Two More Books and a Celebration

A couple of books that I have been involved with again this year (one here in Japan, one in the United States) are finally out and available to the people — always a good reason to celebrate. So while the presses are still hot, let me share with you a couple recommendations for some good year-end reading and/or teaching material....

One Big Censored Family

Every year the media watch group Project Censored, based in California in the U.S., publishes a book of the top news stories that you probably didn’t see reported in much depth by the big media companies over the previous year. I’ve been a regular reader of the yearly Censored books for some time, and have always looked forward to picking up the newest edition when it came out every autumn.

As I used to read the Censored books, I would usually come across some big story or two that I had not seen reported anywhere during the course of the previous year. I found myself asking: “How come I didn’t hear about that in the news?” And I’m a person who works and teaches in the media field — you can imagine how many other Censored readers ask that very same question as well.

Thankfully, the good folks at Project Censored are on the case, as they have been for more than 35 years during the organization’s existence, and we can get some much-needed answers to such questions this year by reading the new Censored 2015 edition just published by Seven Stories Press.

In addition to being a regular annual Censored reader, I’ve also had the privilege over the last few years of contributing my own written reports to the yearly book. Censored 2015 contains two of my essays this time: an update on the situation with the Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan, and a chapter on media coverage of South Africa and the late Nelson Mandela.

I’ve been welcomed as a member of the Project Censored family, and I have to say it’s a great feeling to be in such good company with other writers, editors, educators and student researchers from around the world who are doing their part as well — one big Censored family, you might say.

We each have our different area of focus and particular concern in each edition of Censored, but one thing we all seem to share is a strong desire for wanting the truth told to us by the press. We want a news media that does the job of informing the public that they are supposed to do — and when they don’t do their job, we make that known too.

This year’s Censored 2015, while a bit slimmer in volume than last year’s edition, nevertheless contains a wealth of information that you just will not find anywhere else. I encourage you to pick up a copy of Censored 2015 sometime soon (at your local independent bookstore, of course). By doing so, you’ll be supporting the vital work that Project Censored has been undertaking for more than three decades. In this age of media globalization, that work is more important than ever.

Learning Quality

Over past years, I have also been involved in working on TOEIC exam-related books with other Japanese professors and instructors. Our latest book is now out, Crossing the TOEIC Bridge (Japanese title: 『ブリッジから始めるTOEICテスト』 ), which is geared more toward beginning-level readers.

I have to admit that I’m no expert when it comes to prepping students for such exams in Japan. But having lived and taught students in Japan for a couple decades, I do know how badly the Japanese educational system fails in teaching kids to communicate and express themselves in foreign languages, especially in English. That motivates me to do what I can to help fill in those educational gaps, whenever I work on these kinds of books, by keeping the quality of learning as high as possible.

In addition to serving as writer/proofreader for this and other TOEIC books, I’ve also done a bit of the design work of the book’s pages. I had always loved doing the layout/design work of newspaper pages as a newspaper editor, and I’ve learned by trial and error how to create pages in books as well that look appealing to the eye and yet carry substance in them.

Asahi Press, one of the bigger publishing houses in Japan, has put out a few of our books in recent years and, unlike some publishers in Japan, the folks at Asahi are great to work with. They’ve even asked me to come up with the titles of our books (including this new one), a privilege I never take for granted as a foreigner working in Japanese society.

So, if you are a teacher in Japan and are looking for a university-level TOEIC textbook that keeps the quality of learning high and looks good at the same time, consider Crossing the TOEIC Bridge authored by two Japanese university educators and yours truly.

I have a few extra copies of the new book on hand, and will be glad to send a complimentary copy of the book to the first few readers who contact me off-blog (provided you live somewhere within Japan). It would be my own small way of thanking in return the many people, known and unknown, who have supported these TOEIC books I’ve worked on over the years. I look forward to hearing from you.

blog comments powered by Disqus