Book Description
Microsoft's notoriously grueling interview process has been emulated by companies everywhere that seek to separate the most creative thinkers from the merely brilliant. HOW WOULD YOU MOVE MOUNT FUJI? reveals more than 35 of these challenging riddles and puzzles and, for the first time, shows how answers can be found through creative and effective analytical thinking.
Customer Reviews:
Good for interview backup.......2007-06-05
This was a pretty fun read. The book goes over the origins of brainteaser/puzzle interviews, how they are/should be used, and has a lot of well explained examples. For my purposes of going over brainteasers that I might run into in investment banking interviews, the book was pretty handy because the few brainteasers I did get, I had read about before. If you are trying to do the same thing for other types of interviews (with trading companies or something more quantitative) then the book isn't as good in those areas, because the questions are more probability/stat based.
Overall, very enjoyable and well-written.
The answer key to your next interview.......2007-04-15
For anyone looking for an entry level position at a financial or technology firm, this is a must read. Insane logic puzzles and brainteasers are the new craze in interviewing, and the ideas are spreading to more and more companies. Whether such silly interview questions are a good measure of a candidate's intelligence is debatable. But one thing for certain is that interview brainteasers are here to stay.
Mt Fuji covers all angles of the interview brainteaser, from its history and origins to how they should be handled in an interview. The first segment of the book about the history of interviewing and puzzles is an interesting read and gives you insight into why their creators first put them to practice. As both an interview and interviewee, the history may help you understand their application, but overall this segment is not very practical for a tough interview.
The meat of this book comes near the middle, where it gives a list of popular logic puzzles actually used by some companies (solutions to all puzzles mentioned throughout the book are in the appendix). If you have the time, they are fun to work out. After this page of puzzles, the author describes how employers applied them in interviews and gives general guidelines for defeating similar questions.
The final chapter before the appendix is directed towards potential interviewers. It explains how some companies have gone overboard and improperly used brainteasers to evaluate job candidates. For interviewees, it makes you feel better if you had a bad interview because of unfair use of brainteasers.
Mt Fuji is an excellent read for any young person currently seeking a job, and any employer who would like to incorporate brainteaser questions into the interview process. The puzzles and history are geared towards technology firms like Microsoft, but these brainteasers are also very common with Wall Street firms. Not only is this read informative, but will be fun if you enjoy thinking out of the box.
The utility coefficient between the contents of this book and your interview at Microsoft will be
< 0.15.......2007-02-09
At this point, this is for entertainment purposes only. Like the late James Fixx's brainteaser books, these now are just for fun. If you really wish to cram logic puzzles for interviews, it probably pays to look at very old ones rather than current hot ones, since HR departments are not snoozing at the wheel on the ambitious nerdnicks who memorized vocabulary lists for the SAT.
There does appear to be some mapping of the techniques tested here and workplace problem solving skills, but we are in the artistic stage of alchemy rather than a scientific stage of chemistry on the topic. Anyone who claims these puzzles distinguish intelligence might as well be wearing a pointed hat and gazing into a bowl of mercury (on a tripod, warmed by a candle no less).
Still, lots of fun.
This book was a delicious read!.......2007-02-07
I typically read for a half an hour a day and found that it felt more like 5 minutes when reading this book. Learn about the puzzles, riddles and just plain crazy questions used by some of the world's top companies (including Microsoft) when looking for top creative "out of the box" thinkers for their organizations. Be prepared to be stumped on more than one of these puzzles - but you'll also be jumping for joy when you solve a few! Totally entertaining and captivating.
Not good for preparing any interview.......2006-12-21
This book was a disappointment. It consists of a few anecdotes about William Shockley and Microsoft people, and does not offer any insights into the questions asked, or how to solve them. It is not any significant research into the puzzle questions in job interviews. Nor is it an original collection of brainteasers. It is written in the style of a very long Sunday magazine, and not a book. For a job seeker who might be faced with logic and puzzle interviews this book has very little to offer. It can actually be detrimental, because it gives a feeling of intimidation, and not revelation.
Book Description
Contrary to popular belief, when you buy an expensive camera the exposure skills DO NOT COME with it!
When you buy an expensive GUITAR, you KNOW that playing skills DO NOT COME with it! When you buy an expensive CAR, you KNOW that driving skills DO NOT COME with it! When you buy an expensive CAMERA, why, then, do you NOT KNOW that exposure skills DO NOT COME with it?
This book teaches the beginning Digital/35mm photographer (9th grade level) the simple and practical methods of correctly exposing a subject. This is also the world's first Digital Zone System book that addresses the application of the Zone System of exposure using current manual digital cameras including many of today's D-Slrs. The book covers in detail the applications of a camera's meter, an off-camera spot meter, an off-camera incident meter, and easy-to-remember techniques for exposing sunlit to moonlit subjects without a meter. The book uses Farzad's simplified 5-stop technique using 100 ISO color slide or Digital Film as its base, but the same techniques can be applied to Black and White, as well as color negative film with different ISOs. Since all the thinking is done before the photographer takes the picture, the book is ideal for this millennium's 35mm photographers that use one-hour processing labs. Since all the exposure decisions are made ahead of time (before the picture is taken), the technique saves the digital photographer many hours that he or she would waste behind the computer trying to figure out what he/she wanted to capture in the first place. The highest level of math required from the reader to understand this book, is to be able to multiply and divide a number by two. Also in the fourth edition (with the Lotus flower on the cover), a special calibration section is added to the end of the book for all those photographers who have spent a few thousand dollars on their D-Slr and are consistently getting underexposed and unacceptable images.
The fourth edition also includes Digital footnotes and assignments for photographers using manual digital cameras. The book also includes Digital as well as 35mm exposure cheat sheets for Canon EOS 5D, Canon EOS 10D, Canon EOS 20D, Canon EOS 30D, Canon EOS A2/A2e, Canon EOS Rebel TI, Canon EOS Rebel XT, Canon EOS Rebel Xti, Canon PowerShot G5, FujiFilm FinePix S7000, Minolta Maxxum 5, Minolta Maxxum 7, Minolta Maxxum 9, Minolta Maxxum STSi, Nikon Coolpix 990, Nikon Coolpix 5700, Nikon Coolpix 8700, Nikon D50, Nikon D70, Nikon D80, Nikon D200, Nikon F4, Nikon F5, Nikon F100, Nikon N70, Nikon N90, Nikon N6006, Nikon N8008s, Pentax *ist-D, Pentax 645N, Pentax MZS, Pentax PZ1P, and Sony DSC-F717.
Customer Reviews:
A very useful Book to begin Photography........2007-08-24
The Confused Photographer's Guide to Photographic Exposure and the Simplified Zone System
I am a beginner to the world of photography.The reason for me to buy this book was the difficulty with getting a correct exposure to suit different lighting conditions and objects.
After reading this book now I am able to get a correct exposure and make it quickly.
This is the best book I read which is intended for beginners as well.Book provides a lot of details in a very easy to understand format.Ample graphics are used and the Author gradually takes the reader from very basic exposure techniques to more advanced ways.Further he provides some quick steps as well.
Great way to de-mystify the field of exposure.......2007-06-03
I ordered this book as I felt that I was getting nowhere with my undrrstanding of exposure. Over the past few months I agonized over which ones to buy and after much searching I have to say that this book is up there at the top.
The author has also been generous enough to answer my questions on his system and provided me with some answers that are worth their weight in gold!
Thank you Bahman for de-mystifying the subject of exposure and thank you for helping me on the road to improving my photography!
Great book.......2007-05-14
This book assumes that you know very little and then takes you through to teaching advanced techniques in getting the correct exposure every time. A well written book.
Wow -- This is the book to have on the subject of Zone Systems.......2007-05-12
I was familiar with the Zone System, which is used to draw out more detail in a photograph. In fact, you can find a fantastic description of the process on Wikipedia.
In a print system where you have a white paper that turns black when exposed to light, you expose for the dark parts and use dark room processes to get the light parts.
In a digital system, things are reversed because you have a black starting point that turns white when exposed to light. As such, one exposes for the lighter elements and use digital software to post-process the darker areas.
Things become a little confusing though when you are trying to remember what you're trying to do and you realize your meter isn't giving you the reading you want.
Meters expose to 18% grey. Humans, for some reason, perceive this amount as 50%. That is, if you see black and you see white, what you'd call 50% grey in the middle would actually be reflecting only 18% of the light falling on it. Weird, I know. Anyhow...
Anything you point your camera's meter at, it will try to adjust the tone as 18% grey. As such, you first have to learn to see the tone independent of color. This book teaches you how by showing numerous examples along side of extremes.
Once you're pointing your camera's meter at the right place for the zone system to work, you then have to compensate for your meter not knowing you did that. Once again, the book gives plenty of examples, shows all combinations possible, and teaches you several ways to think about the problem so that you know whether you need to expose more or less and by how much.
To top it off, not all camera models work the same way with notation. For instance, if your camera says +2, does that mean that you are adding two stops to what the meter is reading? Or, are you indicating that the meter is two stops more than what you want? The answer is that it depends based upon your camera, and that's covered too.
Once you've got all the mechanics worked out, the book then covers the zone system and works into more advanced applications of it, and then touches on the artistic aspects.
There's lots of big pictures on sparse pages to specifically reduce confusion and deliberately designed not to overwhelm the reader with details that aren't needed for that example. Conversely, during discussion moments, complete coverage of the topic is provided in a very approachable manner.
Two thumbs up for the author of this book. I wish other authors would cover subject matters as clearly and coherently.
A users review.......2007-02-08
Ask many different photographers for advice and guidance on learning the zone system (as I did) and you will get as many different replies. Also, many books written on the subject unnecessarily complicate their explanations and therefore discourage beginners. Considering that exposure is the most important concept in all of photography, anyone with more than a passing interest and a desire to create beautiful pictures will sooner or later arrive at the door of the zone system. Photography and the zone system go hand-in-hand like red wine and steak. I had purchased at least 4 different books on the subject and still been confused until I read the book by Mr. Farzad. Within 1 hour I suddenly realized how simple it all was and was wondering why it hadn't been explained so simply before this publication! Copiously illustrated with simple diagrams I would defy anyone to not understand the zone system after the first read of this book. For the past 4 years I have been teaching photography at my local college and I use the simple explanations as taught in the book with my students. Within an hour or two, 90% of the class find the zone system it simplicity itself. Do yourself a favor, stop being confused and read this book, your pictures will benefit almost instantly. I would have no reservations at awarding this book 10 out of 10.
Book Description
Microsoft's interview process is a notoriously grueling sequence of brain-busting questions that separate the most creative thinkers from the merely brilliant. So effective is their technique that other leading corporations-from the high-tech industry to consulting and financial services-are modeling their own hiring practices on Bill Gates' unique approach. How Would You Move Mount Fuji? reveals for the first time more than 35 of Microsoft's puzzles and riddles, such as: n Why does a mirror reverse right and left but not up and down? n If you could eliminate one U.S. state, which would it be? n How would you make an MM? n How many piano tuners are there in the world? And, for the first time, this book supplies answers and approaches using creative analytical thinking that works. Anyone in business, and everyone who wants to be, will find here a valuable new approach to hiring, identifying talent in an organization, and getting the job of a lifetime.
Download Description
Microsoft's interview process is a notoriously grueling sequence of brain-busting questions that separate the most creative thinkers from the merely brilliant. So effective is their technique that other leading corporations-from the high-tech industry to consulting and financial services-are modeling their own hiring practices on Bill Gates's unique approach. HOW WOULD YOU MOVE MOUNT FUJI? reveals for the first time more than 35 of Microsoft's puzzles and riddles, such as: - Why does a mirror reverse right and left but not up and down? - If you could eliminate one U.S. state, which would it be? - How would you make an M&M? - How many piano tuners are there in the world? And for the first time, this book supplies answers and approaches using creative analytical thinking that works. Anyone in business, and everyone who wants to be, will find here a valuable new approach to hiring, identifying talent in an organization, and getting the job of a lifetime.
Customer Reviews:
If you interview people, this book is worth an investment.........2007-01-21
Don't get decepted that this book is not about Microsoft -- rather how does one find the right talent! While the book talks about Microsoft examples on interviewing, it does contain lot more than Microsoft interviewing. It talks about how to conduct interviews for various levels and positions, how do you get the best out of a person, and how do you spot the right talent in the person whom you are recruiting. I have been on both sides of the table and these days almost on the side of interviewing candidates -- believe me this book has changed my attitude towards how I view every one of my candidate and it feels good about it too.
Whether you are interviewing or being interviewed, you won't regret your money on this a bit. In fact, some one walked of with my book, so, I invested in one more copy of this book, that every now and then, I refer to it.
Interesting, but not practical.......2006-12-11
I bought this book to prepare for an entry level Software Development Engineer interview. I thought it was an interesting read, but in none of my 6 interviews that day was I asked a single puzzle question. All my questions were solved using algorithms and code written on the whiteboard. The book was interesting for the sake of light reading and there were 2 pages of useful information about the number of interviews a candidate receives as an indicator of how well it's going, but overall, this probably just made me more nervous for my interviews because it suggests that a single incorrect answer could lead to a "no hire" decision and a single "no hire" is enough to sink a candidate. I know that I answered several questions incorrectly and I still got offers from both groups I interviewed with, so read the book, but know it's not quite as daunting as Poundstone tries to present it (or at least not always).
Forget it if you go to MS international interviews.......2006-08-01
During the Microsoft international interviews I did a couple of months ago there were no puzzle questions. The technical interviews went as advertised. The international hiring manager (an indian girl, whose name I don't want to remember) handled candidates as if they were pieces of meat and used agressive, pressure tactics against us. She didn't care we ended up with a very bad impression of Microsoft. This contradicts almost everything described in the book, therefore I would advice you to not read it unless if you want to be frustrated after being crushed by a clueless HR manager.
Microsoft doesn't ask puzzle questions anymore........2006-06-28
This book is fine if you go to a company that actually asks puzzle questions.
However, in October 2005 I went on three job interviews at Microsoft (each 4 hours long) and there wasn't a single puzzle question asked. I had to do whiteboard work where I created code to solve something with data structures.
Luckily I studied on data structures before I went on the interview and all three groups wanted to hire me :)
How many gas stations in USA?.......2006-04-06
I am looking for jobs and read this book recently. First of all, it is an easy read, yuu can read it while you are relaxing. I did know most of the puzzles included in this book. Tackling the open ended estimation questions like, "How many gas stations in USA?" were new to me. This book provides a good outline how to approach such estimation questions.
Customer Reviews:
If you're traveling to Japan . . ........2007-05-07
If you are planning to travel to Japan, particularly for the first time, this is a good book to read, as it is an excellent guide to the complicated cultural differences you are likely to encounter. There are some wonderful anecdotes, my favorite being the story of how Davidson and her husband attended a funeral in the home of people they knew quite well. Nevertheless, they ended up completely confused as to how to behave correctly and mortified by their errors in etiquette. The book is also a wise commentary on what happens when one is so smitten by another culture that (for a time) the possibility of moving and starting one's life over in a new place seems not only desirable but possible. There is a fine section in which Davidson, on a visit to Paris, observes the difficulties of the Japanese tourists who are also visiting the city. The experience provides her with a completely different perspective, tempering her rather idealized view of Japanese culture. That said, the book is too long, and as I read it for a second time, I found myself skimming and skipping through parts like the long elegy for Suzuki-san that appears and reappears like a kind of refrain in the second half of the book. As a memoir, 36 Views is a very serious, sometimes graceful, sometimes ponderous look at Japan, and I occasionally found myself longing for a dose of irreverence.
From Practice House (in Japan) to Practice House (in NC).......2006-11-18
Davidson Sensei's book is worthwhile just for the vignettes and anecdotes about a gaijin living in Japan in the 1980's. The book is even better as a discourse and commentary on the relative merits of egalitarian and elitist cultures.
For many gaijin, Japan is a middleclass paradise... safe, clean, polite, orderly, full of giri (reciprocity); an egalitarian meritocracy. The ultimate middle class experience. At first, Davidson falls in love with Japan but by her fourth visit, she sees it as a sad, depressing place. Her discomfort reaches a peak during a stay at her former host University's Practice House, an ersatz model Western home designed to be a laboratory for teaching young Japanese women Western manners, practices and protocols.
The Western, and particularly the American elite's disdain, if not outright contempt for what's left of the middle class is well known. Academic elites, in particular, loath their middle class students (while craving the middle class tuition dollars that pay their salaries). Davidson tells us about her family's failed efforts to participate in the middle class Chicagoland suburbia of the 1950's. She hates all of the mid-20th century middle class symbolism in her Japanese host's Western Practice House.
Davidson moves on to a job at an elite East Coast University, builds a fabulous Japanese house on a beautiful lakeside setting in the country, and leads a live that most Americans can only imagine. Ultimately, the author chooses to participate in the upmarket options that are only available to her in Elitist America instead of the living in middle class Japan. She makes the decision after a blinding flash of insight gained while vacationing in Paris. The point of the book, the moral of the story, fits our times perfectly: Elitism is better than Egalitarianism, (if you are a member of the Elite). What is funny and charming about all this is that Davidson really doesn't seem to understand the implications of her decision until a houseguest from Japan spells it out for her. And in the final chapter the irony that a second Japanese houseguest also has to spell out for her. After her lengthy journey and a long story well told, it turns out that Davidson's fabulous Japanese house is an ersatz Practice House.
No giri.
No Mount Fuji.
Intriguing And Graceful.......2006-09-16
Cathy Davidson's 36 VIEWS OF MOUNT FUJI has become, after a few reads, a personal favorite. At first it would seem to be something of a first-person travelogue, but - like ceratin other classics (Peter Matthiessen's SNOW LEOPARD and Pico Iyer's THE LADY AND THE MONK both spring to mind) - it quickly evolves into something more.
Davidson's impressions of Japan - and of foreigners in Japan (these are particularly revealing) - are stated with great eloquence and economy, and the book steadily shifts towards something more philosophical - how identity can be found or commented upon by unlikely places and experiences. Davidson finds this a fascinating yet disorienting process, and details both quite well.
Davidson works through her illusions about Japan, which are replaced by less romantic realities, and inevitably confornts the same ironies in America, which are viewed in a new light upon arriving home. This takes us to what - to me - was the real heart of the book - a Japanese friend's visit to Davidson's new home in North Carolina, and an illusion-shattering conversation which occurs during that visit. Illusions or stereotypes persist due to (among other reasons) their romance or mythic symbolism, and the projection of those fantasies onto a different culture do give voice to ones' dissatisfactions with ones' own culture, and seeing that examined, recognized, and partially obliterated is in some ways a bit sad and anti-romantic. Her friend (who in some ways sees the exoticism of America as any of us might be wowed by Japan, but also is completely unafraid to point out the b.s. built into both societies) - among other super-sharp observations - does point out that one can also choose to hang on to a few of those illusions - in a highly selective and informed way, and perhaps gain some unique personal insights.
An intriguing and graceful book; I recommend it.
-David Alston
The Real View of Japan.......2006-01-06
When we first moved to Japan in 1998, a friend suggested we read this book. We loved it and passed on the recommendation to all who arrived after us. It is touching and insightful. Ms. Davidson has a wonderful gift of observation, and we found her reactions and reflections to be consistent with our own experiences.
If you want an accurate and eloquent image of the expat life in Japan, read this book.
discerning and perceptive..................2003-11-21
This is a wonderful story that gives insight into Japanese culture. Cathy N. Davidson opens her heart and soul to share her experience of living in Japan in a University town. She leaves behind the stereotypes and misconceptions about who the Japanese people are and what the Japanese are about. The experience of being a gaijin, a foreigner, in Japan is a fascinating experience. She uses her own personal experiences and friendships as the backdrop to develop an understanding of the differences that exist culturally and how she copes with the misunderstandings and indulgences that come together to create interpersonal relationships. The interesting aspect in this situation is that each side has a different perspective and the rules of engagement are not clear. She handles the differences with understanding and an inquisitiveness that is open and honest in seeking out the similarities that are below the surface and the culturally ingrained realities that drive the Japanese. The overworked and driven businessmen, the stressful educational system, childhood indulgence phenomenon, along with a difficult language and a written language that takes years to comprehend are all a part of the tale.
She also brings some deep personal insights into her own life into the story that make this book so much more than a travelogue!!
This book was a treasure for me to read after just returning from another trip to Tokyo and having experienced many similar situation and discussions.
Ms. Davidson's love and appreciation of a culture and country that is so different from her own shines through out her writing. Her delight in new experiences, different ideas and her open, honest heart make this book a discerning and perceptive narrative.
Average customer rating:
- Lost in Mount Fuji's Translation
|
Translating Mount Fuji: Modern Japanese Fiction and the Ethics of Identity
Dennis Washburn
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
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Book Description
Dennis Washburn traces the changing character of Japanese national identity in the works of six major authors: Ueda Akinari, Natsume S?seki, Mori ?gai, Yokomitsu Riichi, ?oka Shohei, and Mishima Yukio. By focusing on certain interconnected themes, Washburn illuminates the contradictory desires of a nation trapped between emulating the West and preserving the traditions of Asia.
Washburn begins with Ueda's Ugetsu monogatari ( Tales of Moonlight and Rain) and its preoccupation with the distant past, a sense of loss, and the connection between values and identity. He then considers the use of narrative realism and the metaphor of translation in Soseki's Sanshiro; the relationship between ideology and selfhood in Ogai's Seinen; Yokomitsu Riichi's attempt to synthesize the national and the cosmopolitan; Ooka Shohei's post-World War II representations of the ethical and spiritual crises confronting his age; and Mishima's innovative play with the aesthetics of the inauthentic and the artistry of kitsch.
Washburn's brilliant analysis teases out common themes concerning the illustration of moral and aesthetic values, the crucial role of autonomy and authenticity in defining notions of culture, the impact of cultural translation on ideas of nation and subjectivity, the ethics of identity, and the hybrid quality of modern Japanese society. He pinpoints the persistent anxiety that influenced these authors' writings, a struggle to translate rhetorical forms of Western literature while preserving elements of the pre-Meiji tradition.
A unique combination of intellectual history and critical literary analysis, Translating Mount Fuji recounts the evolution of a conflict that inspired remarkable literary experimentation and achievement.
Customer Reviews:
Lost in Mount Fuji's Translation.......2007-03-15
Whew. You might feel like you've actually climbed Mount Fuji after reading this book. It is an extremely dense exercise in literary criticism, written by Dennis Washburn primarily (or so it seems) for the appreciation, edification, and enjoyment of his peers, i.e. other professors of Japanese literature. Very little about this book is user-friendly, and it probably takes itself a little too seriously. And whole paragraphs are loaded down with rather turgid abstractions about identity, ideology, authenticity, modernity, and other boogaboos that keep folks in academia awake at night.
Still, for all that, there's much that's of interest in these chapters. I'm a bit biased, of course, for Washburn discusses some of my favorite authors (Ueda Akinari and Natsume Soseki) as well as ones I follow regularly (Mori Ogai and Yokomitsu Riichi), along with one I'm not so familiar with (Ooka Shohei) and one I generally love to hate (Mishima Yukio). He even gets a word in edgewise about Murakami Haruki in the epilogue, which is all fine and well, if a bit rushed and sudden--like he's changing the subject rather than bringing the book to a satisfying conclusion. The parts in each chapter where Washburn analyzes the specific novels of these particular writers in detail are more or less full of intriguing and convincing analysis--these were the meaty bits, as far as I was concerned. As a whole, though, the book doesn't cohere quite so well, giving the sense of a bunch of good independent articles rather sloppily wielded together with vague invocations of common themes and issues tacked on after the fact--at least that was my impression, though I'll admit it's quite possible that I just didn't "get it" upon a single read-through. Often the intended referents in the abstract bits framing each chapter remained fuzzy and unclear to me, and the relation to the chapter's main focus tenuous or else abrupt though never, I must say, completely arbitrary. As a nitpick, too, it seems that any book that hopes to address issues of cultural identity and its political and ethical reverberations should probably include some mention of Kawabata Yasunari at least if not Tanizaki Jun'ichiro as well ("In Praise of Shadows" especially)--no book can include everything, of course, but these seem like glaring omissions for any adequate consideration of the subject at hand. But so it goes; perhaps they were too "obvious" to be included.
In any case, "Translating Mount Fuji" is alternately fascinating and frustrating if consistently heavy-going and just a tad overwrought, but overall it's well worth wading through if you are seriously studying modern Japanese literature.
Book Description
Already a longtime hit in Japan, "Iron Chef" is taking over America-and this is the first and only official guide to "the culinary equivalent of the Friday night fights" (Orange County Register).
Each episode of this "oddly addictive"* show features a cook-off between one of the valiant Iron Chefs and a guest chef bold enough to challenge him. With pro-wrestling style theatrics, bad dubbing, and high-intensity plate-by-plate commentary, "Iron Chef" has boiled over into a bona fide phenomenon.
The book-first published in Japan but with added material for the American audience-features full-color photos, an episode guide, recipes, interviews with all the Iron Chefs, and much more. The heat is on...and the fans' mouths will be watering for this authentic insider's guide.
Customer Reviews:
Iron Chef: The Official Book.......2006-11-20
I enjoyed the information in the book and all the pictures. I was hoping for more recipes.
Top entertainment, ok book.......2006-10-26
Iron Chef is the most ingenious TV show ever created, well, the REAL original IC show, at any rate.
The over-the top cheesy quality, the bad-English dubbing, the dumb air-head actresses(who sometimes come up with surprising smart comments); the exotic ingredients, and of course--the challenges. The stuff that no normal person would ever cook, or dream of touching on his dinner plate.
The combination of sports arena quality and the sideshow of Prices Right, equals=valuable hours of your life spent on watching TV!
the book is very in depth, though not quite a "cook" book, the only true thing it lacks it the statistical point. Who won the battles, etc.
I am very disappointed in Food Network for not continuing to buy more Iron Chef shows and or continuing to show the reruns; and not to make them into DVDs....instead they're being despots and forcing us to watch that horrible horrible horrible mutant child that came out of that so called "chef".
Yet again, an original anime/comedy/whatever show is ruined...just like how they mangled Godzilla. the "Other Thing" show lacks the corny flavor, the second commentator (Fuki-San was awesome), the REAL chairman, a REAL Chef, REAL ingredients; Fun challengers, (ok, Ming Tsai was funny, but that's it);my respect for Ming grew after watching that only good episode...he was funny, relaxed, self-assured and he kicked Flay's butt!!
awful musical score (sure the soundtrack of the ONLY incarnation of IC was from.....movie, Backdraft), pathetic judges (they ALL annoy me, for some reason).
watching the "OTher Thing" gives me a stomach ache, a headache....and I keep rambling.
SCOUR THE EARTH for lost videos/tapes/bootlegs of the ONLY IRON CHEF. If you're a true fan, don't even bother watching "Other Thing".
"If my memory serves me correctly....this book will give me recollections of funny and good times."
+150 on the Wow meter for the show, 6+ for the book;
-100 on the Puke-O-Meter for "the Other Thing"
Die-hard Iron Chef fan's souvenier.......2006-07-20
This is one of the few but worthwhile memento's of the now defunct TV series, Iron Chef. While some fans are disappointed that there are few recipes, the book is about the show and the people. Interviews abound from not only the Iron Chef, but the cast and crew as well. There is even a statistics chart in the back detailing the wins and losses of Iron Chef battles. If you still love Iron Chef and want something memorable, this is the book.
A Magnificent Book for Fans.......2005-09-09
If you have ever had anything more than a passing interest with Iron Chef before, this is certainly a book worth picking up. The book itself is packed with gorgeous photos, plenty of interviews, and a staggering amount of information about the show itself, particular episodes, and even recipes. Granted, most people won't necessarily be using this book as a typical cookbook, but the added recipes just feel like a bonus on top of an already excellent book.
All in all, I was delightfully satisfied with this gem. Also, if you're looking for a bargain and are not sure about the book itself as far as quality is concerned, I highly suggest taking a look at the Used section here at Amazon. I picked up my copy that way for a fantastic $1.98 last year for pristine quality and even now the prices for the Used copies are in the same ballpark.
good comprehensive overview of the series.......2005-03-04
This is a rather nice little collector's item for fans of the show and even those who are just simply curious about its hype. It provides a fairly informative history of the show, nice illustrations throughout, recipes, "battle" ratings, and even restaurant location and information for selected chefs on the show.
The best sections were the personal interviews from various contributors to the show.
Book Description
This complete collection of Hokusai's famous views of Mount Fuji is the only high-quality reproduction of these engravings, long considered the Japanese master's greatest works. Taken from the best engravings available and shown in splendid color, this authoritative volume is the first of its kind since 1830. Hokusai's influence extended far beyond Japan, even to French Impressionists including Degas, Monet, and Toulouse-Lautrec. Each illustration is accopmanied by detailed notes placing the work in its cultural and historical context and exploring the symbolic themes running through Hokusai's landscapes.
Amazon.com
Although he was the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize, Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) remains much more obscure in the West than his high-profile protégé Yukio Mishima. Yet he's a writer of formidable talents. For one thing, Kawabata recognized early on the affinity between Japanese poetry--with its abrupt transition from image to image--and the jump-cut flavor of modernist prose. He also explored erotic life at a truly microcosmic level. Some may find a novel like The Mole--which revolves around a woman's habit of fiddling with her eponymous birthmark--a little too molecular in its approach. But sex, like God, is in the details, and throughout his career Kawabata has unearthed some surprising truths about our most urgent appetites.
First Snow on Fuji, a collection of stories originally published in 1958, is a fairly representative slice of the author's oeuvre. In "Her Husband Didn't" (a classic Kawabata title, by the way), a woman's earlobe becomes the discreet object of desire:
The earlobe was just as round and plump as an earlobe ought to be--it was small enough that Junji could squeeze it between the tips of his thumb and forefinger, no bigger than that--yet it filled him with a sense of the beauty of life. The smooth skin, the gentle swelling--the woman's earlobe was like a mysterious jewel.... He had never known anything with a texture like this. It was like touching the lovely girl's soul.
For Kawabata's characters, the physical usually leads straight to the metaphysical, which is what prevents him from deteriorating into a soft-core thrill merchant. And in several of the other stories here, he proceeds directly to the weightier issues. "Silence," for example, is at once a study in failing inspiration and a gloss on Kawabata's own career (the latter argument is made very effectively by translator Michael Emmerich in his introduction). And the title story offers an intriguing take on memory, which Kawabata seems to regard as a distinctly feminine operation: it's "the docility of women that makes it possible for them to return to the past."
What we love most in a writer--the idiosyncratic music of his or her prose--is the hardest thing for a translator to capture. There are times, alas, when Emmerich's ear seems inadequate to the task. His rendering never falls beneath a certain literate level--but for a writer of Kawabata's minimalistic delicacy, a clunky transition or flatfooted phrase can sink the whole enterprise. Readers might prefer to start, then, with Thousand Cranes or Snow Country. But for all its linguistic flaws, First Snow on Fuji reminds us that in literature most of all, less can be more--much more. --James Marcus
Book Description
The stories of Yasunari Kawabata (Winner of the 1968 Nobel Prize for Literature) evoke an unmistakably Japanese atmosphere in their delicacy, understatement, and lyrical description. Like his later works, First Snow on Fuji is concerned with forms of presence and absence, with being, with memory and loss of memory, with not-knowing. Kawabata lets us slide into the lives of people who have been shattered by war, loss, and longing. These stories are beautiful and melancholy, filled with Kawabata's unerring vision of human psychology. First Snow on Fuji was originally published in Japan in 1958, ten years before Kawabata received the Nobel Prize. Kawabata selected the stories for this collection himself, and the result is a stunning assembly of disparate moods and genres. This new edition is the first to be published in English.
Customer Reviews:
So-so on Fuji.......2007-01-15
"First Snow on Fuji" is a mixed bag. I enjoy Kawabata's succinct prose. One story, 'Silence', is tremendous, and worth the price of the book by itself. It's about a writer who, b/c of a stroke, can no longer speak or write, and his daughter; and the main point of the story is whether or not the writer, Akifusa, should try to communicate through his daughter or not. It's a grand statement on the human power of communication. The other stories, though interesting, are not as good - and for that I give it a mediocre rating.
Inner heart revealed.......................2006-07-27
Yasunari Kawabata is the first Japanese writer to be awarded the Noble Prize for Literature. First Snow on Fuji is a collection of short stories written in a minimalist fashion, where each word and turn of phrase carries a depth and profoundness. It feels as if each word is uniquely suited to the telling of that particular tale. The stories cover a vast array of life's events, love, desire, loss and discovery. It is not that the inner hearts of the characters are revealed to the reader, but that the reader is allowed to observe while the characters inner hearts are revealed to themselves.
Michael Emmerich translates the writing of Kawabata with a perfect blend of both elegance and simplicity. This is a classic Japanese collection of short stories by an author with the delicate touch of perfection.
Concentrated Novels, Just Add Water.......2006-03-24
This is a fine collection of short stories by Kawabata. These are longer than his "Palm of the Hand" stories but still display to the full his incredible talent to suggest a whole large-scale novel with the barest minimum of words and phrases. The deep suggestiveness and resonance typical of Kawabata is present in these brief works, though somewhat more flat-footed than elsewhere--one wonders if this is an effect of translation or whether Kawabata was a just a wee bit off his game here.
This collection also includes a rarity, a drama by Kawabata, which comes across as incredibly flat, wooden, and dull. It seems that drama was not a medium suited to him, although perhaps the play works well when actually performed--many a Kabuki play looks lame on paper but comes alive on the stage. But as it stands it seems an awkward ending to an otherwise fine collection of stories. This is not Kawabata at his best, but quite good still.
Earlobes, novels, and cheating wives.......2002-07-19
This was the 8th Yasunari Kawabata book that I have read. Kawabata finished writing this book back in the year 1959. It was during a time in his life in which he spent more time touring Japan and the worls than actually writing, so the reader must keep in mind that he wrote these beautiful stories while he was basiacally on the run from place to place. The stories in the book are all pretty sad. The first "This Country, That Country" deals with a young housewife named Takako who is having an affair behind her husband's back the thing is she is not having the affair with the man she wants to be having the affair with. The reader sees Takako torment when she talks to her secret love or even just thanks of him. She seems to know more about him than his wife. Oh, did I mention that she is the neighbor of her secret love?
That is just an example of the stories that Kawabata weaves here. They are short and can be read in a short reading, but Kawabata's short stories have more meaning than some authors' 700 page novels. I really liked the stories "Nature" and "Silence" myself, and the story "Yumiura" is one of the saddess pieces of literature that I have ever read. A good book, but if you are new to Kawabata read _Thousand Cranes_ or beauty and Sadness instead.
Beautiful.......2001-11-11
This volume should be in every library. Elegant and subtle language weave each tale that are delicately, and often painfully, human. The conclusions, abrupt and ambiguous, are haunting and thought provoking. This is a collection of stories that moves you and speaks to you long after you've finished.
Average customer rating:
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Hokusai: 36 Views of Mt. Fuji
Narazaki
Manufacturer: Kodansha America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Hokusai
| ( G-I )
| Artists, A-Z
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0870110586 |
Book Description
One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji by the renowned Japanese artist Hokusai is a work of unending visual delight. Considered Hokusai's masterpiece, this series of images captures the simple, elegant shape of Mount Fuji from every angle and in every context. With no more than delicate, engraved outlines and flat washes of gray, Hokusai displays his consummate virtuosity as a draftsman, printmaker, and compositional innovator. Seen behind hanging strips of cloth outside a dyer's shop, or through the close stems of swaying bamboo, Mt. Fuji takes on a variety of guises--at times majestic, ominous, and even occasionally comic--to reflect its multiform meaning within Japanese culture.
Customer Reviews:
Better than I had imagined.......2005-04-01
This book is the next best thing to having the original works. English notes are limited to the beginning and end of the book. I was concerned when I read the review mentioning the cut off Japanese text. Yes, they are cut off, but not lost. The originals would appear exactly the same way. That's because the originals were printed on only one side of double spreads which were folded down the middle, right through those columns of text. You only have to flip the page to see the other half of the text. As for the washed out grays, that is a shame, but I am peronally more interested in Hokusai's line work anyway, so it doesn't bother me. He used the best carvers, so we have a good representation of his original brush work. My one complaint is that the cover on my paperback copy was not well glued to the spine, and fell off in a few minutes. But now my pages spread out flat with no resistance, so maybe it's an improvement.
Essential prints from an "Old Man Crazy about Painting".......2004-04-03
This is Hokusai at his best. His quality of line is exceptional and the images are a constant delight. The fertility of the artist's imagination is nothing short of astonishing. Hokusai gives us the mythological origins of Fuji, simple views of Fuji, pilgrims climbing and descending Fuji, Fuji's reflection, Fuji seen through rain and through mist, Fuji framed by trees, windows and bridges, Fuji from near and Fuji from afar. In one striking interior view, we see some surprised people looking at a miraculous vision of an inverted Fuji that floats on a screen before them. The explanation? A knothole in the house's wooden wall has transformed the building into a kind of giant camera obscura, and the morning sun is projecting an image of the mountain onto the screen. So... Fuji outdoors and Fuji indoors.
One has to make a firm distinction between the original project and this edition. Hokusai's "100 Views of Mt Fuji" first appeared in three separate volumes: this book reprints them in one handy paperback. There are several extremely nice touches about this version. For a start, all the prints are reproduced to scale, and organized in the Japanese manner (i.e. the first print appears at the back of the book, and the last at the front). Better still, the prefaces, colophons, and title pages are all included, too. In total, you actually get 102 views of the mountain, and many of these consist of two separate prints on facing pages. This book is certainly great value for money because it doesn't stop here. Placed at the back of the volume--so as not to interfere with the flow of the prints--are translations of the Japanese texts and a commentary for each view of the mountain. All of these are extremely illuminating, and manage to outline just enough about Japanese history and culture for the images to make perfect sense. There's also an excellent introduction, which goes into more detail about the rich cultural and religious significance of Fuji, and about the nature of Hokusai's project. Why, for example, were there 102 views, not 100? Here's Henry Smith's appealing theory:
"I think that that the two beyond one hundred were related to his underlying preoccupation with long life: they were like the 'one to grow on' candle that we stick in a birthday cake, a wish that he actually live on past his cherished goal of one hundred."
I have just two major gripes to make about this otherwise excellent version of Hokusai's "One Hundred Views..." The first is that the edges of each facsimiled page seem to have been cropped in such a way that some of the original material (generally Japanese writing) has been lost. More seriously, the original prints were made with black ink and a range of grays, but, here, many of these grays appear to be rather washed out. Sometimes this doesn't much matter, but sometimes it seriously effects the legibility of a print. An example: one of the most famous views of the mountain consists of a spider's web with a leaf caught in it. "Where's Fuji?" we wonder. (Hokusai is constantly making us mutter these words to ourselves.) In a good print, we eventually notice a couple of light gray zones at the top of the image, which represent the sky surrounding the top of Fuji. We're seeing the mountain through the web. But, in this book, these grays have almost entirely disappeared and, as a consequence, so has Fuji.
Nevertheless, you should absolutely buy this book. Rarely has so much inventiveness, wit and visual poetry been crammed into such a small space.
One of the greatest.......2000-10-14
Hokusai is my second favorite Japanese print artist whose art reflects mostly nature. I have two pictures of his hanging on wall. 100 Views of Mt. Fuji is one of his most beautiful works. It depicts the seasonal changes and the things done on Mt. Fuji. If you are intrested in Japanese woodprint and love nature, I'd strongly advice you to get this book. Awesome!
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