?




Autumn Princess, Dragon Child


Book Description

A self-assured warrior stumbles into a game of Go that turns fatal. An ambitious lord leaves his nephew for dead and seizes his lands. A stubborn father forces his son to give up his wife to his older brother. A powerful priest meddles in the succession to the Lotus Throne. A woman of the Old People seeks five fathers for her five children, who will go on to found the Spider Tribe and direct the fate of the country. As destiny weaves its tapestry in Lian Hearn's Tale of Shikanoko series, an emotionally rich and compelling drama plays out against a background of wild forests, elegant castles, hidden temples, and savage battlefields in Autumn Princess, Dragon Child. The Tale of Shikanoko, Book One: Emperor of the Eight Islands (April 2016) The Tale of Shikanoko, Book Two: Autumn Princess, Dragon Child (June 2016) The Tale of Shikanoko, Book Three: Lord of the Darkwood (August 2016) The Tale of Shikanoko, Book Four: The Tengu's Game of Go (September 2016)




Japanese from Zero!


Book Description

Japanese From Zero! is an innovative and integrated approach to learning Japanese developed by professional Japanese interpreter George Trombley and co-writer Yukari Takenaka. The lessons and techniques used in this series have been taught successfully for over fifteen years in classrooms throughout the world. Using up-to-date and easy-to-grasp grammar, Japanese From Zero! is the perfect course for current students of Japanese as well as absolute beginners. In Book 2 of the Japanese From Zero! series, readers are taught new grammar concepts, over 800 new words and expressions, and also learn the katakana writing system. Features of Book 2: * Integrated Workbook with Answer Key * Over 800 New Words and Expressions * Learn to Read and Write Katakana * Easy-to-Understand Example Dialogues * Bilingual Glossaries with Kana and Romaji ...and much more!




Before the Coffee Gets Cold


Book Description

PREORDER YOUR COPY OF BEFORE WE FORGET KINDNESS, the fifth book in the best-selling and much loved series, NOW! *NOW AN LA TIMES BESTSELLER* *OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD* *AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER* If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet? In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee—the chance to travel back in time. Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold. Heartwarming, wistful, mysterious and delightfully quirky, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s internationally bestselling novel explores the age-old question: What would you change if you could travel back in time? Meet more wonderful characters in the rest of the captivating Before the Coffee Gets Cold series: Tales from the Cafe Before Your Memory Fades Before We Say Goodbye And the upcoming BEFORE WE FORGET KINDESS




Japanese Culture


Book Description

Japanese Culture: The Religious and Philosophical Foundations takes readers on a thoroughly researched and extremely readable journey through Japan's cultural history. This much-anticipated sequel to Roger Davies's best-selling The Japanese Mind provides a comprehensive overview of the religion and philosophy of Japan. This cultural history of Japan explains the diverse cultural traditions that underlie modern Japan and offers readers deep insights into Japanese manners and etiquette. Davies begins with an investigation of the origins of the Japanese, followed by an analysis of the most important approaches used by scholars to describe the essential elements of Japanese culture. From there, each chapter focuses on one of the formative elements: Shintoism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, Confucianism, and Western influences in the modern era. Each chapter is concluded with extensive endnotes along with thought-provoking discussion activities, making this volume ideal for individual readers and for classroom instruction. Anyone interested in pursuing a deeper understanding of this complex and fascinating nation will find Davies's work an invaluable resource.




Agency


Book Description

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “ONE OF THE MOST VISIONARY, ORIGINAL, AND QUIETLY INFLUENTIAL WRITERS CURRENTLY WORKING”* returns with a sharply imagined follow-up to the New York Times bestselling The Peripheral. William Gibson has trained his eye on the future for decades, ever since coining the term “cyberspace” and then popularizing it in his classic speculative novel Neuromancer in the early 1980s. Cory Doctorow raved that The Peripheral is “spectacular, a piece of trenchant, far-future speculation that features all the eyeball kicks of Neuromancer.” Now Gibson is back with Agency—a science fiction thriller heavily influenced by our most current events. Verity Jane, gifted app whisperer, takes a job as the beta tester for a new product: a digital assistant, accessed through a pair of ordinary-looking glasses. “Eunice,” the disarmingly human AI in the glasses, manifests a face, a fragmentary past, and a canny grasp of combat strategy. Realizing that her cryptic new employers don’t yet know how powerful and valuable Eunice is, Verity instinctively decides that it’s best they don’t. Meanwhile, a century ahead in London, in a different time line entirely, Wilf Netherton works amid plutocrats and plunderers, survivors of the slow and steady apocalypse known as the jackpot. His boss, the enigmatic Ainsley Lowbeer, can look into alternate pasts and nudge their ultimate directions. Verity and Eunice are her current project. Wilf can see what Verity and Eunice can’t: their own version of the jackpot, just around the corner, and the roles they both may play in it. *The Boston Globe




Japanese for Busy People II


Book Description

Volume I dealt with "survival Japanese" for tourists and other short-term travelers and newcomers to Japan. Volume II, meanwhile, turns to the basics of Japanese syntax. The book is by no means only about grammar, however. Rather, it is designed to help learners consolidate their understanding of syntactical structure through lessons that focus on how to talk about topics relevant to daily life. In addition to serving learners continuing from Volume I, Volume II will benefit those who have already studied beginning Japanese to some extent but wish to brush up on syntax. Major Features of Japanese for Busy People II, Revised 3rd Edition, will enable learners to progress smoothly through the equivalent of the latter half of a typical first-year Japanese course while gradually building speaking and listening skills. Learners approaching mid-beginner status often find themselves suddenly faced with syntax and vocabulary much more complex than what they have studied before. Such grammar and vocabulary do not appear as frequently in everyday conversation as those words and structures they have learned up to this point, necessitating that they spend ample time on review. Moreover, learners at this stage are expected to become familiar with verb tense and aspect, time expressions, conditional clauses, and other topics that require them to have a solid grasp of context and speaker intent if they are to fully understand the differences in meaning conveyed by each. Japanese for Busy People II helps overcome the above obstacles through grammar and content topics carefully selected to be appropriate to learners at this level of Japanese proficiency. The book is designed so that by practicing talking about each topic, learners will gradually and effectively acquire sentence patterns and vocabulary related to that topic. Like Volume I, Volume II is organized into several large units, each covering topics grouped under a particular theme. In this way, the book enables learners to achieve a well-balanced understanding of grammar, sentence structure, and context.




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