Noted Japan expert Professor Mark J. Ravina of the University of Texas at Austin covers the politics, economics, and culture of the island nation since World War II - a conflict that saw the end of Japan’s dream of regional conquest, which Professor Ravina calls Empire 1.0. The country’s postwar leaders radically changed course, renouncing a strong military to pursue Empire 2.0 - Japan as an economic colossus.

Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).

■日常生活、ビジネス、観光、歴史、文化など、バラエティーに富み、独特のユーモア感覚にあふれた45本のトピックを収録。プロのイギリス人ナレーターによる美しい発音で、ラジオドラマのように聴きやすい会話や、イギリス情報満載のモノローグをお楽しみください。 ■トピックは、アルクが編集した「標準語彙水準12000」(Standard Vocabulary List、SVL 12000)のレベル1~3(初級レベル)の英単語を中心に構成されています。難しすぎる単語がないので、イギリス英語になじみのない方でも、気楽にリスニングに取り組んでいただくことができます。 ■リスニング力がアップするだけでなく、会話力もアップし、イギリスに関する知識も増えること請け合いです。 ※「標準語彙水準12000」:アルクが長年蓄積してきた膨大な英文データから「日本人英語学習者にとっての有用性」「ネイティブスピーカーの使用頻度」を基準に選び出した、12000語の重要英単語リスト。 ※本商品は書籍に付属のCD音声と同内容です。また、テキスト情報は含まれておりません。 ◇対象レベル◇初級以上~

She’s a fashion model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden freeway "accident" leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful center of attention to being an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from becoming a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past and making up something better. And that salvation hides in the last places you’ll ever want to look.

Breakfast of Champions (1973) provides frantic, scattershot satire and a collage of Vonnegut's obsessions. His recurring cast of characters and American landscape was perhaps the most controversial of his canon; it was felt by many at the time to be a disappointing successor to Slaughterhouse-Five, which had made Vonnegut's literary reputation.