This book examines the changes taking place in literary writing and publishing in contemporary China under the influence of the emerging market economy. It focuses on the revival of literary best sellers in the Chinese book market and the establishment of a best-seller production machine. The author examines how writers have become cultural entrepreneurs, how state publishing houses are now motivated by commercial incentives, and how "second-channel,” unofficial publishers and distributors both compete and cooperate with official publishing houses in a dual-track, socialist-capitalist economic system. Taken together, these changes demonstrate how economic development and culture interact in a postsocialist society, in contrast to the way they work in the mature capitalist economies of the West. That economic reforms have affected many aspects of Chinese society is well known, but this is the first comprehensive analysis of market influences in the literary field. This book thus offers a fresh perspective on the inner workings of contemporary Chinese society.

This book seeks to explain how consumption - a horrible disease - came to be the glamorous and artistic Romantic malady. It tries to explain the disparity between literary myth and bodily reality, by examining literature and medicine from the Renaissance to the late Victorian period, covering a wide range of authors and characters.

The buying, selling, and writing of books is a colossal industry in which marketing looms large, yet there are very few books which deal with book marketing (how-to texts excepted) and fewer still on book consumption. This innovative text not only rectifies this, but also argues that far from being detached, the book business in fact epitomises today’s Entertainment Economy (fast moving, hit driven, intense competition, rapid technological change, etc.). Written by an impressive roster of renowned marketing authorities, many with experience of the book trade and all gifted writers in their own right, Consuming Books steps back from the practicalities of book marketing and takes a look at the industry from a broader consumer research perspective. Consisting of sixteen chapters, divided into four loose sections, this key text covers: * a historical overview * the often acrimonious marketing/literature interface * the consumers of books (from book groups to bookcrossing) * a consideration of the tensions that both literary types and marketers feel. With something for everyone, Consuming Books not only complements the ‘how-to’ genre but provides the depth that previous studies of book consumption conspicuously lack.

This insightful book explores the intense and ultimately fleeting moment in 1980s America when the future looked Japanese. Would Japan's remarkable post–World War II economic success enable the East Asian nation to overtake the United States? Or could Japan's globe-trotting corporations serve as a model for battered U.S. industries, pointing the way to a future of globalized commerce and culture? While popular films and literature recycled old anti-Asian imagery and crafted new ways of imagining the "yellow peril," and formal U.S.-Japan relations remained locked in a holding pattern of Cold War complacency, a remarkable shift was happening in countless local places throughout the United States: Japanese goods were remaking American consumer life and injecting contemporary globalization into U.S. commerce and culture. What impact did the flood of billions of Japanese things have on the ways Americans produced, consumed, and thought about their place in the world? From autoworkers to anime fans, Consuming Japan introduces new unorthodox actors into foreign-relations history, demonstrating how the flow of all things Japanese contributed to the globalizing of America in the late twentieth century.

This book examines the changes taking place in literary writing and publishing in contemporary China under the influence of the emerging market economy. It focuses on the revival of literary best sellers in the Chinese book market and the establishment of a best-seller production machine. The author examines how writers have become cultural entrepreneurs, how state publishing houses are now motivated by commercial incentives, and how “second-channel,” unofficial publishers and distributors both compete and cooperate with official publishing houses in a dual-track, socialist-capitalist economic system. Taken together, these changes demonstrate how economic development and culture interact in a postsocialist society, in contrast to the way they work in the mature capitalist economies of the West. That economic reforms have affected many aspects of Chinese society is well known, but this is the first comprehensive analysis of market influences in the literary field. This book thus offers a fresh perspective on the inner workings of contemporary Chinese society.

"I devoured this."—V. E. Schwab, New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue An International Bestseller An NPR Best Sci Fi, Fantasy, & Speculative Fiction Book of 2022 A Book Riot Best Book of 2022 A Vulture Best Fantasy Novel of 2022 A Goodreads Best Fantasy Choice Award Nominee A Library Journal Best Book of 2022 Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries. Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories. But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

This book's analysis of gender illuminates the ways in which colonialism permeated not only the public sphere of politics and trade, but also the seemingly private realms of domesticity and sentiment."--BOOK JACKET.

Consumption and the Literary Cookbook offers readers the first book-length study of literary cookbooks. Imagining the genre more broadly to include narratives laden with recipes, cookbooks based on cultural productions including films, plays, and television series, and cookbooks that reflected and/or shaped cultural and historical narratives, the contributors draw on the tools of literary and cultural studies to closely read a diverse corpus of cookbooks. By focusing on themes of consumption—gastronomical and rhetorical—the sixteen chapters utilize the recipes and the narratives surrounding them as lenses to study identity, society, history, and culture. The chapters in this book reflect the current popularity of foodie culture as they offer entertaining analyses of cookbooks, the stories they tell, and the stories told about them.

The #1 New York Times bestseller. Over 20 million copies sold! Translated into 60+ languages! Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving--every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights. Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field. Learn how to: make time for new habits (even when life gets crazy); overcome a lack of motivation and willpower; design your environment to make success easier; get back on track when you fall off course; ...and much more. Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits--whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.

In Reading for Preaching Cornelius Plantinga makes a striking claim: preachers who read widely will most likely become better preachers. Plantinga -- himself a master preacher -- shows how a wide reading program can benefit preachers. First, he says, good reading generates delight, and the preacher who enters the world of delight goes with God. Good reading can also help tune the preacher's ear for language -- his or her primary tool. General reading can enlarge the preacher's sympathies for people and situations that she or he had previously known nothing about. And, above all, the preacher who reads widely has the chance to become wise. This beautifully written book will benefit not just preachers but anyone interested in the wisdom to be derived from reading. Works that Plantinga interacts with in the book include The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini Enrique's Journey, by Sonia Nazario Silence, by Shusaku Endo "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" by Leo Tolstoy "Narcissus Leaves the Pool" by Joseph Epstein Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo . . . and many more!