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Mami Suzuki: Private Eye • Simon Rowe

In my review of Simon Rowe’s Pearl City: Stories from Japan and Elsewhere (2020), I wrote of the titular “Pearl City” chapter: “It’s a very satisfying story but one that leaves you wanting a full novel. We want to ride with Ms. Suzuki again.” And that’s exactly what we get [...]

Author Interview: Scott Crawford

John Ross chats with Scott F. Crawford, an American writer based in East Asia. They talk about Scott’s Silk Road Centurion, published by Camphor Press in 2023, a historical adventure set in the Chinese borderlands two millennia ago. * * * Scott, we first met, online at least, five years [...]

Bridging East & West • Kathie Wei-Sender

Bridging East & West is a fast-paced and fun account of Kathie Wei-Sender’s long, fascinating life, from childhood dangers during the Sino-Japanese War to an arranged marriage and move to the United States, to a career in nursing and then a reinvention as bridge champion mixing with world political leaders. [...]

Author Interview: Jonathan Lerner

SPOILER ALERT: Plot details of the novel Lily Narcissus are discussed in this interview. Jonathan Lerner lived in Taipei for two years in the late 1950s when his father, a foreign service officer, was stationed there. Later he was involved with the leftist Students for a Democratic Society, and then [...]

Lily Narcissus • Jonathan Lerner

This engrossing novel of expat life in Taipei in the late 1950s is a story which stays with you. That’s due, in part, to the interesting, believable characters, but also because the ending leaves a few threads untied. The minor mystery of the “Narcissus” in the title is easily enough [...]

The Baseball Widow • Suzanne Kamata

Taiwan’s greatest sports story occurred during the Japanese colonial period (1895–1945). The Kano baseball team, a ragtag band of players from a two-bit school in a backwater city, defied the odds to reach the final of the 1931 Koshien High School Baseball Tournament in Osaka. The team came from a [...]

Osaka! Osaka!: A different kind of history • James Jensen

It’s been sad watching the decline in popularity of the travelogue over the last quarter century. I remain hopeful, however, that there can be a renaissance of the genre, because a good travel book is an inherently wonderful blend of fun and fact. This satisfying mix of escapist pleasure and [...]