in japan they love i love putin in japan um i  might not agree with the man or the politics but  

there's no doubt the photos in this calendar bring  me a lot of joy in my everyday life so here he is  

uh with some binoculars just looking through  some binoculars here he is it's casually sitting  

on a rock and having a bit of fun yeah it's a  great reminder that you can run a country of 146  

million people but you can also you can also have  a little bit of fun along the way as well lovely  

they say you can learn an awful lot about  someone from having a look at their bookshelf so  

i'm not really sure this is a good idea i call  it my disappointing bookshelf because by the  

standards of most bookshelves it's pretty small  just by virtue of the fact i do live in a tiny  

japanese apartment with walls made of paper i'd  like to point out most of my uh more intellectual  

books they're all on kindle so don't judge  me just buy these books all my goods you know  

intellectual books they're definitely definitely  on my kindle i do think now more than ever there  

is a place for physical books in a world where  everything's digitized i like to just walk in here  

if i'm feeling like i haven't got any ideas  or inspiration i can turn my attention  

to this bookshelf just simply pick up a book and  you know dive in and find ideas and inspiration  

it's not all books on here though there are  various objects and narcissistic items designed to  

inflate my ego like this paper this newspaper and  this is the japan news the english um component of  

the yamiri shimbun the biggest newspaper in japan  here on the back on the on the back of the paper  

uh videos videos like a party videos like a  party look for the real japan and then beneath  

this huge headline there's a large photo of  me standing alone in the middle of a road  

filming myself with a camera alone videos videos  like a party nevertheless it was a privilege um so  

thank you to the yamiri shinmun for that um where  to start let's start with some of the more weird  

things we've got here let's start with oshiritante  literally detective [ __ ] he is a detective with  

a ass for a face and um he goes around solving  crimes really i'm not really into or shiritante  

even though he's a really quite big figure in  japan particularly for kids he's designed for kids  

don't know who thought that was a good idea  really and the reason i own it is not because  

i like this character or the concept in  any way shape or form but it reminds me to  

think outside the box because you don't need to  write a masterpiece with great narrative structure  

or wonderful characters you literally just need  a detective with an ass for a face to succeed  

and the money will come rolling in the bar can  be fantastically low also got this dvd here  

of this is a superhero japanese superhero planting  tree man let's make the forest of life with  

dream courage and hope his motives are simply to  encourage the planting of trees i got given this  

when i was at a buddhist ceremony once the people  working there i think they had too much money to  

spend and for tax reasons maybe they wanted to you  know spend the money on something and that's where  

planting tree man came in although given the sheer  amount of youtubers who seem to be planting trees  

at the moment um it seems like it was ahead of its  time bit prophetic if anything planting tree man  

continuing on the theme of slightly odd stuff  this is a notepad i bought from the 100 yen store  

where they often have weird english written  on the front um this isn't so much weird as  

well it made me think made me reflect  on my life and how i do things  

it says you alone can change your life no one  else can have a really fun day meow meow meow  

i don't know why this is there i don't know if  it's the cat saying it it seems like a slightly  

odd juxtaposition nevertheless i like that and uh  whenever i'm having a bad day i don't look at it  

while we're up here we've got some artwork  some of the coolest fan art i've had  

handed to me in person at an event in tokyo in  february i've got myself there natsuki with the  

balloons i don't like the fact that riotro is on  a cloud sort of insinuating he's got some sort of  

god-like status that's my only criticism other  than that fantastic artwork and thanks again to  

the person who made that you're awesome there's  a few books on here that i'm a little bit  

uncomfortable with being on the shelves for one  reason or another um i think this is one of them  

the big book of philosophy um it's it's  a bit awkward in conversations when you  

bring this up to be honest hmm yes i find in  these highly irrational times people tend to  

underestimate the important row philosophy  can play within contemporary discourse  

wouldn't you wouldn't you agree yeah oh yeah  definitely it's important to um think about  

stuff um where did you where'd you study yes well  i was initially at oxford for three years i did an  

awfully long thesis on the unified account  of rationality in belief desire in action  

oh yeah yeah i like that one it was quite the  adventure down the academic rabbit hole so to  

speak how about yourself where did you do  your reading um the big book of philosophy  

oh gosh oh dear i did actually buy this  book for a good reason though other than a  

nice presented overview of philosophy about  four or five years ago when i got this book  

i was studying japanese and i stumbled across this  memorization technique that meant i could learn  

40 to 50 japanese kanji characters in a day how  to write them and their meaning i started applying  

that memorization technique to just general  information so the idea was i was to get this book  

go through every single one of the 300 pages and  memorize all the philosophical kind of terms the  

people the times you know what for the first  30 to 40 pages i actually succeeded i was able  

to memorize the people the places the facts pretty  well um and then i realized at the end of it all  

that i needed to get out more and that was the  end of that oh and then i forgot it all and that  

was a complete waste of time i think the second  most embarrassing thing on this bookshelf is this  

um what was that no that's a receipt from from  a bookshop 14 pounds ah so that's how much  

my relatives spent on this book at christmas this  was brought to me by a relative who knew that i  

loved filmmaking but didn't know that i despised  the for dummies series which tends to oversimplify  

things it's true it's written by an award-winning  filmmaker but i just don't like them i can't stand  

them i think they're hideous i think they're ugly  you see them on coffee tables people never read  

them the only time i actually find practical  application practical use for this is when i'm  

using it to prop open my door you know you need  to keep the door open it's actually the perfect  

size and weight to make that happen and that is  why i still carry it besides i'm not a dummy i  

don't think a dummy could make videos like a party  if you do actually want to learn about filmmaking  

highly recommend the big screen by david thompson  fantastic overview no criticisms there better than  

filmmaking for dummies i've got quite  a few books that seem to revolve around  

creativity and self-help i've got this book here  this little book 642 tiny things to write about  

and inside you've got loads of random prompts  and things to kind of give you ideas like write  

a breakup text to yourself if you could time  travel to last week for one hour what would  

you do i think i wouldn't have drunk as much sake  on friday write a one-line ad for a rubber band  

bendy bollock far don't [ __ ] know write the  first line of a constitution for the new country  

you just founded uh in the country of broad topia  nobody can buy or sell legally the for dummies  

guide series of books they are  completely outlawed on penalty of death  

there are some things on this bookshelf i look at  and think oh that's disappointing like this book  

here the daily stoic journal this is a diary and  you're encouraged to reflect on your day basically  

the good and the bad and i bought this with a real  sense of optimism for the first time in my life i  

was actually going to sit down and keep a journal  keep a diary and i got two how far did i get  

that's empty oh dear didn't even make it to  the end of january i made it to january 23rd  

and then i gave up so that was unfortunate it's  a good book though i do recommend it and it does  

kind of make you think about what you're  doing in everyday life so i mean this one  

may 13th write about the bad habits you're fueling  um in my case not writing in the diary i suppose  

one thing you might have noticed is there's a  complete lack of fiction on these shelves the  

only fiction that i have is this animal farm  george orwell's animal farm fantastic book  

even then that is essentially non-fiction it's one  big allegory for the rise of the communist party  

in russia nevertheless great book fantastic guide  on how not to run an agricultural business and  

the artwork is fantastic look at that i used to be  something of a self-help junkie around the age of  

18 19 i was a bit lost in life i didn't  know where i was going or what i was doing  

don't think i do now really but back then i needed  some help and i did buy a lot of self-help books  

along the way such as the seven habits of highly  effective people i don't really like it instead  

of reading books like this i would just recommend  reading autobiographies about entrepreneurs and  

what they went through to build their company  or what they battled against to get there  

what are the seven habits of highly successful  people spoiler alert be proactive think and win  

synergise sharpen the saw jesus it sounds like  sounds like some pretty dodgy advice to me  

and these are going to make me look really bad  given what they're called not doing myself any  

favors here the 33 strategies of war and this one  is the 48 laws of power straight off of a bomb  

villains bookshelf above all they are really just  history lessons for example law number four always  

say less than necessary and then we've got case  studies here from roman history french history  

backing up that principle so it's quite above all  it's basically a history lesson that just sounds  

a lot more sinister than it is but i highly  recommend it if you're into business strategy  

history really good books highly recommend them  very well written by robert greene i should  

probably turn some attention to the japanese books  given that that is overwhelmingly what i have on  

these shelves and that is because for the most  part i find when it comes to learning materials  

in japanese they're still better in printed form  and that's because in japan printing is still much  

bigger than digital bear that in mind if you want  to learn japanese i think my favorite learning  

japanese book is down here as you can see it's  ripped to pieces just because i've actually used  

it quite a lot over the years i still occasionally  use it now the ultimate japanese phrase book  

this book has 1800 sentences uh used in everyday  life in japan it doesn't teach you the grammar  

but what it does do is teach you casual useful  phrases like my wife is having an affair  

in this it's a useful phrase to know they have  a section for just about every situation you'd  

ever face um often in chronological order  for example this one has the private zone  

and it talks about dating  can i sit next to you tonight

sweet talk i'm having a great time with you

can i walk you home

is there a love hotel near here shikakuni do  you have protection get the idea it takes you  

from going on your first date to kissing and  doing stuff in love hotels to having children  

babies kids and teens and then eventually and  inevitably it ends with divorce i've got some  

manga books here which i use for learning and  reading um one piece and detective conan i  

never really got into manga though so don't ask  me questions about manga because i don't know  

any and then also for the next level up there's  breaking into japanese literature where they have  

on one side they have the japanese and then on the  other side there's the english translations now  

there is a book here on the shelf that is a little  bit odd it's not something i would normally buy  

or get or read and it is this one uh onago room  it's basically a book filled with fantastic photos  

of rooms of girls or girls rooms um like that  one that's a girl in a room i was in a bookshop  

in sendai i was strolling through it and this  book caught my eye i think the front cover is  

quite provocative it's quite cool and i picked  it up and had a flick through and i was just  

completely in awe of the sheer variety of rooms  one of the things you find we're living in japan  

is we don't have a lot of space to live in you  really have to be creative and flicking through  

this book just seeing how women across the country  have adapted their rooms and managed to pack all  

their belongings into such a small space and  infuse their own kind of sense of personality  

i find it really kind of hypnotically brilliant  and interesting some rooms are tidier than others  

as you can see and also as somebody who's into  film and cinematography i really enjoyed looking  

at the composition of the images and the lighting  it sounds like i'm making this up sounds like i'm  

trying to justify why i bought this book which may  appear to be a little bit sleazy pretend though  

great book onago room and it's by shiori kawamoto  because most of my favorite books aren't here  

on this bookshelf and i don't feel like it's an  entirely accurate representation of who i am i'm  

going to list off a few books that i do recommend  that i do love the first one is the obstacle  

is the way by ryan holliday the ancient art of  turning adversity to advantage it basically uses  

stoic philosophy as we saw earlier with this book  i think he wrote this one as well actually brian  

holliday he loves stoicism but it kind of gives  you a framework for everyday living that helps  

you take on lots of challenges and feel like you  can actually win samurai william by giles milton  

chronicles the real life adventure and story of  william adams a british guy who got on a boat for  

two years sailed to japan and ended up becoming  the right-hand man of tokugawa iayasu the most  

powerful man in japan that's quite an incredible  story it is real you can have an amazing memory  

by dominic o'brien a lot of the techniques that  i used in that book helped me memorize and learn