For all you non-readers, you will be happy to know that this months picks are mostly visual books and a collection of children's books. Not a single fiction title to be found in this month's reviews. I just couldn't find a decent enough story that I wanted to take the time to read. But I was waiting for the latest Barry Eisler novel that was coming out in paperback. That will definitely be the first book I will read for the month of May. A co-worker informed me that Eisler's first book, "Rain Fall" will be released as a major motion picture next year and will star Kippei Shiina and Akiho Hasegawa. It also looks like Gary Oldman has signed on to the film too. I can't wait! Eisler is currently my favorite writer and I think if the first John Rain film is successful, then they will be sure to adapt his other books. At least I hope so.
*本と映画の評論について、日本語は書いておりません。
1. BANGKOK: CITIESCAPES by Joe Bindloss - This is a nice but short mini hardcover photography book that introduces you to the thrill of Bangkok. From monks in orange to the girly boys of Patpong, from Wats to congested traffic. Everything that's good and bad about Bangkok. I've been to this city three times now and not once have I ever been bored. The first couple of times I was there was only for a day before heading to Laos. The third time I spent a few days in Bangkok and I checked out Jim Thompson's house, took a boat ride on the Chao Praya river, visited a Snake Farm, eat Thai noodles at an outdoor foodstall, took a side trip to Thailand's old capital Ayutthaya, and also to a train ride over the River Kwai in Kanchanaburi made famous by the film "Bridge Over the River Kwai". I missed seeing the Emerald Buddha so that give me another reason to go back. I love Southeast Asia, it's a great place to visit!!
2. ROADSIDE AMERICA: 365 DAYS by Lucinda Lewis - On to a hardier photography book. My father will love this (I plan on sending it to him soon). This is another title in Harry B. Abram publisher's "365 Days" series. Beautiful full color pictures for every day of the year. As you may have surmised from the title, this photo book is full of pictures of cars, roadside attractions, diners, motels, more cars, and America's vanishing sites from the Mother Road - Route 66! You will see Stutz Bearcats, Packards, Studebakers, '70s muscle cars, Japanese imports, Italian sports cars. My brother will be disappointed that there weren't any pictures of Chevy Novas and my father will disappointed that there wasn't as many AMC cars represented, especially a green 1965 Rambler Classic (that was the old family car that traveled from Greece to Japan to the States!!). And if my memory serves me correctly, my father's first car was a DeSoto. My brother's was a 1974 Chevy Nova, mine was the Hell Mobile (I'm not counting the hand me down 1981 Toyota Starlet), and my sister's was a Blue Ford Eclipse or something like that. But more than enough classics to keep my brother and father happy. Even my sister's dream car, a 1969 RS SS Chevrolet Camaro is featured (that car was pounded into my sister's brain from the older brother). This year as I plan on making my trip to Las Vegas for my sister's wedding, I think my wife and I will try to drive at least of piece of the Mother Road and maybe stop at a diner in Flagstaff, Arizona. Can't wait!!
3. WORLD FOOD: ITALY by Matthew Evans - And now back to another favorite subject of mine. I'm sure when you think of Italian food, the first thing that pops in your mind is pizza and spaghetti. Oh, but there's so much more to Italian food than those two items. Unlike it's neighbor France, Italians do not particularly care to share their vast variety of wines to the world at large. Here's a bit of trivia for you. Asti Spumanti can no longer be labeled as such because spumanti specifically refers to a sparkling wine and not sweet or semi-sweet dessert wines. And here's more trivia that may surprise you. Italy produces more cheese than it's Franco neighbor. Did you know Sardinia is famous for its "maggot cheese" - casa marzu? But the author didn't go into detail about that. Also, if you've been to Italy, you will know that pasta is not served as a main dish. It's served before the main dish. Here is how a traditional Italian dinner is serve. First you have your antipasto which means "before the meal", then you are served an il primo or "first course" which is usually pasta, risotto, or soup, followed by the il secondo, "second course" which is the main course. You will also be served your il contorno or "side dishes" and finally, my father's favorite, il dolce - dessert. Darn, reading about good food and faraway places is feeding my wanderlust! First it's Vegas. My wife and I are still thinking about going to Malta in the near future too. My wife also wants to go to the far flung reaches of the Guyana mountain range in Venezuela to see Table Mountain and Angel Falls. Gotta start saving up more money!
4. EXCUSE ME by Keisuke Nagoshi - I looked through a lot of visual books this month. Nagoshi is a Japanese photographer who studied at the Osaka University of Arts. He moved to the States when he was nineteen and traveled around San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Canada, and Mexico taking pictures of squatters. He then traveled to the Philippines, Korea, Thailand, and Mongolia taking pictures of wild side of life in those countries which resulted in this book. Pretty intense. Short text in English describing the pictures and the people he shot.
5. SPEED RACER Volume 5 THE MOST DANGEROUS RACE by Chase Wheeler - This is the story of the episode about the race against the Car Acrobatic Team. This was another favorite of mine. This is also the episode where we learn that Racer X is really an international spy and it's also the episode where Speed learns that Racer X is his older brother Rex Racer. Hm, Rex Racer runs away from home and promises to become the World Champion Racer before coming home yet he's now a secret agent? Well, this is cartoon land after all. Think about it. Trixie is the same age or just a little younger than Speed (Speed being 18), yet she seems to own and can fly a helicopter!! Exactly who are Trixie's parents and what do they do? Of course you don't care or think about these things when you're little. So, has anyone been to see the CG-filled film yet?
6. SPEED RACER Volume 6 RACE FOR REVENGE by Chase Wheeler - I don't remember this episode all that well. Something about a car called the Melange comes back to life to revenge the death of it's original driver. Maybe someone will eventually release "Marine Boy" books as well. My brother and I used to watch these cartoons one after another. I guess I will have to taunt my brother with my matchbox size Mach 5. He showed me his large Mach 5 mini car! It's every guy's dream car (even if they don't admit it!).
7. RASCAL by Sterling North - I have a friend who has a sister who is a big fan of Nippon Animation's "World Masterpiece Theater" or "Sekai Meisaku Gekijo" in Japanese. Nippon Animation produced some well loved anime series based on classics of literature such as "Heidi, Girl of the Alps", "A Dog of Flanders", "Anne of Green Gables", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and of course Sterling North's "Rascal" titled "Araiguma Rasukaru" which translates to "Rascal, the Raccoon". I wasn't familiar with the entire Nippon animation series but when I went to visit my friend's hometown, his sister had a stack of books based on the films. So I read "A Dog of Flanders" in Japanese! And because this series is so popular in Japan, I thought I would give the original books a read. This story is set in North's childhood home of Wisconsin with his pet raccoon during the last years of World War I when North is only eleven. The book is subtitled, "A Memoir of a Better Era". I imagine my father's childhood wouldn't have been so different. He would have been eleven in 1941, just before our country would be plunged into another world war. A very pleasant read. And I have read the entire "Anne of Green Gables" series as well as "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn". Maybe I'll read "Heidi" or "Pollyana" next.
8. THE PUFFINCYCLOPEDIA OF CHILDREN'S CLASSICS by Puffin Classics - I debated about listing this title as a book read for the month for the simple fact that it's a free giveaway promoting Puffin Classics titles. It's filled with excerpts from all your favorites - "White Fang", "The Wizard of Oz", "The Wind in the Willows", etc., it contains profiles of some of your favorite classics authors - Mark Twain, Kenneth Grahame, Anna Sewell; interviews with today's children's book authors; plus quizzes, blurbs on classics that were made into Hollywood movies, and you have the chance to win 12 copies of Puffin Classics titles of your own (unfortunately, the competition is only open to residents of the U.K.). This just re-emphasizes my desire to read some of those books I missed the first time around like "Treasure Island", "Just So Stories" and the like.
9. ONE PEOPLE: MANY JOURNEYS by Lonely Planet - A smaller, easier to browse hardcover photography book. You could consider this a companion volume to Lonely Planet's previous photo pictorial, "Lonely Planet: One Planet". The book is separated into different sections by birth, play, love, work, celebration, and death and the pictures feature a diverse collection of cultures and people from around the world. Beautiful book!
10. PINK BOX: INSIDE JAPAN'S SEX CLUBS by Joan Sinclair - Before getting married, photographer Sinclair wanted to take pictures of Tokyo's underbelly. Not only did she manage to take pictures of the various fuzoku but she managed to take pictures of the people who work in the industry. More intense then the "Image Club" pictorial I featured which only showed pictures of the rooms used in Image clubs. The regular guide books don't bother to feature this part of Japan. And don't make the mistake of thinking this is some type of Playboy production. Just real people doing a real job and getting paid for it. If you're a woman, would you seriously consider selling your soiled panties? Yep, places like that are also featured in this pictorial. Not suitable for a bedtime story (but you probably figured that out).
11. EVERYTHING I ATE: A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF MY MOUTH by Tucker Shaw - This was a cool concept for a book. In 2004, Tucker Shaw took a picture and kept a record of everything he ate for an entire year. I thought about doing such a thing myself but I don't think I would have the patience to record the time and who I was with when I ate whatever it was I ate. You gotta give the guy credit for being able to keep that up for an entire year. I noticed that after he came from spending a week in Italy, he seemed to go out for Italian food a lot. He also started getting more creative with his picture taking later in the year, but you'll have to check out the book to understand what I'm saying.
12. いのちの食べかたby 森達也「Inochi no Tabekata」by Tatsuya Mori – And of course I continue to read at least one book in Japanese to keep on improving my kanji reading abilities and comprehension. This book was aimed towards a young adult audience so I didn’t have to rely on Mikako or my electronic kanji dictionary too much and this book also provided furigana for more of the difficult kanji characters. I bought it because it looked simple enough to read and I liked the book cover. I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover but there isn’t a saying about buying a book by its cover is there, which is exactly what I did. Oh my, I just realized that I haven’t translated the title into English yet. It would be “Eating Life”. The book explains in easy to understand Japanese what happens to the cows and pigs once they leave the farm to the time they’re packaged and being sold in various supermarkets. And the writer delves into the history of Japan as well as the Japanese were not a large meat eating society until after the Meiji restoration (but perhaps that’s a little too much detail for you.)We are already into the month of May and I can tell you that I have already bought Barry Eisler's latest book and I have already finished reading it. I'm also currently reading another title in Lonely Planet's "World Food" series, reading about the cuisine of Thailand and also am reading a non-fiction book on the black market nuclear arms trade. Intense subject don't you think? I have also bought my next Japanese book that I shall attempt to read. It is a photo/travel essay by Ayumu Takahashi. Ah, every time I find something new to read, I'm always reminded about the "Twilight Zone" episode - so many books, so little time!!
Happy Reading
Tokyo Ern
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