When it comes to Japan’s contribution to modern arts, there’s nothing more Japanese than manga. What most Americans see as comic books, manga is more of an art form. In this month’s Wired, Daniel H. Pink reports that manga sales in the United States have tripled in the last four years, and it has also become popular in Europe. (Still don’t see why manga is popular? Just turn on your TV to any network showing cartoons, and chances are it’ll be an anime program that was spawn from manga, like Naruto and Dragon Ball). But despite the growing popularity on our shores, the magazine also finds that manga readership is falling in Japan. The article explores the complexity of the genre, and where it’s headed.

Check out the article here, which includes additional online features, like a quick guide to manga.

I suppose its been around four years or so since Johnny Cash died. There have been a few books out, countless articles, a big-name movie that got an Oscar nod or two, all of them claiming to have the inside scoop, the real story on the real Man in Black. None, I repeat, none of them are as surprising as I Walked the Line.

The name on the cover reads Vivian Cash — Johnny’s first wife — but the book is comprised almost entirely of love letters to her, from him. The book traces the rise of their romance, when they met at an ice rink in 1951; his letters while overseas in Germany, during which time he promised her “oceans and oceans of love and devotion,” and encountered alcohol seriously for the first time; and their inevitable downfall, their relationship a victim of Johnny’s increasing fame and substance abuse.

This is a part of Johnny’s life that is routinely glossed over, and as The New York Times points out, the 2005 Cash movie Walk the Line ” presented [Vivian] as a nagging, ever-pregnant obstacle to his storybook romance with June Carter.” Vivian went on record saying once “[there are] people of the Nashville mind-set, who prefer that I be written out of Johnny’s history altogether.” The similarities between that story and this extend only to the names, and the side of Johnny shown here is a fiercely romantic one that is rarely, if ever, acknowledged.

Read The New York Times review of the book here.

“Life is not a fairy tale, and even the most perfect spouse can not be your all-in-all,” says Denise Jackson, wife of country singer Alan Jackson. “We all have our faults, and every adult alive has regrets.”

(Cue Je Ne Regrette Rien.)

Denise’s latest tome It’s All About Him: Finding the Love of My Life touches elaborately details how the pressures of fame contributed to the slow disintegration of her marriage with the country star. He was unfaithful, she was too controlling and neither would give in, so they separated. Some three months later, she had an epiphany: “I just remember driving home and just crying out to Him, and saying I can’t take this anymore,” she told Today’s Ann Curry. “‘I can’t believe You want my family to be apart. But if You do, I just give it all to You. I know You’ll take care of me.’ It wasn’t that things changed immediately. But I had just this sense of peace.”

But things did change, and now the high school sweethearts are together again and closer than ever!

Denise did note warily some moments later, “I’m not saying every marriage should be saved.”

Watch the full interview, in which she reveals who the “Him” in the title really is. And don’t miss Alan performing his newest song, “It’s All About Him”, which he wrote to honor his wife’s book. Aw.

Jazz Great Wynton Marsalis called it “ghetto minstrelsy” while rapper Snoop Dogg said “hip-hop is what makes the world go around”. Some have said that it simply perpetuates countless age-old stereotypes while others insist that hip-hop gives a creative outlet to urban youth. If the genre has done one thing over the course of its twenty plus year existence, it has sparked controversy. Its lyrical content and legitimacy as an art form have been questioned again and again, but those who sing its praises say it is a product of it’s inner-city environment. Regardless of what they say, hip-hop has become one of the most popular genres of music on the planet and shows no signs of waining. It must be on to something…

Michael Eric Dyson certainly thinks so. A Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Dyson has become one of the foremost thinkers of the “hip-hop intelligentsia”, and was voted one of the 100 most influential black Americans by Ebony. His latest project is Know What I Mean?: Reflections on Hip-Hop, a series of essays that consider some of the pertinent issues surrounding the genre, from its often times profane and sexist lyrical content to the inadvertent self-parody caused by its rampant commercial success. The book also features an intro by Jay-Z and an outro by Nas.

Watch the Today interview, and read the prelude>.

The Clash, which for a number of years enjoyed the title of “the only band that mattered”, has emerged as a lasting symbol of the politics and noise of 1970s punk, and is one of the few bands from that era that still enjoys any sort of cultural relevance. They were the first band to take punk beyond its three chord boundaries, mixing together elements of reggae, rockabilly and R&B into a wholly unique sound that served as an elegant platform for front man Joe Strummer’s highly politicized lyrics. Unfortunately, after dozens of London Calling reissues and hundreds of Rolling Stone and NME retrospectives, many of the details of the band and Strummer’s life have been glossed over or lost. Thank god for Chris Salewicz, a feature writer for NME during the band’s heyday. Some thirty years after the fact, he brings us Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer, a biography that spans the first raucous days of punk to Strummer’s tumultuous, conflicted post-Clash years. Salewicz sat down with NPR recently and discussed one of the central themes of the book: how does a figurehead in an anarchist movement, one that shuns material wealth, deal with commercial success?

Listen to the full interview here.

With The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America, Allen Brandt, a professor at the Harvard Medical School, offers up the definitive history of the cigarette, from its inception in the late 19th century to its widespread ban in the late 20th. Thursday night, Brandt sat down with Jon Stewart and argued that cigarettes represent nearly every aspect of America: agriculture, business, pop culture, issues of gender and sexuality, advertising, public relations and so on.

In his book, Brandt documents the knowledge that cigarettes are harmful in great detail, but that there is no sense of shame or acknowledgment on the part of cigarette companies, who still go after what they call “replacement smokers,” kids that they lure in with newly reissued flavored cigarettes and tobacco.

Watch the whole interview, in which Brandt puts forth his theory on how cigarettes have remained popular for over a century.

Former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles was featured on NPR yesterday. The book is the latest of many to try and get into the head of the Princess to get “the real Diana.” To this end, Brown sifted through the extensive press coverage and interviewed friends, staff and the people closest to her, ultimately creating a portrait of the beloved Royal as a savvy, globe-trotting humanitarian — the predecessor of Bono and Angelina Jolie

The NPR interview with Brown, along with a brief excerpt of the book is available here.

Brown and her book were also featured on GMA last week, and you may read that here.

English gossip-columnist Tina Brown is the latest to try her hand at parsing the mind of perhaps the most beloved member of the royal family. She interviewed the people that knew the late Princess Di best, analyzed old press notes and managed to create one of the most thorough portraits of her we have seen in recent years.

Brown’s book, The Diana Chronicles, garnered a small article on Good Morning America, along with an excerpt , which you may read here.

It has been 10 years since the crash killing Lady Di and she’s still having a dramatic impact on popular culture. Enough so, that Christopher Andersen saw fit to write After Diana: William, Harry, Charles And The Royal House of Windsor, a book that follows and examines the lives of the remaining family members in the wake of Diana’s death, from the teenage years of Princes Harry and William to Prince Charles’ marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles. Andersen also addresses some of the rumors surrounding Diana and the Royal Family, including the prevalence of infidelity that Andersen purports plagued the family until the Princess’ dying day.

The Early Show has made an excerpt of the book available, as well as an interview with Andersen, both of which you may view here.

Last week Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates went head to head on the same stage for the first time in more than 20 years and while most of the tech world was hoping for a total Jerry Springer-style brawl between the two, it just didn’t happen. Instead we got a big “you’re-great-no-you’re-great” love fest.

Alan Deutschman, author of The Second Coming of Steve Jobs and more recently Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life, got a call from The Motley Fool’s Mac Greer to talk about the tussle that never was.

Watch the video here.