ChinaRhyming September 16 - Editor's Choice & Books Galore
Recommended books from the 60s, the 80s and now...as well as some other bits and pieces...
The Bookseller - Editor’s Choice - Her Lotus Year
A fantastic early recommendation from the UK’s major publishing trade magazine, The Bookseller….
Daniel Carney's Macau (1984)
My latest column for Macau Closer magazine is on Daniel Carney's door-stopper of a novel, Macau, published in 1984. Not perhaps Clavell, but it will occupy a long plane/train ride....click here to read my review…
Rui Rasquinho - illustration for Daniel Carney's Macau - Macau Closer, July-Aug 2024
Sinica Ultimate China Bookshelf #54 - Return to Fanshen
One of the most important books about China which has been written since the Revolution… For anyone who wants to understand anything important about the Chinese revolution of our time, the reading of this book is an absolute necessity. — Joseph Needham, London Tribune
Here on Kaiser Kuo’s Sinica Substack …..
City of Devils Kindle Edition Special Offer - £2.99/US$2.99
A limited period special offer on the e-book edition of my book City of Devils (here on Amazon.co.uk and here on Amazon US). So if you fancy some 1930s Shanghai gangsters, louche nightclubs & cabarets, fixed dog racing, questionable boxing tournaments, random murders, bent cops & loads of drug running you’re in luck….
Bede Scott’s Terrific Too From Antibes Re-Released
Colonial Saigon with shade of Greene, Ambler and Simenon - Bede Scott’s Too Far From Antibes re-released by Penguin South East Asia with a new cover and a blurb from me - Definitely one of the best novels of 2022 - here’s my review in the South China Morning Post....
The Great Wall: From Philly to West of Tokepa
In 1923 the National Geographic tried to demonstrate the length of the Great Wall in terms American readers could understand - from the coast at Philly, Pennsylvania to west of Topeka, Kansas, with a branch down to Little Rock, Arkansas ....
Rollo Romig’s I Am on the Hit List
Rollo Romig’s I Am on the Hit List (Penguin India) came out last month. I was delighted to be asked by Penguin India to blurb it….
“Rollo Romig expertly crafts this tale of an awful murder and its ramifications while bringing alive the dark underbelly of India’s Silicon City, Bangalore. You may never have heard of Gauri Lankesh but her assassination has serious ramifications for everyone everywhere who fears escalating political violence.”—Paul French, author of Midnight in Peking
When Gauri Lankesh, an outspoken journalist in the South Indian city of Bangalore, was assassinated in September 2017 outside her home, it wasn’t just a loss to her close-knit community of writers and activists—the shock reverberated nationwide, making headlines and sparking mass protests. Why was she targeted, and who was behind it? Following the case to its stunning, unsettling conclusion, Rollo Romig uncovers a world of political extremists, fearless writers, organized crime, and shadowy religious groups. I Am on the Hit List is an epic narrative that moves between a historic booksellers' district and brand-new high rises funded by IT wealth, to a secretive ashram in Goa and the kitchens of an international vegetarian restaurant chain, boldly interrogating whether we can break the cycle of polarization and bloodshed inspiring political murder across the globe.
Now There’s a Premise…
Unfortunately a sub-plot that’s never fully explored in Robert Crais’s (great) LA-set novel The First Rule, but wouldn’t you love to read the back story here!
FYI
Details of my next book - Her Lotus Year: China, The Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson here
Remember I still blog at www.chinarhyming.com
And I’m now on BlueSky at @chinarhyming.bsky.social
I also still post a lot of images on my Instagram feed - @oldhshanghaipaul
And, all the books noted above are available from my Bookshop.org page - an online bookstore funding independent bookstores