The history of seppuku—Japanese ritual suicide by cutting the stomach, sometimes referred to as hara-kiri—spans a millennium, and came to be favored by samurai as an honorable form of death. Here, for the first time in English, is a book that charts the history of seppuku from ancient times to the twentieth century through a collection of swashbuckling tales from history and literature. Author Andrew Rankin takes us from the first recorded incident of seppuku, by the goddess Aomi in the eighth century, through the "golden age" of seppuku in the sixteenth century that includes the suicides of Shibata Katsuie, Sen no Rikyū and Toyotomi Hidetsugu, up to the seppuku of General Nogi Maresuke in 1912. Drawing on never-before-translated medieval war tales, samurai clan documents, and execution handbooks, Rankin also provides a fascinating look at the seppuku ritual itself, explaining the correct protocol and etiquette for seppuku, different stomach-cutting procedures, types of swords, attire, location, even what kinds of refreshment should be served at the seppuku ceremony. The book ends with a collection of quotations from authors and commentators down through the centuries, summing up both the Japanese attitude toward seppuku and foreigners’ reactions: "As for when to die, make sure you are one step ahead of everyone else. Never pull back from the brink. But be aware that there are times when you should die, and times when you should not. Die at the right moment, and you will be a hero. Die at the wrong moment, and you will die like a dog." — Izawa Nagahide, The Warrior’s Code, 1725 "We all thought, ‘These guys are some kind of nutcakes.’" — Jim Verdolini, USS Randolph, describing "Kamikaze" attack of March 11, 1945

The true nature of the Japanese samurai warrior is an elusive and endlessly fascinating enigma for those in the West. From their inauspicious beginnings as barbarian-subduing soldiers, the samurai lived according to a code known as bushido - or 'way of the warrior'. Bushido- advocated loyalty, honour, pride and fearlessness in combat. Those who broke the code were expected to perform seppuku, or suicide through stomach-cutting. By its very design, seppuku aimed to restore honour to disgraced warriors by ensuring the most painful of deaths. However, the bushido- virtues of loyalty and honour fell into question as the samurai grew powerful enough to wrest control from the emperor himself. Accompanied by vivid colour illustrations, The Samurai offers a complete, concise account of samurai history and culture. It tells the story of the rise of the samurai as a martial elite, the warriors' centuries long struggle for power and their long slide into obsolescence.

Eye witness accounts of the ceremonies undertaken in the ritual suicide by seppuku of the Samurai class. This is definitely not a 'How To' book!

Hiding out with her fellow cyborgs and their surviving creators for five years, Lenie Clarke is horrified when they are discovered by the doomsday microbe Behemoth, a situation that forces Lenie to take responsibility for her role in billions of deaths.

Hari-Kiri is a definitive text on Japanese ritual suicide, also known as suppuku. To the average westerner, the word hara-kiri conjures up an image of excruciating, self-inflicted pain; of a deep, fatal incision. To the Japanese, this kind of suicide embodies the best qualities of courage, honor, and discipline. Through extensive research, author Jack Seward brings to the English-speaking public a dissertation on the subject that is thoroughly enlightening. Fluent in speaking, reading, and writing Japanese, he was able to glean information from ancient documents—many of them scrolls in the Japanese archives—that few foreigners have seen. The earliest writings on hara-kiri (known more formally as seppuku) are thus revealed, as are the intricate rituals surrounding the ceremony. "The major purpose of this book," says the author, "is to clarify the historical and sociological significance of a unique method of self-destruction." In fulfilling this purpose, author Seward has come up with a definitive work that is sure to arouse interest both as a scholarly effort and as simple, fascinating reading.

Lenie Clarke--amphibious cyborg, Meltdown Madonna, agent of the Apocalypse--has grown sick to death of her own cowardice. For five years (since the events recounted in Maelstrom), she and her bionic brethren (modified to work in the rift valleys of the ocean floor) have hidden in the mountains of the deep Atlantic. The facility they commandeered was more than a secret station on the ocean floor. Atlantis was an exit strategy for the corporate elite, a place where the world's Movers and Shakers had hidden from the doomsday microbe ßehemoth--and from the hordes of the moved and the shaken left behind. For five years "rifters" and "corpses" have lived in a state of uneasy truce, united by fear of the outside world. But now that world closes in. An unknown enemy hunts them through the crushing darkness of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. ßehemoth--twisted, mutated, more virulent than ever--has found them already. The fragile armistice between the rifters and their one-time masters has exploded into all-out war, and not even the legendary Lenie Clarke can take back the body count. Billions have died since she loosed ßehemoth upon the world. Billions more are bound to. The whole biosphere came apart at the seams while Lenie Clarke hid at the bottom of the sea and did nothing. But now there is no place left to hide. The consequences of past acts reach inexorably to the very floor of the world, and Lenie Clarke must return to confront the mess she made. Redemption doesn't come easy with the blood of a world on your hands. But even after five years in pitch-black purgatory, Lenie Clarke is still Lenie Clarke. There will be consequences for anyone who gets in her way-and worse ones, perhaps, if she succeeds... Behemoth: Seppuku concludes the final act (begun in ßehemoth: ß-Max) of Peter Watts's chilling and powerful Rifters series. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Haunting new stories about girls on the brink of adulthood, women on the verge of breakdowns, and families undone by past deceptions. "Kate Braverman is a writer of astonishing versatility and lyricism. Her stories are brilliantly rendered, painfully intimate portraits of individuals who come alive on the page as if illuminated by strobe lighting. With remarkable precision she tracks the restless motions of a mind searching for its reflection in the world—a continuous interrogation of the self that sweeps us along with it, as in a mysterious adventure."—Joyce Carol Oates "If fame did not find Braverman when the moment was right, perhaps it will make amends now that the moment is wrong. . . . Braverman excels at flooding readers in images that throb with menace or pleasure, as if descriptive language were a vein into which our most primal fears and desires could be injected."—Katy Waldman, The New Yorker "The book feels timeless, think Transparent, sans the trans . . . Kate Braverman, an underground literary icon through decades of razor-sharp writing, returns with a gorgeously observed collection of stories about contemporary Jewish identity. It's profound, realistic, and funny in equal measure."—David Canfield, Entertainment Weekly "Braverman daringly, ravishingly, and resoundingly dramatizes the profound consequences of delusions, lies, ignorance, anger, cruelty, poverty, disappointment, conformity, inebriation, and violence with high imagination, sensual precision, cutting humor, and bracing insight."—Donna Seaman, Booklist *Starred review "Braverman writes forthright but beautiful sentences. Her details are so vivid that they feel like memories . . . "—Publishers Weekly, *Starred/Boxed review "Kate Braverman is an original. Reading her is like hitching a ride on a runaway train, always dangerous, always thrilling, always a knockout. Seppuku is all that and more."—Frederick Barthelme, author of There Must Be Some Mistake "Braverman is the godmother of literary bad girls and a connoisseur of the shattered beauty glittering in the wreckage of her characters' lives. A Good Day for Seppuku celebrates the Braverman vision, and frames her legacy."—Janet Fitch, author of The Revolution of Marina M. A thirteen-year-old girl must choose between her mother in Beverly Hills or her pot-growing father in the Allegheny Mountains. Dr. Bernie Roth and his wife Chloe reside in a grand hacienda in La Jolla. Their children are in college, and their disappointments are profound. But Bernie has his doctor's bag of elixirs for the regrets of late middle age. Mrs. Barbara Stein, a high school teacher, looks like she'd sacrifice her life for Emily Dickinson's honor. That's camouflage. Mrs. Stein actually spends summers in the Sisyphean search for her prostitute daughter in Los Angeles. These are some of the tales told in Kate Braverman's audacious new story collection. These furious and often hilarious tableaus of American family life remind us of why she has been seducing readers ever since her debut novel Lithium for Medea shook the literary world nearly forty years ago.