From a powerful new voice in nonfiction comes this electrifying chronicle of a married man who leaves his wife to pursue a carefree bachelorhood - only to plunge into an abyss of shame, regret, and penis envy. Thirty-year-old Alan Wieder has everything a man could possibly want: a nice home in L.A., a thriving Hollywood career, and to top it all off, a beautiful and adoring wife. Then one day in 2005 - the Year of the Rooster - he wakes up with questions: Have I settled down too soon? Am I consigned to a humdrum future of marriage, kiddies, home-cooked meals and hybrid SUVs? How the %&! did this happen to me? And just like that - after ten years in a committed relationship - Alan decides to walk out on his wife to pursue his fantasy of becoming a hardcore bachelor. Explaining very little, thinking even less, he dives into his exhilarating new single existence - buying a vintage Porsche, moving into a tastefully decorated bachelor pad, ignoring his wife, and bedding as many chicks as possible. However, to Alan's surprise and dismay, becoming a single dude also unleashes in him a torrent of crippling insecurities that he didn't even know he had. And soon, his would-be swingin' bachelorhood is cut short - very short - by a strange and shameful obsession that drives him to utter madness. Some men leave their wives only to discover that the grass isn't greener. What Alan Wieder discovers - about the perils of newfound freedom, and about his own fragile male psyche - is far more agonizing and wretched. In this riveting and brutally honest memoir, Alan recounts the true story of his impulsive, wild, and ultimately disastrous foray into bachelorhood. A tragicomic tale of betrayal, sexual (mis)adventure, and ultimately redemption, Year of the Cock marks the debut of a remarkably talented new writer.

Gil is a loser. He works at McDonald's, lives with his ailing mother, and hasn't had a girlfriend since...ever. But that's all about to change. He's been secretly training (and drugging) a rooster to fight. And Odysseus Rex aka "Odie" is the baddest barnyard bird there is. Gil has so much faith in Odie's abilities that he bets everything on him -- but victory and revenge may not yield the delicious spoils he anticipates. A fiercely comic play about cockfighting, connections, and clawing your way to the top.

'We Japanese', is a collection of answers to questions that the author as a hotel manager in Japan has answered for hotel guests over the years. He was the manager for over 28 years at the Fujiya Hotel at Miyanoshita. These are naturally questions concerning those things which are different in Japan from the countries from which the visitors come. First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Poetry. THE YEAR OF THE ROOSTER offers in its title work a kinetic, convulsive, epic poem that explores and explodes through slippery, circumspect pronouns expectations of gender, the authority of artifice, the act of looking, and the action of thought. Is the rooster a trope? Is he a trooper? Maybe he's a she and she's the expectation of masculine bravado he's trying to unmask. Part action painting, part abstract estrangement, part enactment of the artist's uncertainty about all things art, the weird world of this poem is forever in flux, off-kilter, unanswerable. Planting bullets in the flowerbed of the sonnet, "Diminishing Returns" and "Returning Diminishments," two extended, meditative yet humorous suites, bookend the title poem.

かなで引ける日本文化和英辞典の決定版!

This picture book brings a light touch and engaging silliness to the story of a prince who rejects the lavish luxury of his upbringing in favor of a life as . . . a rooster. The only person who can persuade the prince to reconsider is neither a doctor nor a magician but a wise teacher who is willing to become a rooster too. Told to the author by her grandmother, who brought it from Eastern Europe a century ago, this traditional tale is accompanied by strikingly witty and graceful illustrations that add their own folkloric flavor. Author's note.

This guide to the Asian zodiac gives a complete history and explanation of the zodiac as well as detailed instructions on how to read one's own animal signs. In much the same way that Westerners analyze their personalities and predict their futures by studying the positions of the stars under which they were born, Asians use the ancient animal zodiac to explain individual personalities and predict their futures. Originally the Chinese zodiac, this custom spread to all corners of East Asia. According to legend, the twelve years in the Asian animal cycles were named for the twelve animals who visited Buddha on his deathbed: the rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, cock, dog, and boar. This informative and delightful book examines each animal of the zodiacal cycle and describes its history, its virtues and flaws, its "all-too-human characteristics." Traditional tales from China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, and Vietnam illustrate each animal's personality as the people of those nations see it. With carts, descriptions, and stories in this zodiac book, the Western reader too may find useful wisdom in the Asian animal zodiac.