Buy My New Books: Zen Arcade, Pop Life, Greatest Hits

New Books: Zen Arcade, Pop Life, Greatest Hits. Click on the images to order.

My new books are now available for pre-order on Amazon and will be released this Tuesday, November 21. Between now and November 26, all three titles will be 99 cents. This is our "Launch Week" sale and I hope you take advantage of it. Buy all three! Send them to friends and family as gifts! Start your holiday season shopping early!

Here is a description for each of these new books:


Zen Arcade: Classic Video Game Reviews - 140 reviews of retro video games for NES, Super NES, Nintendo 64, Turbografx-16, Sega Genesis and SNK Neo-Geo. All of the game featured were released on Nintendo Virtual Console and other digital platforms including Xbox Live, PSN, iOS and Android.

Are you a young gamer who is discovering the classics for the first time? Are you an older player seeking a nostalgia fix? Are you a game designer, programmer or writer searching for inspiration? Zen Arcade is the book for you. Don't go into your neighborhood game store without a copy of this book.

Zen Arcade includes: Altered Beast, Bonk's Adventure, Donkey Kong Country, F-Zero, Fatal Fury, Ghouls 'N Ghosts, Golden Axe, Ice Hockey, Legend of Zelda, Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, SimCity, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Brothers, Super Star Soldier, Wave Race 64, World Class Baseball, and 120+ more.

Pop Life - Essays and commentary on popular culture, the arts and life: film & television, music & audio, video games & animation, politics & life. Author Daniel Thomas MacInnes tackes every aspect of "the pop life" with biting wit, humor and keen insight, bringing readers on an illuminating journey across the cultural landscape.

If you are a fan of Roger Ebert, Pauline Kael, Hunter S. Thompson or Chuck Klosterman, Pop Life is the perfect book for you.

Pop Life Essays include: A Charlie Brown Christmas, Atari 7800, Babes in Toyland, The Boondock Saints, Miles Davis, DEVO, Herbie Hancock, The Marx Brothers, Metallica, Million Dollar Baby, NFL 2K1, A Night at the Opera, Napoleon Dynamite, Pearl Jam, Ratatouille, Lou Reed, Sega Dreamcast, The Simpsons Movie, Space Shuttle Columbia, Wisdom Teeth in the United States of Stupid, and 120+ more.

Greatest Hits: An Anthology in Four Volumes - A compilation volume of selections from two current books (Zen Arcade, Pop Life) and two upcoming books (Videogame Classics, Conversations on Ghibli). Author Daniel Thomas MacInnes examines and dissects the pop culture universe: film and television, animation and live-action, music and audio, video and computer games, politics and current events with sharp wit, humor and insight.

Greatest Hits essays include: ActRaiser, Anne of Green Gables, California Games, Donkey Kong Country, Herzog Zwei, My Neighbor Totoro, Napoleon Dynamite, Ratatouille, Sonic CD, Spirited Away, The Thriller Zombies Come to Chew on the Corpse, Truth is the First Casualty of War, and 80 more.

To read more about my books, including descriptions and sample chapters, please visit DT MEDIA.

Bocanada: A Journal of Pop Culture and the Arts - The New E-Zine From Ghibli Blog

Have you downloaded your free e-zine yet?

Many years ago (longer than I care to admit), I created zines to nourish my love of writing and popular culture. I wrote about Star Trek and science-fiction, video games, music, art, and the ups and downs of daily life. They were created on simple desktop publishing software, word processors, and an assortment of clip art and marker pens. It was very low-tech, but highly enjoyable. I even managed to score some freelance writing work at GamePro, which was tremendous fun

Ever since then, I wanted to return to zines. I even had recurring dreams about finding an old computer with long-forgotten websites that were still active, and communicating with old friends. 21 years later, while working on my multiple book projects, I thought it would be fun to finally take the plunge again and create a zine that I could share with my readers and fans. And so Bocanada Issue 1 was born.

Bocanada: A Journal of Pop Culture and the Arts. That long-winded title means, simply, that I get to write about whatever the heck I want, but mostly aimed in the same direction as my writings on Ghibli Blog and the new books: Zen Arcade, Pop Life and Greatest Hits.

For Ghibli Freaks, this issue includes essays on Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke and My Neighbors the Yamada. For classic and retro video game fans, there are reviews of Altered Beast (Genesis), Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis), Bonk's Adventure (TG-16), Mega Man (NES), and Street Fighter 2 Turbo (Super NES). For music lovers, we have articles on Miles Davis' 1974 jazz-fusion album Get Up With It and Sony's PS-X75 Biotracer Turntable. Finally, we have an art gallery of zine-worthy graffiti works created by me back in 2002.

The cover image is another one of my artworks, a 2005 digital painting created entirely on computer. The title is an homage to Gustavo Cerati's 1999 album, a glorious mashup of trip-hop (remember that?), Radiohead's Kid-A and The Beatles. The pages are "half-size," meaning that they are standard 8.5" x 11" pages folded in half. The zine is 48 pages in total, which matches the output of my old zines perfectly (they were 245 pages at standard size).

Bocanada was created for both physical and digital formats. I find the half-size format works perfectly for tablets and even smartphones. The pages are very readable and neatly designed without becoming too cluttered or dense. I created everything on Scribus, a freeware tool, which I suppose would disqualify me in the eyes of many zine publishers -- it's not a "real zine" unless everything is created on a typewriter, scissors and markers. Whatever.

Bocanada is available as a "perma-free" download, meaning the digital version will always be free. All you have to do is join my mailing list. In addition to receiving the zine, you will also receive regular email newsletters that feature the latest news and developments from DT Media (my indie publishing label) and Ghibli Blog, including the new books!

When is Bocanada Issue 2 coming? Soon. I'm still very busy with releasing the books, assembling the new DT Media website, and doing the usual promotional work (translation: hassling everyone with review copies and appearance requests). If we can assemble and publish the second issue in time for Thanksgiving, I'd be thrilled.

As always, thank you very much for your continued support of Ghibli Blog.

P.S. I keep mentioning the new books: Zen Arcade, Pop Life and Greatest Hits. Well, the books are finished and ready to roll out! As for release date, availability and price...join my mailing list and I'll share all the answers in my next newsletter.