{"product_id":"tokyo-junkie-60-years-of-bright-lights-and-back-alleys-and-baseball-9781611720679","title":"Tokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys . . . and Baseball","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTokyo Junkie\u003c\/em\u003e is a memoir that plays out over the dramatic 60-year growth of the megacity Tokyo, once a dark, fetid backwater and now the most populous, sophisticated, and safe urban capital in the world.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFollow author Robert Whiting (\u003cem\u003eThe Chrysanthemum and the Bat\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eYou Gotta Have Wa\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eTokyo Underworld\u003c\/em\u003e) as he watches Tokyo transform during the 1964 Olympics, rubs shoulders with the Yakuza and comes face to face with the city's dark underbelly, interviews Japan's baseball elite after publishing his first best-selling book on the subject, and learns how politics and sports collide to produce a cultural landscape unlike any other, even as a new Olympics is postponed and the COVID virus ravages the nation.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA colorful social history of what Anthony Bourdain dubbed, \"the greatest city in the world,\" \u003cem\u003eTokyo Junkie\u003c\/em\u003e is a revealing account by an accomplished journalist who witnessed it all firsthand and, in the process, had his own dramatic personal transformation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eRobert Whiting is a journalist and author who has lived in Tokyo on and off for more than half a century. One of only a few Western writers to have a regular newspaper column in Japanese, he is the author of several highly successful books on Japan including the best-selling \u003cem\u003eYou Gotta Have Wa\u003c\/em\u003e (on baseball in Japan) and \u003cem\u003eTokyo Underworld\u003c\/em\u003e (currently under option to Legendary Global). Topics he has written on include sports, Tokyo nightlife, and crime.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Stone Bridge Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50478605500690,"sku":"9781611720679","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_d5a279cd-5524-4bcb-855e-c2623e1d19c8.jpg?v=1730306235","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/tokyo-junkie-60-years-of-bright-lights-and-back-alleys-and-baseball-9781611720679","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}