American schoolchildren are taught that the night in 1775 when the famous patriot Paul Revere waited for the signal to inform him whether the invading British were coming by land or by sea, he was told to watch for a lantern that would be hung in the steeple of Boston’s [...]
Elizabeth Economy’s The World According to China joins an overcrowded bookshelf. But it’s a welcome addition, its breadth of coverage and insights into China’s push to attain global dominance making the book a must-read for journalists, business leaders, policymakers, and the interested general reader. The title is a little misleading – [...]
This illustrated book of Japan’s most famous pilgrimage, which connects 88 temples associated with the Buddhist monk Kobo Daishi (774–835), is like a serene stroll around a beautiful Japanese garden, and one in the company of a genial host. John Lander's images are – as befits the subject manner – [...]
“Compared to…?” It’s a useful retort, a shorthand way of asking for context. “The world today is so unstable!” “Compared to when?“ “Is your mother-in-law nice?” “Compared to what?” And when it comes to an assessment of Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his era, a comparative approach is an efficient [...]
An ambitious debut novel from a handsome actor turned aspiring novelist? I must admit I started reading The Eunuch wondering if it would prove a triumph of fan sales expectations over the quality of writing. After an initial hook of interest from the set-up, it took a little time to get [...]
Our Home in Myanmar: Four Years in Yangon is a delightful read, both an accessible introduction to Myanmar and a candid behind-the-scenes look at journalism in a developing country. The “our” in the title refers to the author, Jessica Mudditt, a young Australian, and Sherpa, her Bangladeshi husband, whom she met [...]
Laid low by a mystery ailment and sleepless nights, I was struggling to get through my to-do list, top of which this sat Larry Feign’s pirate saga The Flower Boat Girl. Oh well, if Robert Louis Stevenson could write Treasure Island while bedridden, then I could at least read and review [...]
The origins of Jon Mitchell’s astounding Poisoning the Pacific can be traced back to his childhood in Wales, where he grew up with family stories about his great grandfather’s First World War experiences of a near-fatal gas attack in the trenches of Europe. That hatred for chemical weapons would transform into action [...]
China is not usually associated with horses – well, other than being an agrarian civilisation long in opposition to the nomadic horse peoples of Central Asia – and yet it has a rich equestrian history and culture, as detailed in breadth and depth in Yin Hung Young’s The Horses of [...]
Heather Diamond is an American writer living in Hong Kong. She is the author of American Aloha: Cultural Tourism and the Negotiation of Tradition (2011) and Rabbit in the Moon: A Memoir (May, 2021). Rabbit in the Moon describes the author’s multiple mid-life reinventions; moving to Hawaii to complete a Ph.D. program, [...]