"After surviving a difficult heartbreak and battle with cancer, Julia Baird began to explore how she and others persevere through the most challenging circumstances life throws at us. She asks: when our world goes dark, when we are overwhelmed by illness or heartbreak, loss or pain, tragedy outside our control, how do we survive, stay alive and even bloom? She went in search of "the magic that will sustain us and fuel the light within - our own phosphorescence...

In this book, author Sue DiCicco and Sadako's older brother Masahiro tell her complete story in English for the first time--how Sadako's courage throughout her illness inspired family and friends, and how she became a symbol of all people, especially children, who suffer from the impact of war. Her life and her death carry a message: we must have a wholehearted desire for peace and be willing to work together to achieve it. Sadako Sasaki was two...

Errol Morris (The Fog of War) turns his camera on one of the most fascinating men in the world: the pioneering astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, afflicted by a debilitating motor neuron disease that has left him without a voice or the use of his limbs. An adroitly crafted tale of personal adversity, professional triumph, and cosmological inquiry, Morris's documentary examines the way the collapse of Hawking's body has been accompanied by the untrammeled...

"The age of the rock star, like the age of the cowboy, has passed. Like the cowboy, the idea of the rock star lives on in our imaginations. What did we see in them? Swagger. Recklessness. Sexual charisma. Damn-the-torpedoes self-belief. A certain way of carrying themselves. Good hair. Interesting shoes. Talent we wished we had. What did we want of them? To be larger than life but also like us. To live out their songs. To stay young forever. No wonder...

"A classic memoir of self-invention in a strange land : Ian Buruma's unflinching account of his amazing journey into the heart of Tokyo's underground culture as a young man in the 1970's When Ian Buruma arrived in Tokyo in 1975, Japan was little more than an idea in his mind, a fantasy of a distant land. A sensitive misfit in the world of his upper middleclass youth, what he longed for wasn't so much the exotic as the raw, unfiltered humanity he had...

"The year is 1995. Fresh out of a long-term relationship, twenty-two-year old MariNaomi finds herself amidst a flurry of major life changes. Newly immersed in the pan-Asian diaspora of San Jose, California, half-Japanese Mari searches for connections to a culture that has so far eluded her. It doesn't take long for Mari to find new loves, and a new job--at a hostess bar for Japanese expats--in a bid to learn the language and culture. Turning Japanese...

"Tells the true story of Iva Toguri, a Japanese American woman who was visiting relatives in Tokyo shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Trapped in Japan, Iva was pressed to renounce her American citizenship, but refused. As war raged across the Pacific, she took a job with Radio Tokyo-where she was forced to host "Zero Hour," a propaganda show aimed at demoralizing American troops-in the role of Tokyo Rose, the "Siren of the Pacific.""--Publisher's...

The first volume of Tesuka Osamu's fictional biography of Siddhartha, Gautama Buddha. Introduces Chapra, a slave boy who tries to escape his fate; Chapra's slave mother, who sticks by him no matter what; Tatta, a crazed wild child pariah who communes with animals; and Naradatta, a monk attempting to decipher strange portents of the Buddha's birth.

"The international literary icon opens his eclectic closet: Here are photographs of Murakami's extensive and personal T-shirt collection, accompanied by essays that reveal a side of the writer rarely seen by the public. Considered "the world's most popular cult novelist" (The Guardian), Haruki Murakami's books have galvanized millions around the world. Many of his fans know about his 10,000 vinyl record collection, and his obsession with running,...

The heart-rending autobiographical manga that's taken the internet by storm! My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is an honest and heartfelt look at one young woman's exploration of her sexuality, mental well-being, and growing up in our modern age. Told using expressive artwork that invokes both laughter and tears, this moving and highly entertaining single volume depicts not only the artist's burgeoning sexuality, but many other personal aspects...