Waiting on the Weather in the Globe and Mail

In the book section of the Globe and Mail, Gail Singer reviews Waiting on the Weather: Making Movies with Akira Kurosawa by Teruyo Nogami. Here's an excerpt:

What is so startling about this account is its homey, accessible matter-of-factness. There isn't a note of tension, anxiety or breathlessness. Would Kurosawa have been okay with it? Probably not, as the author herself concedes.

The entire review is online here.

Asia Shock in the Asian Reporter

In a glowing review, Mike Street of the Asian Reporter writes:

Just as with Stray Dogs, Galloway has produced a book full of wit, wisdom, and vital information, all told in his entertaining and flowing prose, making Asia Shock delightful for fans and essential to students of extreme Asian film.

Galloway at Powell's in Portland, March 11th

Patrick Galloway, whose excellent guidebook, Asia Shock: Horror and Dark Cinema from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, & Thailand, is turning heads all over the place these days, will be reading, showing film clips, and signing books at Powell's City of Books on Burnside on March 11th. Don't miss it!

Read the Twitch review of Galloway's Cody's reading for a "preview" of this event.

Sunday, March 11th 2007 07:30 PM
1005 W Burnside
Portland, OR 97209

Coming this Spring!

Although we already announced our Spring list, it's time for a little more information about the books you can't wait to love!





APRIL

The Art of Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles
By Tommy Yune; Foreword by Carl Macek
ISBN 978-1-933330-29-7, $19.95, 144 pages
The exclusive, full-color tie-in to the new Robotech film includes series history, characters guides, and many pages of film art and drawings, assembled by production insiders.

A Dictionary of Japanese Buddhist Terms
By Hisao Inagaki, with contributions by PG O'Neill
ISBN 978-1-933330-05-1, $65.00, 548 pages
The return of a vital resource for students of Buddhism and Japanese culture. Nearly 5,000 entries on Buddhist terms, personal names, ceremonies, texts, and sects.

Family Crests of Japan
ISBN 978-1-933330-30-3, $18.95, 156 pages
Presents over 850 family crests with descriptions, cultural backgrounds, and a selection of photographs showing how crests are used on banners, signs, and buildings. Bold iconic designs from a unique tradition.

Indonesian Fables of Feats and Fortunes
Told and edited by Kuniko Sugiura; Illustrated by Koji Honda
ISBN 978-0-89346-950-4, $16.95, 32 pages
Stories from Indonesia make up the latest entry to the Asian Folktales Retold series. Meet a mischievous small deer, a rooster that sings, and a baby water buffalo that saves the day.

Indonesian Tales of Treasures and Brides
Told and edited by Kuniko Sugiura; Illustrated by Koji Honda
ISBN 978-0-89346-951-1, $16.95, 32 pages
A poor man woos a princess, a young man tricks a goddess, and two stepsisters with very different attitudes go on an adventure full of treasures and pumpkins.


MAY

Anime Classics Zettai!: 100 Must-See Japanese Animation Masterpieces
By Brian Camp and Julie Davis
ISBN 978-1-933330-22-8, $18.95, 400 pages
Extended reviews of 100 top Japanese animation films, TV series, and made-for-video series, from 1958 to the latest Cartoon Network hits. Engaging entries include data, personnel, summary, style, critical comments, and viewer-discretion guides.

China for Businesswomen: A Strategic Guide to Travel, Negotiating, and Cultural Differences
By Tracey Wilen-Daugenti
ISBN 978-1-933330-28-0, $16.95, 200 pages
Based on interviews with women executives and entrepreneurs who have succeeded in China, this concise book is packed with straightforward advice on overcoming gender and cultural obstacles.

The Films of Kiyoshi Kurosawa: Master of Fear
By Jerry White
ISBN 978-1-933330-21-1, $19.95, 224 pages
Following Kiyoshi Kurosawa from his humble beginning in the pink film industry to his career as the celebrated filmmaker of "Cure," "Pulse," and "Loft," this guide includes essays on 25 films, a descriptive filmography, and a sit-down interview.

A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics
By Donald Richie
ISBN 978-1-933330-23-5, $9.95, 80 pages
In this anticipated new book, legendary critic Donald Richie explains Japanese aesthetic concepts, looking at how perceptual values in Japan were drawn from raw nature and then modified by elegant expressions of class and taste.


JULY

Crazy for Kanji: A Student's Guide to the Wonderful World of Japanese Characters
By Eve Kushner
ISBN 978-1-933330-20-4, $19.95, 200 pages
Putting the craze back in crazy, this exploration of kanji (Japanese written characters) places kanji in context, explaining why kanji look like they do, how to tell "husband" from "prisoner," where to find kanji in Wales, and how to learn kanji faster. Includes puzzles, almost 100 illustrations, and even kanji sudoku!


STONE BRIDGE CLASSICS

APRIL

The Book of Tea
By Kakuzo Okakura
ISBN 978-1-933330-17-4
"A seminal guide to Asian life and thought. Very highly recommended."-Midwest Book Review.

A Diplomat in Japan: The Inner History of the Critical Years in the Evolution of Japan when the Ports were Opened and the Monarchy Restored
By Sir Ernest Satow
ISBN 978-1-933330-16-7, $14.95, 672 pages
An inner history of the critical years of social and political upheaval that accompanied Japan's first encounters with the West.

Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art: An Outline History of East Asiatic Design
By Ernest F. Fenellosa
ISBN 978-1-933330-26-6, $18.95, 800 pages
Still regarded as a monumental survey of Eastern art, this comprehensive volume was intended for art collectors and general readers as well as travelers and scholars.

The Ideals of the East: With Special Reference to the Art of Japan
By Kakuzo Okakura
ISBN 978-1-933330-25-9, $10.95, 200 pages
The 1904 book that famously declared "Asia is one," and was among the first studies in English to reference Zen in its exploration of the roots of Japanese beauty.

Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things
By Lafcadio Hearn
ISBN 978-1-933330-24-2, $10.95, Paper, 160 pages
A miscellany of ghost stories, odd tales, and curious observations by a master storyteller who penetrated Japan more deeply than any other Westerner.

The Mikado's Empire: A History of Japan from the Age of Gods to the Meiji Era (660 BC - AD 1872)
By William Elliot Griffis
ISBN 978-1-933330-18-1, $14.95, 512 pages
In its day the most popular book on the then-mysterious nation of Japan, this volume covers the history and culture of Japan from the earliest times to the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

Things Japanese: Being Notes on Various Subjects Connected with Japan
By Basil Hall Chamberlain
ISBN 978-1-933330-27-3 $14.95, 540 pages
An engaging collection about everything from the abacus to zoology in Japan, designed to preserve knowledge about a society that was modernizing beyond recognition.

Unbeaten Tracks in Japan: An Account of Travels in the Interior including Visits to the Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrine of Nikko
By Isabella L. Bird
ISBN 978-1-933330-19-8, $12.95, 352 pages
The first recorded account of Japan by a Westerner, this 1878 book captures a lifestyle that has nearly vanished. The author traveled 1,400 miles by horse, ferry, foot, and jinrikisha.

Asia Shock in Book News

The February 2007 issue of Reference and Research Book News, a quarterly publication, includes the following review of Asia Shock by Patrick Galloway. Perhaps Stone Bridge Press will now be known as the "typically enthusiastic" press. Fine with us!

The author defines “dark cinema” as “a meta-genre that embraces the macabre and disturbing, shocking and profane, dire and devastating extremes of the contemporary film experience,” thus encompassing horror, exploitation film, black comedy, psychological thrillers, and even some types of police procedurals and art house fare. In this work he takes the reader on a tour of 41 of his favorite examples of dark cinema from Japan, Korea, China, and Thailand, describing them in synopsis and offering his own typically enthusiastic judgments.

See a pdf of the issue here, on page 277.

Galloway and White in the Star-Ledger

For his excellent story on Asian horror films, "Ghosts or Gore: Asian horror flicks tap age old traditions," New Jersey Star-Ledger film critic and member of the New York Film Critics Circle Stephen Whitty interviewed two Stone Bridge authors: Patrick Galloway, author of Asia Shock: Horror and Dark Cinema from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Thailand, and Jerry White, author of the forthcoming The Films of Kiyoshi Kurosawa: Master of Fear.

The story, online here, ran in the New Jersey Star-Ledger on Sunday (February 4), and will continue to run in various Newhouse papers.

"If you want these films with an Asian person, they'll sit through them shivering," says Patrick Galloway, the author of "Asia Shock" (Stone Bridge Press). "It resonates on a deep cultural level. Ghost lore, for example, looms very large in China, where you'd hear these stories from the time you were a child. And in Japan, the longhaired female ghost -- it's become a cliché, but she comes from Kabuki."

"Ah yes, the black-haired ghost," says Jerry White, a fifth-grade teacher in Glen Ridge -- and the author of the upcoming "Kiyoshi Kurosawa: Master of Fear" (Stone Bridge Press). "You see that a lot, you see dead little girls showing up a lot -- these are things that re-occur. And many of these films are looking back to old traditions, like 'The Ghost Story of Yotsuya,' or the folk stories gathered by Lafcadio Hearn."

The extensive article also includes a great quote from Thai director Oxide Pang (Bangkok Dangerous, The Eye):

"The Western people, they love the Asian ghost...In Hollywood, they try to make everything reasonable. Why is the ghost trying to kill you? Why is their face so horrible? It Asia, we're not concerned about this. The ghost is scary, you know? Scary is not reasonable."