Popular culture Books

As its title suggests, this book captures the essence of Japanese life and culture in 100 key words - with insightful texts and charming images. From well-known icons like Zen, kawaii and anime to lesser-known aspects of the culture like irori and...

Lavishly decorated manhole covers, pink polka-dotted backhoes, toilets with warmable seats, blow dryers (and other bells and whistles). It's just another day in Japan, where the futuristic and zany stands side-by-side with the rooted and the venerable,...

The male form is the focus here-twisting, leaping and tumbling in dramatic action sequences! Master manga and anime artist Kyachi shows you the secrets professional Japanese artists use to create dynamic motion on the page. A series of detailed tutorials...

In Sketching Women, three professional studio artists (Kozo Ueda, PhD, Takahiro Okada, PhD and Minoru Hirota, PhD) join forces to show you how to sketch the female figure through 55 step-by-step drawing lessons. Each instructor will walk you...

In Sketching Men, veteran art instructor Koichi Hagawa, PhD explains how to quickly capture the dynamic male form through two distinct styles of sketching:Very rapid (1-3 minute) line drawings that capture the essence of the subject's posture...

Two superstars of anime and manga open their studio doors and spill their secrets in this private master class.Join Hisashi Kagawa, an animation director for Sailor Moon, and Yoshihiko Umakoshi, a character developer for My Hero Academia, as they show...

In The Complete Guide to Drawing for Beginners, experienced art instructor Yoshiko Ogura explains the basics of pencil drawing through a series of lessons that provide insights on artistic composition, simulating highlights and shadows, depicting...

Drape your manga creations in the wardrobe of your dreams, while learning techniques and tips used by professional illustrators to realistically render clothing and accessories of all types-from t-shirts, sweaters and skirts to belts, shoes and bags...

Japanese Sumi-e brush painting combines the techniques of calligraphy and ink painting to produce compositions of rare beauty. This art has its roots in the Zen Buddhist practices of mindfulness and meditation-serving as a means not just for describing...

For fans of Japanese manga and anime, a trip to Tokyo is an absolutemust!In this captivating Tokyo travel guide, award-winning manga artist andauthor Evangeline Neo travels to the Japanese capital with her mascots Kopi thedog and Matcha the cat in tow,...

Whether you're planning a trip to Japan, or are just interested in manga, anime and Japanese pop culture, let Otaku Japan Travel Guide transport you to the global capital of cool! If you're crazy about manga, anime, gaming, cosplay,...

Tokyo is an amazing world unto itself-a city for lovers of manga and anime, great food and fashion that mixes the best of old and new. In Cool Tokyo Guide renowned graphic artist Abby Denson takes you on a personal tour of Tokyo's coolest sites...

Created specifically for fans of Japanese 'cool culture,' A Geek in Japan is one of the most iconic, hip, and concise cultural guides available.Reinvented for the internet age, it is packed with personal essays and hundreds of photographs and...

Richly illustrated with hundreds of colour photos, Japan Traveler's Companion delves beyond the gaze of traditional guidebooks to uncover the country's rich culinary traditions, pop culture, Samurai heritage, and much more - bringing Japan to life and...

Tokyo is ground zero for Japan's popular "Geek" or otaku culture-a phenomenon that has now swept across the globe.This is the most comprehensive guide ever produced to Tokyo's geeky underworld. It provides a comprehensive run-down on each major Tokyo...

Thinking of getting a Japanese-style tattoo? Want to avoid a permanent mistake? Japanese Tattoos is an insider's look at the world of Japanese irezumi (tattoos).Japanese Tattoos explains the imagery featured in Japanese tattoos so...

In 2014, after the release of his debut novel, celebrated writer and visionary publisher Kevin Sampsell switched gears and turned to a new creative obsession: making collage art.Initially influenced by the wild cutup language of William S. Burroughs,...

Discover the magic and mysticism of bells around the world, including their political and religious power, their musicality, and their familiarity in daily life.We live in a world of bells but seldom notice them. However, bells have existed in all...

Pairing history's 100 greatest rock stars with recipes for their iconic drink of choice, How to Drink Like a Rock Star is the perfect guide to summoning the muse for music fans, rock and roll bartenders, and cocktail enthusiasts.Have you longed for a...

A pioneer of cloud computing and big data offers his vision of the future world taking shape around us.Jian Wang was the founder and architect of Alibaba's cloud and has been the driving force behind its technology innovations. He was also the founder of...

This 1000 piece puzzle features art from upcoming video-game expansion, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands from Blizzard Entertainment!

Something stirs in the dark...The second volume of The Art of Hearthstone dives deep into the depths of the Year of the Kraken, the first year of Hearthstone's standard format. Consisting of hundreds of illustrations from the corruptive cults of Whispers...

The heroes of Overwatch will protect all your notes in this beautiful notebook from tokidoki. Your secrets have never been in better hands!

In Inside Studio 54, the former owner takes you behind the scenes of the most famous nightclub in the world, through the crowd, to a place where celebrities, friends, and the beautiful people sip champagne and share lines of cocaine using rolled-up...

The manifesto that launched the Situationist International (SI) into the public eye and sparked an uprising is back-with the story of its creation and the histories of its publication told like never before.When the Situationist International was a...

A collection of powerful BIPOC voices who offer a range of anticolonial, Indigenous, and Black Radical traditions to think with.We must, as For Antifascist Futures urges, take antifascism as a major imperative of movements for social change. But we must...

Rooted in an understanding of how the fascist body is constructed, we can develop the collective power to dismember it.Fascist and reactionary populist forces have undeniably swelled in the US in recent years. To effectively counter fascist movements, we...

Noir meets diverse voices and transforms the genre into an over-the-top, transcendental psychedelic thriller ride of pulpy goodness in THE OBAMA INHERITANCE, a collection of fifteen stories of conspiracy noir curated by editor and award-winning...

A candid guidebook about art-making in the midst of oppression-"a slim, necessary revelation" (Maggie Nelson,The Argonauts).Visiting the Andy Warhol Museum as a teenager, Beth Pickens realized that art was imperative for reflecting-and thus remaking-the...

It is 1989 and a seemingly invincible Prime Minister has sacked Geoffrey Howe, her Foreign Secretary. She apparently had nothing to fear from him: his speaking skills had, famously, been compared to those of a dead sheep. But, a year later, inspired by...

It was the dinner that changed history: the night in February 2016 when Boris Johnson decided to vote 'leave' and a nation's future was sealed. Guests included the spirits of Prime Ministers past, including Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill and Tony...

From 2014 to 2018, character comedy trio Sleeping Trees challenged themselves to bring the big screen to the stage, paying homage and reinventing gangster, western and sci-fi movies for audiences across the country. This book recounts how these shows...

A three-part accidental trilogy of performances about high art and celebrity and our increasingly tenuous grip on reality in the 21st century.Kourtney / Kim / Khloe Kardashian

Ira 'Iraville' Sluyterman van Langewedye is a popular contemporary illustrator beloved for her charming watercolour illustrations of nature, small towns, idyllic scenes, and everyday life. This title brings together a collection of her best work in a...

Following the enormous success of her first art book, Loish returns with an inspiring book dedicated to her beautiful sketches.  The Sketchbook of Loish offers readers a unique look into Loish's creative processes and idea generation, providing...

Discover the world of digital artist Lois van Baarle, a.k.a. Loish, in this high-quality collection of her most beautiful work.Lois van Baarle is a freelance animator/illustrator from the Netherlands who graduated in 2009 from the Hogeschool voor de...

Australia is different - a vast island-continent with distances so great that the capital of Western Australia is closer to Singapore than it is to Sydney. The landscape embraces magnificent tropical rainforests and deserts the size of several European...

Mongolia is landlocked between its neighbors China and Russia in the heart of Asia. For centuries after the disintegration of Genghis Khan's empire it was ruled by one or the other, but in 1990 the Mongols embraced democracy. Now, after two centuries of...

Bangladesh is a lush, green country situated on the fertile Ganges delta, adjacent to the Indian state of West Bengal. Although there are hilly areas in the northeast, this densely populated country is mostly flat, and criss-crossed by many rivers. Much...

The country is besieged by bad news, but despite the political turmoil the everyday life of its people is more stable, rich, and rewarding than the media headlines would lead you to believe. A myriad local festivals and celebrations and a vibrant...

One of the most complex countries in Latin America, and one of the least understood, Venezuela is vast, and never dull. Its unique culinary traditions, linguistic quirks, colourful history, and busy annual cycle of festivities are part of a rich cultural...

Georgia lies between Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Black Sea. This small Caucasian country is used to playing a significant role in global geopolitics, though its strategic location at the crossroads...

Slovenians retain an understated and understandable pride in their country, which is why they are delighted to show it off to visitors. Over the centuries, the area has belonged to many kingdoms and regimes, and until Slovenians gained independence in...

The historian Tadeusz Swietochowski calls Azerbaijan the quintessential borderland, many times over: between Europe and Asia, Islam and Christianity, Russia and the Middle East, Turks and Iranians, Shi a and Sunni Islam." Although a relatively young...

The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is comprised of two Caribbean islands and several islets off the coast of Venezuela. The vast majority of the population live on Trinidad, previously a colony of shifting ownership from Spain to France, Netherlands and...

Culture Smart! Armenia explains how to avoid cultural gaffes when out and about in the country. Giving the historical, political and cultural background, the guide reveals how to read body language and be aware of potential pitfalls in communication, and

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country of contradictions, where East meets West, and where several ideologies have come together to evolve into a vibrant, diverse culture. While there may be much that the Western visitor will find familiar in the day-to-day...

After years in comparative isolation Libya is opening up again. Its relations with the rest of the world have now improved, and with the lifting of sanctions it is likely that more outsiders will have a chance to visit it both for business and for...