Download or read book Tokyo Junkie written by Robert Whiting and published by Stone Bridge Press, Inc.. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tokyo Junkie is a memoir that plays out over the dramatic 60-year growth of the megacity Tokyo, once a dark, fetid backwater and now the most populous, sophisticated, and safe urban capital in the world. Follow author Robert Whiting (The Chrysanthemum and the Bat, You Gotta Have Wa, Tokyo Underworld) as he watches Tokyo transform during the 1964 Olympics, rubs shoulders with the Yakuza and comes face to face with the city’s dark underbelly, interviews Japan’s baseball elite after publishing his first best-selling book on the subject, and learns how politics and sports collide to produce a cultural landscape unlike any other, even as a new Olympics is postponed and the COVID virus ravages the nation. A colorful social history of what Anthony Bourdain dubbed, “the greatest city in the world,” Tokyo Junkie is a revealing account by an accomplished journalist who witnessed it all firsthand and, in the process, had his own dramatic personal transformation.
Download or read book Tokyo Junkie 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys and Baseball written by Robert Whiting and published by . This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 60 years of observation: an American journalist's memoir about Tokyo's modern urban transformation, its criminal underworld and, oh yes, baseball.
Download or read book Tokyo Underworld written by Robert Whiting and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-09-29 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting account of the role of Americans in the evolution of the Tokyo underworld in the years since 1945. In the ashes of postwar Japan lay a gold mine for certain opportunistic, expatriate Americans. Addicted to the volatile energy of Tokyo's freewheeling underworld, they formed ever-shifting but ever-profitable alliances with warring Japanese and Korean gangsters. At the center of this world was Nick Zappetti, an ex-marine from New York City who arrived in Tokyo in 1945, and whose restaurant soon became the rage throughout the city and the chief watering hole for celebrities, diplomats, sports figures, and mobsters. Tokyo Underworld chronicles the half-century rise and fall of the fortunes of Zappetti and his comrades, drawing parallels to the great shift of wealth from America to Japan in the late 1980s and the changes in Japanese society and U.S.-Japan relations that resulted. In doing so, Whiting exposes Japan's extraordinary "underground empire": a web of powerful alliances among crime bosses, corporate chairmen, leading politicians, and public figures. It is an amazing story told with a galvanizing blend of history and reportage.
Download or read book Kenichi Zenimura Japanese American Baseball Pioneer written by Bill Staples, Jr. and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2011-08-12 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the story of the Negro Leagues has been well documented, few baseball fans know about the Japanese American Nisei Leagues, or of their most influential figure, Kenichi Zenimura (1900-1968). A talented player who excelled at all nine positions, Zenimura was also a respected manager and would become the Japanese American community's baseball ambassador. He worked tirelessly to promote the game at home and abroad, leading goodwill trips to Asia, helping to negotiate tours of Japan by Negro League All-Stars and Babe Ruth, and establishing a 32-team league behind the barbed wire of Arizona's Gila River Internment Camp during World War II. This first biography of the "Father of Japanese-American Baseball" delivers a thorough and fascinating account of Zenimura's life.
Download or read book Wally Yonamine written by Robert K. Fitts and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2008-09-01 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wally Yonamine was both the first Japanese American to play for an NFL franchise and the first American to play professional baseball in Japan after World War II. This is the unlikely story of how a shy young man from the sugar plantations of Maui overcame prejudice to integrate two professional sports in two countries. ø In 1951 the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants chose Yonamine as the first American to play in Japan during the Allied occupation. He entered Japanese baseball when mistrust of Americans was high?and higher still for Japanese Americans whose parents had left the country a generation earlier. Without speaking the language, he helped introduce a hustling style of base running, shaking up the game for both Japanese players and fans. Along the way, Yonamine endured insults, dodged rocks thrown by fans, initiated riots, and was threatened by yakuza (the Japanese mafia). He also won batting titles, was named the 1957 MVP, coached and managed for twenty-five years, and was honored by the emperor of Japan. Overcoming bigotry and hardship on and off the field, Yonamine became a true national hero and a member of Japan?s Baseball Hall of Fame.
Download or read book The View From Breast Pocket Mountain written by Karen Hill Anton and published by . This book was released on 2020-09-14 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a journey from NYC to mountainside Japan, the reader will first experience Iran and Afghanistan. Serendipitous encounters with famous people add color to this unusual story. Interactions with everyday folk, shared experiences of love, hope and tragedy, highlight our interconnectedness and humanity.
Download or read book The Chrysanthemum and the Bat written by Robert Whiting and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Japanese written by Christopher Harding and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2020-11-05 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 'Mightily impressive ... a marvellous read' Sunday Times From the acclaimed author of Japan Story, this is the history of Japan, distilled into the stories of twenty remarkable individuals. The vivid and entertaining portraits in Chris Harding's enormously enjoyable new book take the reader from the earliest written accounts of Japan right through to the life of the current empress, Masako. We encounter shamans and warlords, poets and revolutionaries, scientists, artists and adventurers - each offering insights of their own into this extraordinary place. For anyone new to Japan, this book is the ideal introduction. For anyone already deeply involved with it, this is a book filled with surprises and pleasures.
Download or read book Snow Crash written by Neal Stephenson and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 1994-10-27 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION WITH NEW, NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED MATERIAL After the Internet, what came next? Enter the Metaverse - cyberspace home to avatars and software daemons, where anything and just about everything goes. Newly available on the Street - the Metaverse's main drag - is Snow Crash. A cyberdrug that reduces avatars in the digital world to dust, but also infects users in real life, leaving them in a vegetative state. This is bad news for Hiro, a freelance hacker and the Metaverse's best swordfighter, and mouthy skateboard courier Y. T.. Together, investigating the Infocalypse, they trace back the roots of language itself to an ancient Sumerian priesthood and find they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination. In this special edition of the remarkably prescient modern classic, Neal Stephenson explores linguistics, computer science, politics and philosophy in the form of a break-neck adventure into the fast-approaching yet eerily recognizable future. 'Fast-forward free-style mall mythology for the twenty-first century' William Gibson 'Brilliantly realized' New York Times Book Review 'Like a Pynchon novel with the brakes removed' Washington Post 'A remarkably prescient vision of today's tech landscape' Vanity Fair
Download or read book Blue Nippon written by E. Taylor Atkins and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Confessions of a Yakuza written by Dr. Junichi Saga and published by Kodansha USA. This book was released on 2010-08-05 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the true story, as told to the doctor who looked after him just before he died, of the life of one of the last traditional yakuza in Japan. It wasn’t a "good" life, in either sense of the word, but it was an adventurous one; and the tale he has to tell presents an honest and oddly attractive picture of an insider in that separate, unofficial world. In his low, hoarse voice, he describes the random events that led the son of a prosperous country shopkeeper to become a member, and ultimately the leader, of a gang organizing illegal dice games in Tokyo's liveliest entertainment area. He talks about his first police raid, and the brutal interrogation and imprisonment that followed it. He remembers his first love affair, and the girl he ran away with, and the weeks they spent wandering about the countryside together. Briefly, and matter-of-factly, he describes how he cut off the little finger of his left hand as a ritual gesture of apology. He explains how the games were run and the profits spent; why the ties between members of "the brotherhood" were so important; and how he came to kill a man who worked for him. What emerges is a contradictory personality: tough but not unsentimental; stubborn yet willing to take life more or less as it comes; impulsive but careful to observe the rules of the business he had joined. And in the end, when his tale is finished, you feel you would probably have liked him if you'd met him in person. Fortunately, Dr. Saga's record of his long conversations with him provides a wonderful substitute for that meeting.
Download or read book Idea Man written by Paul Allen and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What's it like to start a revolution? How do you build the biggest tech company in the world? And why do you walk away from it all? Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft. Together he and Bill Gates turned an idea - writing software - into a company and then an entire industry. This is the story of how it came about: two young mavericks who turned technology on its head, the bitter battles as each tried to stamp his vision on the future and the ruthless brilliance and fierce commitment.
Download or read book Love Me Hate Me written by Jeff Pearlman and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From acclaimed sports writer and bestselling author Jeff Pearlman, a searing and insightful look into the life and career of Barry Bonds, one of the most celebrated, contradictory and controversial sports figures of our time No player in the history of baseball has left such an indelible mark on the game as Barry Bonds. In his twenty-year career, Bonds has amassed an unprecedented 7 Most Valuable Player awards, 8 Gold Gloves, and more than 700 home runs (and counting), an impressive assortment of feats that has earned him the consideration as one of the greatest players the game has ever seen. Equally deserved, however, is his reputation as an insufferable braggart, whose mythical home runs are rivaled only by his legendary ego. From his staggering ability and fabled pedigree (father Bobby played outfield for the Giants; cousin Reggie and godfather Willie are both Hall of Famers), to his well-documented run-ins with teammates and his alleged steroid abuse, Bonds inspires a like amount of passion from both sides of the fence. For many, Bonds belongs beside Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron in baseball’s holy trinity; for others, he embodies all that is wrong with the modern athlete: aloof; arrogant; alienated. Drawing on extensive interviews with Bonds himself, members of his family, former and current managers, teammates, opponents, trainers, outspoken critics, and unapologetic supporters alike, Pearlman reveals, for the first time, a wonderfully nuanced portrait of a prodigiously talented—and immensely flawed—American icon, whose controversial run at baseball immortality forever changed the way we look at our sports heroes.
Download or read book Metrophage written by Richard Kadrey and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Richard Kadrey’s first novel—the cult classic dystopian cyberpunk tale—now back in print after twenty years in a special signed, collectible edition. Welcome to the near future: Los Angeles in the late 21st century—a segregated city of haves and have nots, where morality is dead and technology rules. Here, a small group of wealthy seclude themselves in gilded cages. Beyond their high security compounds, far from their pretty comforts, lies a lawless wasteland where the angry masses battle hunger, rampant disease, and their own despair to survive. Jonny was born into this Hobbesian paradise. A street-wise hustler who deals drugs on the black market—narcotics that heal the body and cool the mind—he looks out for nobody but himself. Until a terrifying plague sweeps through L.A., wreaking death and panic. And no one, not even a clever operator like Jonny, is safe. His own life hanging in the balance, Jonny must risk everything to find the cure—if there is one. The book will include a Q & A with Cory Doctorow.
Download or read book Me Against My Brother written by Scott Peterson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-04 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a foreign correspondent, Scott Peterson witnessed firsthand Somalia's descent into war and its battle against US troops, the spiritual degeneration of Sudan's Holy War, and one of the most horrific events of the last half century: the genocide in Rwanda. In Me Against My Brother, he brings these events together for the first time to record a collapse that has had an impact far beyond African borders.In Somalia, Peterson tells of harrowing experiences of clan conflict, guns and starvation. He met with warlords, observed death intimately and nearly lost his own life to a Somali mob. From ground level, he documents how the US-UN relief mission devolved into all out war - one that for America has proven to be the most formative post-Cold War debacle. In Sudan, he journeys where few correspondents have ever been, on both sides of that religious front line, to find that outside "relief" has only prolonged war. In Rwanda, his first-person experience of the genocide and well-documented analysis provide rare insight into this human tragedy.Filled with the dust, sweat and powerful detail of real-life, Me Against My Brother graphically illustrates how preventive action and a better understanding of Africa - especially by the US - could have averted much suffering. Also includes a 16-page color insert.
Download or read book Mashi written by Robert K. Fitts and published by University of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2020-04-01 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spring of 1964, the Nankai Hawks of Japan’s Pacific League sent nineteen-year-old Masanori Murakami to the Class A Fresno Giants to improve his skills. To nearly everyone’s surprise, Murakami, known as Mashi, dominated the American hitters. With the San Francisco Giants caught in a close pennant race and desperate for a left-handed reliever, Masanori was called up to join the big league club, becoming the first Japanese player in the Major Leagues. Featuring pinpoint control, a devastating curveball, and a friendly smile, Mashi became the Giants’ top lefty reliever and one of the team’s most popular players—as well as a national hero in Japan. Not surprisingly, the Giants offered him a contract for the 1965 season. Murakami signed, announcing that he would be thrilled to stay in San Francisco. There was just one problem: the Nankai Hawks still owned his contract. The dispute over Murakami’s contract would ignite an international incident that ultimately prevented other Japanese players from joining the Majors for thirty years. Mashi is the story of an unlikely hero caught up in an American and Japanese baseball dispute and forced to choose between his dreams in the United States and his duty in Japan.
Download or read book The Immoral Landscape written by Richard Symanski and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
