Are we living in an age where we are more boredom-prone? Or are other people boring us? Or could we be that boring person?! In our current information age, we are constantly connected to technology, and have so many varied ways to spend our leisure time that we should all surely never know what boredom feels like. Yet, boredom appears to be on the rise; it seems that the more we have to stimulate us, the more stimulation we crave. In a quest to relieve our boredom, we engage in dangerous risk-taking - from extreme sports to drugs to gambling to anti-social behaviour, or we overindulge in shopping or eating. The Science of Boredom explores the causes and consequences of boredom in the fast-paced twenty-first century. Parents are desperate to keep their children entertained during every waking moment, the education system is geared towards interactivity, and attention spans are dropping as we use multiple devices at all times. But the world of work can be increasingly repetitive and routine, and we are losing the ability to tolerate this everyday tedium. Using Sandi Mann's own ground-breaking research into boredom, this book tells the story of how we act, react and cope when we are bored, and argues that there is a positive side to boredom. It can be a catalyst for humour, fun, reflection, creativity and inspiration. The radical solution to the 'boredom problem' is to harness it rather than try to avoid it. Allowing yourself time away from constant stimuli can enrich your life. We should all embrace our boredom and see the upside of our downtime.

The quintessential international genre, detective fiction often works under the guise of popular entertainment to expose its extensive readership to complex moral questions and timely ethical dilemmas. The first book-length study of Japan’s detective fiction, Murder Most Modern considers the important role of detective fiction in defining the country’s emergence as a modern nation-state. Kawana explores the interactions between the popular genre and broader discourses of modernity, nation, and ethics that circulated at this pivotal moment in Japanese history. The author contrasts Japanese works by Edogawa Ranpo, Unno Juza, Oguri Mushitaro, and others with English-language works by Edgar Allan Poe, Dashiell Hammett, and Agatha Christie to show how Japanese writers of detective fiction used the genre to disseminate their ideas on some of the most startling aspects of modern life: the growth of urbanization, the protection and violation of privacy, the criminalization of abnormal sexuality, the dehumanization of scientific research, and the horrors of total war. Kawana’s comparative approach reveals how Japanese authors of the genre emphasized the vital social issues that captured the attention of thrill-seeking readers-while eluding the eyes of government censors. Sari Kawana is assistant professor of Japanese at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Veteran homicide detective Blake Moyer comes out of retirement to join the police force in San Amaro, a small town on the Central California coast. On Moyers first day on the job, George Garfield, owner of the Mollusks R Us oyster farm is murdered. A growing group of would-be environmentalists have been protesting against the oyster farm under the mistaken assumption that the activity was harmful to the ecology of the bay. The protest was begun by Sally Wicks a well-meaning, but ill-informed old time San Amaro resident. Demonstrations against the oyster farm heat up significantly when Jerry Lambert, Sallys neer do-well grandnephew arrives in town. Moyer aided by a young officer, Liam McNamara, assigned as his partner, sets out to discover who killed Garfield. As they get into their investigation of Garfields murder, the detectives are faced with a series of related crimes including shoplifting, burglary, dope dealing, and political corruption before they finally learn who killed George Garfield.

The 13th edition of the International Who's Who in Poetry is a unique and comprehensive guide to the leading lights and freshest talent in poetry today. Containing biographies of more than 4,000 contemporary poets world-wide, this essential reference work provides truly international coverage. In addition to the well known poets, talented up-and-coming writers are also profiled. Contents: * Each entry provides full career history and publication details * An international appendices section lists prizes and past prize-winners, organizations, magazines and publishers * A summary of poetic forms and rhyme schemes * The career profile section is supplemented by lists of Poets Laureate, Oxford University professors of poetry, poet winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, winners of the Pulitzer Prize for American Poetry and of the King's/Queen's Gold medal and other poetry prizes.

This book analyses the teen film as the rare medium able to represent the otherwise chaotic and conflicting experience of youth. The author focuses on six major issues: alienation, deviance and delinquency, sex and gender, the politics of consumption, the apolitics of youth(ful) rebellion, and regression into nostalgia. Despite the many differences within the genre, this book sees all teen films as focused on a single social concern: the breakdown of traditional forms of authority – school, church, family. Working with the theories of such diverse scholars as Kenneth Keniston, Bruno Bettelheim, Erik Erikson, Theodor Adorno, Simon Frith, and Dick Hebdige, the author draws an innovative and flexible model of a cultural history of youth. Originally published in 1992.