Memoirs of a Happy Warrior is an autobiographical account of professional mixed martial arts fighter Roxanne Modafferi. The book takes place over the course of two years when Roxanne decided to move from the United States to Japan for her junior year of college. After settling in with her host family and figuring out how become more Japanese, Roxanne immediately continued her martial arts training. From there, she embarked on her professional MMA career and never looked back. Roxanne toppl...

Prepare yourself for a journey through the world of Patton Oswalt, one of the most creative, insightful, and hysterical voices on the entertainment scene today. Widely known for his roles in the films Big Fan and Ratatouille, as well as the television hit The King of Queens, Patton Oswalt—a staple of Comedy Central—has been amusing audiences for decades. Now, with Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, he offers a fascinating look into his most unu...

The bestselling, wonderfully unconventional, “warmly conspiratorial…seriously good” (The New York Times) memoir-in-letters from the Tony, Emmy, and Golden Globe Award–winning actress that has received fabulous and wide praise. “There is no one else quite like Mary-Louise Parker…Funny, heartbreaking and profound” (ELLE).An extraordinary literary memoir, Dear Mr. You renders the singular arc of a woman’s life through letters Mary-Louise Par...

A rollercoaster ride from the cult master of the psycho-thriller'A blistering portrait of contemporary Japan, its nihilism and decadence wrapped up within one of the most savage thrillers since The Silence of the Lambs' Kirkus'Deft and fascinating . . . A grisly tour of the darkness and confusion of the human mind' New York TimesIt's just before New Year, and Frank, an overweight American tourist, has hired Kenji to take him on a guided tour of Tok...

The ultimate guide to creating chibis!They populate manga with chunky bodies, oversized heads, and huge expressive eyes. They're schoolgirls and schoolboys, magical girls and mad scientists, fairies and fighter princesses, cyborgs and sci-fi secret agents, bikers and bad samurais, robots and rebel leaders. They've even got chubby pets and zany monster sidekicks! They're chibis!Excruciatingly cute, highly stylized, and beloved in all manga genres (fantasy, m...

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE DOWNRIGHT WEIRD.The Ikebukuro district in Tokyo is full of interesting people. A boy longing for the extraordinary. A hotheaded punk. An airheaded pseudo-stalker. An information broker who works for kicks. An underground doctor who specializes in truly desperate patients. A high school student infatuated with a monster. And a headless rider on a pitch-black motorcycle. Their story may not be a heartwarming one, but as it turns out, even weirdos like these sometim...

Comedian, blogger and essayist Samantha Irby is not going to be a better person this year than she was last. Nope. With a small group of woo-woo others, Irby sets seventy micro-resolutions, and then—with the rest of us—she fails at almost every single one of them.A Vintage Shorts Original. An ebook short.Thoughtful, witty, poignant—the failed intentions in New Year Same Trash will make you laugh and cry. Because you know y...

From the New York Times bestselling author Catherynne Valente comes a ferocious riff on the women in superhero comics.The Refrigerator Monologues is a collection of linked stories from the points of view of the wives and girlfriends of superheroes, female heroes, and anyone who’s ever been “refrigerated”: comic book women who are killed, raped, brainwashed, driven mad, disabled, or had their powers taken so that a male superhero’s storyline will p...

The Lesson presents a self-absorbed wedding DJ as the newest addition to Jessica Westhead’s trademark cast of offbeat protagonists. This posturing narrator is showing a new recruit the ropes, but what begins as a monologue full of blue-collar bravado grows more menacing over the course of the night. He becomes fixated on a female wedding guest—you know the type, spiky hair and feathers on her dress. As he dwells on the woman he feels is using dance-floor requests ...

Ikebukuro has a slashing problem.Ikebukuro, Tokyo. A place where the clumsy and inept at love gather. A high school girl worried about her status. A third-rate magazine reporter covering the Ikebukuro beat. A teacher suspected of sexual harassment. A thug wearing a yellow bandanna, who is said to be the toughest around. A young man who deals in all manner of sensitive information. And a headless rider on a coal-black motorcycle. As these individuals and more are drawn into a whirl of unluc...

"Could you kill someone? Working as an information broker in Shinjuku, just toying with all those people... But could you, Izaya Orihara, kill someone? Directly, by your own hand? Not stabbing someone with your knife just right to keep them from dying while you keep dodging the question, I mean. Well, whatever... In the end, you're the kind of guy who uses other people to do your dirty work. You're hilariously cowardly."Tokyo, Ikebukuro. Loads of baggage from the past are starting to turn ...

Ikebukuro, Tokyo. All kinds of people are showing up to settle their scores with Izaya Orihara the information broker. A pair of foreigners who specialize in odd jobs. A runaway girl still looking for her Shizuo. A fellow dressed like a bartender who looks like he's had better days. A womanizer set on getting his revenge against the Dollars. An underground doctor waiting for someone to come home. A class representative with a clueless classmate pal and a target on his back. And a headless ...