A lover, her daughter and the abandoned wife: three letters by three women reveal the tragic aftermath of a forbidden love affair. Shoko discovers her mother's infidelity through her diary, while Midori silently suffers as the abandoned wife. And then there is Saiko, the beautiful betrayer of her closest friend. Told from three different perspectives, The Hunting Gun explores the profound impact of an illicit passion. With a delicate touch, Inoue weaves together love, death, truth and loneliness in this timeless masterpiece.

Shiori knows at heart that she's a troubadour. She may be completely tone-deaf, but she won't let that stop her living a life dedicated to music. Even when her dominant older sister, Nozomi, forces Shiori to accept that her wild singing provokes only revulsion, she decides to forge a career as a lyricist instead. At eighteen, she moves to Tokyo to pursue her dream. Isolated and struggling in this unfamiliar city, Shiori seeks connection online, where her trusting outlook leaves her vulnerable to exploitation - with potentially explosive results.

100 Things Michigan State Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die is the ultimate resource guide for true fans of Michigan State football and men’s basketball. Whether a die-hard booster from the days of Jumpin’ Johnny Green or a new supporter of football coach Mark Dantonio, fans will value these essential pieces of Michigan State football and basketball knowledge and trivia, as well as all the must-do activities, that have been ranked from 1 to 100, providing an entertaining and easy-to-follow checklist for Spartan supporters to progress on their way to fan superstardom. It is now updated to include the Michigan State's recent successes.

Banana Youshimoto's depiction of the lives of Japanese youth has changed her country's literature and earned international acclaim. In "Hardboiled & Hard Luck, she delivers two tales of resonant grace, of young women coming to terms with change and heartbreak. In "Hardboiled." the narrator is hiking in the mountains on an anniversary she has forgotten about, the anniversary of the ex-lover's death. As she nears her hotel, a sense of haunting falls over her. That night she dreams of her ex-lover, and is visited by a woman who may not exist--perhaps these eerie events will help her make peace with her loss. "Hard Luck" is about a young woman whose sister is dying and lies in a coma. Her fiance left her after the accident, but his brother continues to visit, and as the two of them make peace with the impending loss of their loved one, they seem to find new hope for the future in their own new bond. "Hardboiled & Hard Luck is small jewel of a book, a work of resilient sweetness that will move readers deeply. "Book Page has compared Yoshimoto to "Haruki Murakami and]. . . Anne Tyler for her] spare and ethereal manner of wiriting and eye for the way to which terrible experiences shape one's life, "but Yoshimoto's voice, and deserved international stature, are most certainly her own.

This book presents the state-of-the-art, current challenges, and future perspectives for the field of many-criteria optimization and decision analysis. The field recognizes that real-life problems often involve trying to balance a multiplicity of considerations simultaneously – such as performance, cost, risk, sustainability, and quality. The field develops theory, methods and tools that can support decision makers in finding appropriate solutions when faced with many (typically more than three) such criteria at the same time.  The book consists of two parts: key research topics, and emerging topics. Part I begins with a general introduction to many-criteria optimization, perspectives from research leaders in real-world problems, and a contemporary survey of the attributes of problems of this kind. This part continues with chapters on fundamental aspects of many-criteria optimization, namely on order relations, quality measures, benchmarking, visualization, and theoretical considerations. Part II offers more specialized chapters on correlated objectives, heterogeneous objectives, Bayesian optimization, and game theory. Written by leading experts across the field of many-criteria optimization, this book will be an essential resource for researchers in the fields of evolutionary computing, operations research, multiobjective optimization, and decision science.

This two-volume set LNCS 12269 and LNCS 12270 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, PPSN 2020, held in Leiden, The Netherlands, in September 2020. The 99 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 268 submissions. The topics cover classical subjects such as automated algorithm selection and configuration; Bayesian- and surrogate-assisted optimization; benchmarking and performance measures; combinatorial optimization; connection between nature-inspired optimization and artificial intelligence; genetic and evolutionary algorithms; genetic programming; landscape analysis; multiobjective optimization; real-world applications; reinforcement learning; and theoretical aspects of nature-inspired optimization.

This book comprises nine selected works on numerical and computational methods for solving multiobjective optimization, game theory, and machine learning problems. It provides extended versions of selected papers from various fields of science such as computer science, mathematics and engineering that were presented at EVOLVE 2013 held in July 2013 at Leiden University in the Netherlands. The internationally peer-reviewed papers include original work on important topics in both theory and applications, such as the role of diversity in optimization, statistical approaches to combinatorial optimization, computational game theory, and cell mapping techniques for numerical landscape exploration. Applications focus on aspects including robustness, handling multiple objectives, and complex search spaces in engineering design and computational biology.

This book comprises selected research papers from the 2015 edition of the EVOLVE conference, which was held on June 18-June 24, 2015 in Iasi, Romania. It presents the latest research on Probability, Set Oriented Numerics, and Evolutionary Computation. The aim of the EVOLVE conference was to provide a bridge between probability, set oriented numerics and evolutionary computation and to bring together experts from these disciplines. The broad focus of the EVOLVE conference made it possible to discuss the connection between these related fields of study computational science. The selected papers published in the proceedings book were peer reviewed by an international committee of reviewers (at least three reviews per paper) and were revised and enhanced by the authors after the conference. The contributions are categorized into five major parts, which are: Multicriteria and Set-Oriented Optimization; Evolution in ICT Security; Computational Game Theory; Theory on Evolutionary Computation; Applications of Evolutionary Algorithms. The 2015 edition shows a major progress in the aim to bring disciplines together and the research on a number of topics that have been discussed in previous editions of the conference matured over time and methods have found their ways in applications. In this sense the book can be considered an important milestone in bridging and thereby advancing state-of-the-art computational methods.

This book comprises nine selected works on numerical and computational methods for solving multiobjective optimization, game theory, and machine learning problems. It provides extended versions of selected papers from various fields of science such as computer science, mathematics and engineering that were presented at EVOLVE 2013 held in July 2013 at Leiden University in the Netherlands. The internationally peer-reviewed papers include original work on important topics in both theory and applications, such as the role of diversity in optimization, statistical approaches to combinatorial optimization, computational game theory, and cell mapping techniques for numerical landscape exploration. Applications focus on aspects including robustness, handling multiple objectives, and complex search spaces in engineering design and computational biology.

This volume encloses research articles that were presented at the EVOLVE 2014 International Conference in Beijing, China, July 1 4, 2014. The book gathers contributions that emerged from the conference tracks, ranging from probability to set oriented numerics and evolutionary computation; all complemented by the bridging purpose of the conference, e.g. Complex Networks and Landscape Analysis, or by the more application oriented perspective. The novelty of the volume, when considering the EVOLVE series, comes from targeting also the practitioner s view. This is supported by the Machine Learning Applied to Networks and Practical Aspects of Evolutionary Algorithms tracks, providing surveys on new application areas, as in the networking area and useful insights in the development of evolutionary techniques, from a practitioner s perspective. Complementary to these directions, the conference tracks supporting the volume, follow on the individual advancements of the subareas constituting the scope of the conference, through the Computational Game Theory, Local Search and Optimization, Genetic Programming, Evolutionary Multi-objective optimization tracks."

Numerical and computational methods are nowadays used in a wide range of contexts in complex systems research, biology, physics, and engineering. Over the last decades different methodological schools have emerged with emphasis on different aspects of computation, such as nature-inspired algorithms, set oriented numerics, probabilistic systems and Monte Carlo methods. Due to the use of different terminologies and emphasis on different aspects of algorithmic performance there is a strong need for a more integrated view and opportunities for cross-fertilization across particular disciplines. These proceedings feature 20 original publications from distinguished authors in the cross-section of computational sciences, such as machine learning algorithms and probabilistic models, complex networks and fitness landscape analysis, set oriented numerics and cell mapping, evolutionary multiobjective optimization, diversity-oriented search, and the foundations of genetic programming algorithms. By presenting cutting edge results with a strong focus on foundations and integration aspects this work presents a stepping stone towards efficient, reliable, and well-analyzed methods for complex systems management and analysis.

A woman is trying to contact Kasama Tsuneo at a crisis point in his life. But she won't reveal her identity. Kasama is an immigration officer in Tokyo, struggling to live a 'normal' life after an event that happened eight years previously, when he lived in the USA. His arranged marriage is looming, and he's seized by a strange emotional fit. And then the disembodied voice begins. All Tsuneo can do is desperately chase this woman, and the mystery behind what happened eight years earlier over the sea.

Startlingly restless and immaculately compact, Manazuru paints the portrait of a woman on the brink of her own memories and future. Twelve years have passed since Kei's husband, Rei, disappeared and she was left alone with her three-year-old daughter. Her new relationship with a married man-the antithesis of Rei-has brought her life to a numbing stasis, and her relationships with her mother and daughter have spilled into routine, day after day. Kei begins making repeated trips to the seaside town of Manazuru, a place that jogs her memory to a moment in time she can never quite locate. Her time there by the water encompasses years of unsteady footing and a developing urgency to find something. Through a poetic style embracing the surreal and grotesque, a quiet tenderness emerges from these dark moments. Manazuru is a meditation on memory-a profound, precisely delineated exploration of the relationships between lovers and family members.

Announcing the first expansion in more than 40 years of the venerable New Penguin Parallel Text series.
Here is the perfect introduction to contemporary Japanese fiction. Featuring many stories appearing in English for the first time, this collection, with parallel translations, offers students at all levels the opportunity to enjoy a wide range of contemporary literature without having to constantly consult a dictionary. Richly diverse in themes and styles, the stories are by well-known writers-like Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto-as well as by emerging voices. Complete with notes, these selections make excellent reading in either language.

This two-volume set LNCS 12269 and LNCS 12270 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, PPSN 2020, held in Leiden, The Netherlands, in September 2020. The 99 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 268 submissions. The topics cover classical subjects such as automated algorithm selection and configuration; Bayesian- and surrogate-assisted optimization; benchmarking and performance measures; combinatorial optimization; connection between nature-inspired optimization and artificial intelligence; genetic and evolutionary algorithms; genetic programming; landscape analysis; multiobjective optimization; real-world applications; reinforcement learning; and theoretical aspects of nature-inspired optimization.

Michael Emmerich thoroughly revises the conventional narrative of the early modern and modern history of The Tale of Genji. Exploring iterations of the work from the 1830s to the 1950s, he demonstrates how translations and the global circulation of discourse they inspired turned The Tale of Genji into a widely read classic, reframing our understanding of its significance and influence and of the processes that have canonized the text. Emmerich begins with an analysis of the lavishly produced best seller Nise Murasaki inaka Genji (A Fraudulent Murasaki's Bumpkin Genji, 1829-1842), an adaptation of Genji written and designed by Ryutei Tanehiko, with pictures by the great print artist Utagawa Kunisada. He argues that this work introduced Genji to a popular Japanese audience and created a new mode of reading. He then considers movable-type editions of Inaka Genji from 1888 to 1928, connecting trends in print technology and publishing to larger developments in national literature and showing how the one-time best seller became obsolete. The study subsequently traces Genji's reemergence as a classic on a global scale, following its acceptance into the canon of world literature before the text gained popularity in Japan. It concludes with Genji's becoming a "national classic" during World War II and reviews an important postwar challenge to reading the work after it attained this status. Through his sustained critique, Emmerich upends scholarship on Japan's preeminent classic while remaking theories of world literature, continuity, and community.

The exquisite last novel from Nobel Prize-winning author Yasunari Kawabata Ineko has lost the ability to see things. At first it was a ping-pong ball, then it was her fiance. The doctors call it 'body blindness', and she is placed in a psychiatric clinic to recover. As Ineko's mother and fiance walk along the riverbank after visiting time, they wonder: is her condition a form of madness - or an expression of love? Exploring the distance between us, and what we say without words, Kawabata's transcendent final novel is the last word from a master of Japanese literature. 'Lusciously peculiar' Paris Review

Ambitious and engrossing, this volume thoroughly revises the conventional narrative of The Tale of Genji's early modern and modern history, arguing that until the 1930s readers were less familiar with the eleventh-century work than scholars have assumed. Exploring iterations of the work from the 1830s to the 1950s, Michael Emmerich demonstrates how translations and the global circulation of discourse they inspired turned The Tale of Genji into a widely read classic, reframing not only our understanding of its significance and influence but also the processes that have canonized the text. In doing so, he supplants the passive concept of reception with the active notion of replacement, revitalizing the work of literary criticism. Part I begins with a close reading of the lavishly produced bestseller A Fraudulent Murasaki's Bumpkin Genji (1829--1842), an adaptation of Genji written and designed by Ryutei Tanehiko, with pictures by the great print artist Utagawa Kunisada.Emmerich argues that this work, with its sophisticated image-text-book relations, first introduced Genji to a popular Japanese audience, creating a new mode of reading in which people interested in Genji read a more approachable version instead. He then considers moveable type editions of Bumpkin Genji from 1888 to 1928 as bibliographic translations, connecting trends in print and publishing to larger developments in national literature and showing how the one-time bestseller became obsolete. Part II traces Genji's recanonization as a classic on a global scale, revealing that it entered the canons of world literature before the text gained popularity in Japan -- and that it was Suematsu Kencho's now-forgotten partial translation of Genji into English in 1882 that accomplished this, four decades before Arthur Waley's still-famous translation. Emmerich concludes by analyzing Genji's emergence as a national classic during World War II and reviews an important postwar challenge to reading the work in this mode. Through his sustained critique, Emmerich upends scholarship on Japan's preeminent classic, while remaking theories of world literature, continuity, and community.

Rei Hayakawa, a lonely, bulimic freelance writer with a drinking problem, wanders into a convenience store. She's swaddled in her coat and scarf, while her thoughts - of alienation, of hunger, of the need for gin and white wine - drift in via stream-of-consciousness. A trucker named Okabe walks in, deliberately grazes her behind, and at the same time, Rei's cell phone, set on vibrate, goes off over her heart. Rei impulsively gets into Okabe's truck with him - and stays. Suddenly she finds herself embarking on a road journey across the wintry landscape of Japan with a complete, and possibly dangerous, stranger. Can the physical relationship that develops between them give Rei what she needs, and can she ever free herself from her self-destructive tendencies? Both parties are wounded, guarded and distant -- can they learn to trust each other? Author Mari Akasaka brings her trademark wordplay and vivid imagery to this compelling story of an unlikely pairing set against the bleak backdrop of Japan's highways. Adapted for the screen in 2003, "Vibrator" has also been made into a film.

Demonstrating again the artful simplicity and depth of her vision, Banana Yoshimoto reestablishes her place as a writer of international stature in a book that may be her most delightful since Kitchen. In Asleep, Yoshimoto spins the stories of three young women bewitched into a spiritual sleep. One, mourning for a lost lover, finds herself sleepwalking at night. Another, who has embarked on a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma, finds herself suddenly unable to stay awake. A third finds her sleep haunted by a woman against whom she was once pitted in a love triangle. Sly and mystical as a ghost story, with a touch of Kafkaesque surrealism, Asleep is an enchanting new book from one of the best writers in contemporary international fiction.