Over at the All the Anime blog, I review the new collection Japanese Media Cultures in Japan and Abroad — it’s often highly technical, but all the more valuable because it doesn’t demand that you take out a bank loan before accessing it.

Pricing in academic publishing is often a contentious issue in my book reviews. I don’t mind paying £80 for a book, but if I do, it had better be worth it, and if it’s not, I will say so. There are those who take me to task for “forgetting” that academic books are usually bought by libraries rather than members of the public. But libraries have limited funds, too, and librarians could do with fuller and franker appraisals of the books they spend their money on. So you can wait a year or more and wriggle behind an academic paywall to read a journal review of the books I cover. Or you can read what I say about them right now. Or, you know, both, because I’m not a gatekeeper, I’m just a guy who can look over the fence.