A young man describes his torment as he struggles to reconcile the diverse influences of Western culture and the traditions of his own Japanese heritage.
Drawing on extensive research and recently discovered sources, this ambitious biography of Salvador Dali traces the infamous artist's life from childhood to death, revealing his outlandish personality, paranoia, and sexual torment.
Recipient of the 2018 William F. Sibley Memorial Subvention Award for Japanese Translation A new, definitive translation of the postwar classic known to the west as No Longer Human—a tortured vision inspiring the likes of Junji Ito and Bungo Stray Dogs Osamu Dazai is one of the most famous—and infamous—writers of 20th-century Japan. A Shameful Life (Ningen Shikkaku) is his final published work and has become a bestselling classic for its depiction of the tortured struggle of a young man to survive in a world that he cannot comprehend. Paralleling the life and death of Dazai himself, the delicate weaving of fact and fiction remorselessly documents via journals the life of Yozo, a university student who spends his time in increasing isolation and debauchery. His doomed love affairs, suicide attempts, and constant fear of revealing his true self haunt the pages of the book and reveal a slow descent into madness. This dark tale nevertheless conveys something authentic about the human heart and its inability to find its true bearing. Gibeau's translation cements A Shameful Life's place in the existentialist literary canon from Dostoevsky to Camus. Fans of Bungo Stray Dogs will recognize Osamu Dazai as one of the characters named after the giants of Japanese literature. Those familiar with the numerous adaptations in graphic novels and animation can experience the source material in faithful, modern prose.
"Self Portraits" by Dazai Osamu is a collection of short stories, essays, and personal reflections that offer insight into the mind and struggles of the author. These pieces blend fiction and autobiography, reflecting Dazai’s inner conflicts, including his lifelong battle with depression, addiction, and a sense of alienation. The stories in this collection often present characters that mirror Dazai himself—outsiders grappling with societal expectations, guilt, and shame. Themes of human imperfection, self-destruction, and existential despair are common throughout. Dazai's writing style is deeply introspective, marked by irony and dark humor, as he explores the contradictions of the human spirit. "Self Portraits" provides a raw and intimate look into the author’s life, making it an essential read for those interested in understanding Dazai’s psyche and the experiences that shaped his literary voice. The collection complements his other major works, such as No Longer Human and The Setting Sun, by revealing more personal aspects of his worldview.
An intimate look at the full spectrum of shame—often masked by addiction, promiscuity, perfectionism, self-loathing, or narcissism—that offers a new, positive route forward Encounters with embarrassment, guilt, self-consciousness, remorse, etc. are an unavoidable part of everyday life, and they sometimes have lessons to teach us—about our goals and values, about the person we expect ourselves to be. In contrast to the prevailing cultural view of shame as a uniformly toxic influence, Shame is a book that approaches the subject of shame as an entire family of emotions which share a “painful awareness of self.” Challenging widely-accepted views within the self-esteem movement, author Joseph Burgo argues that self-esteem does NOT thrive in the soil of non-stop praise and encouragement, but rather depends upon setting and meeting goals, living up to the expectations we hold for ourselves, and finally sharing our joy in achievement with the people who matter most to us. Along the way, listening to and learning from our encounters with shame will go further than affirmations and positive self-talk in helping us to build authentic self-esteem. Richly illustrated with clinical stories from Burgo's 35 years in private practice, Shame also describes the myriad ways that unacknowledged shame often hides behind a broad spectrum of mental disorders including social anxiety, narcissism, addiction, and masochism.
A Shameful Life; (also translated as No Longer Human or Ningen Shikkaku) is a semi-autobiographical novel by Japanese author Dazai Osamu, published in 1948. The story follows the troubled life of Ōba Yōzō, a man who feels deeply alienated from society and struggles with a sense of worthlessness. Through a series of notebooks, Ōba narrates his life marked by trauma, addiction, and failed relationships. He hides behind a mask of humor and charm, while internally grappling with depression, isolation, and shame. The novel explores themes of existential despair, identity, and the conflict between public appearance and private anguish. Often considered one of Dazai's masterpieces, A Shameful Life reflects the author's personal struggles with mental illness and addiction, making it both haunting and deeply introspective.
We all carry sexual shame. Whether we grew up in the repressive purity culture of American Evangelical Christianity or not, we've all been taught in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that sex (outside of very specific contexts) is immoral and taboo. Psychotherapist Matthias Roberts helps readers overcome their shame around sex by overcoming three unhealthy coping mechanisms we use to manage that shame. Beyond Shame encourages each of us to determine our own definition of healthy sex, while avoiding the ditches of boundaryless sex positivity on the one hand and strict moralistic boundaries on the other. Define your sexual values on your own terms, overcome your shame, and start having great, healthy sex.
A Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist for Best Fiction and Best Debut • BookBrowse's Best Book of the Year • A Marie Claire Best Women's Fiction of the Year • A Real Simple Best Book of the Year • A PopSugar Best Book of the Year • A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • A Washington Post 10 Books to Read in March • A Newsweek Best Book of the Summer • A USA Today Best Book of the Week • A Washington Book Review Difficult-To-Put-Down Novel • A Refinery 29 Best Books of the Month • A Buzzfeed News 4 Books We Couldn't Put Down Last Month • A New Arab Best Books by Arab Authors • An Electric Lit 20 Best Debuts of the First Half of 2019 • A The Millions Most Anticipated Books of the Year “Garnering justified comparisons to Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns... Etaf Rum’s debut novel is a must-read about women mustering up the bravery to follow their inner voice.” —Refinery 29 The New York Times bestseller and Read with Jenna TODAY SHOW Book Club pick telling the story of three generations of Palestinian-American women struggling to express their individual desires within the confines of their Arab culture in the wake of shocking intimate violence in their community. "Where I come from, we’ve learned to silence ourselves. We’ve been taught that silence will save us. Where I come from, we keep these stories to ourselves. To tell them to the outside world is unheard of—dangerous, the ultimate shame.” Palestine, 1990. Seventeen-year-old Isra prefers reading books to entertaining the suitors her father has chosen for her. Over the course of a week, the naïve and dreamy girl finds herself quickly betrothed and married, and is soon living in Brooklyn. There Isra struggles to adapt to the expectations of her oppressive mother-in-law Fareeda and strange new husband Adam, a pressure that intensifies as she begins to have children—four daughters instead of the sons Fareeda tells Isra she must bear. Brooklyn, 2008. Eighteen-year-old Deya, Isra’s oldest daughter, must meet with potential husbands at her grandmother Fareeda’s insistence, though her only desire is to go to college. Deya can’t help but wonder if her options would have been different had her parents survived the car crash that killed them when Deya was only eight. But her grandmother is firm on the matter: the only way to secure a worthy future for Deya is through marriage to the right man. But fate has a will of its own, and soon Deya will find herself on an unexpected path that leads her to shocking truths about her family—knowledge that will force her to question everything she thought she knew about her parents, the past, and her own future.
Crackling Mountain and Other Stories features eleven outstanding works by Osama Dazai, widely regarded as one of the 20th century Japan's most gifted writers. Dazai experimented with a wide variety of short story styles and brought to each a sophisticated sense of humor, a broad empathy for the human condition, and a tremendous literary talent. The eleven stories in this collection of Japanese literature present the most fully rounded portrait available of a tragic, multifaceted genius of modern Japanese letters.