The Stone Bridge Press, which specializes in publishing books about Japan and Japanese culture, has an impressive lineup of books for the fall of 2006.  Of course Stone Bridge's revised edition of the Anime Encyclopedia ($29.95) by Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy (see 'The Anime Encyclopedia 2'), which is due out in November is of prime interest to many of our readers, but there are other books on the Stone Bridge list that should not be overlooked.

How to Take a Japanese Bath (September, $9.95) by Leonard Koren may not seem all that relevant, but given the prominence of bathing rituals in manga and anime, this volume does have a lot to say about one of the key elements of Japanese culture -- and it is illustrated by Suehiro Maruo, the amazing artist behind Mr. Arachi's Amazing Freak Show.

Fans of Japanese cinema will not be disappointed by the new Stone Bridge Press list, which includes a book about the classic films of Akira Kurosawa, Waiting on the Weather: Making Movies with Akira Kurosawa (September, $24.95) by Teruyo Nogami, as well as a volume on Asian horror, exploitation, and black humor films, Asia Shock: Horror and Dark Cinema from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, & Thailand (November, $19.95) by Patrick Galloway.

Finally for those interested in the daunting task of learning how to read Japanese Stone Bridge is publishing Kanji Starter 1 and Kanji Starter 2, which presents 500 of the 2,000 most commonly used kanji characters.