Ivan Vartanian makes books. He is not a publisher, nor a commonplace packager. Rather he identifies a niche in the market, lines up the most suitable backing, and then physically puts the book together himself under the company name Goliga Books. All within the constrains of a tiny apartment in Tokyo's Setagaya, with no indirect financial support.
Ivan Vartanian is also young and very funny, describing himself as a Woody Allen look-alike, but brighter and better-looking. He was born and raised in New York's Queens, just two blocks from where Simon and Garfunkel grew up ; they even went to the same high school (if a few years apart) . He says he was a bad student but industrious. "As becomes a book person, I had trouble reading. There I was, raiding bookstores, not for books to read, but simply to hold in my hands and own them."