John Rachel has a B. A. in Philosophy, has traveled extensively, is a songwriter, music producer, novelist, and an evolutionary humanist. Since 2008, when he first embarked on his career as a novelist, he has had nine fiction and three non-fiction books published. These range from four satires and a coming-of-age trilogy, to a political drama and now a crime thriller. The three non-fiction works were also political, his attempt to address the crisis of democracy and pandemic corruption in the governing institutions of America. With the publication of Love Connection, his recent pictorial memoir, Live From Japan!, and the spoof on the self-help crazes of the 80s and 90s, Sex, Lies & Coffee Beans, he has three more novels in the pipeline: Mary K, the story of a cosmetics salesgirl with an IQ of 230, the surreal final book of his End-of-the-World Trilogy; and finally, The Last Giraffe, an anthropological drama and love story involving both the worship and devouring of giraffes. It deliciously unfolds in 19th Century sub-Saharan Africa. The author's last permanent residence in America was Portland, Oregon where he had a state-of-the-art ProTools recording studio, music production house, a radio promotion and music publishing company. He recorded and produced several artists in the Pacific Northwest, releasing and promoting their music on radio across America and overseas. John Rachel now lives in a quiet, traditional, rural Japanese community, where he sets his non-existent watch by the thrice-daily ringing of temple bells, at a local Shinto shrine.