Closing for Christmas

Merry Christmas! Merry reading! 
Best wishes for 2016!

The blog is closed from today, Monday 21 December, until Tuesday 12 January, when we'll be back with details of the Asian Books Blog Book of the Lunar Year Award, for the Year of the Sheep / Goat / Deer.

The Sunday Post

A rojak* of items that caught my eye this week…

Tales of Two Cities: Hong Kong and Singapore

Tales of Two Cities: An Anthology of Short Stories by the Hong Kong Writers Circle, and the Singapore Writers Group presents four faces of each city: the changing city; the historic city; the mystical city; the capricious city.  There are twenty three stories in the collection, which has been co-edited by Alice Clark-Platts, and S. Micky Lin, from the Singapore Writers Group, and Edmund Price and Harmony Sin, from the Hong Kong Writers Circle.  Here, Alice Clark-Platts gives a glimpse of how the collaboration worked.

Indie spotlight: Christmas marketing opportunities

Indie spotlight is our monthly column on self-publishing. This month our regular columnist, Siobhan Daiko, who is herself an indie author, explains how Christmas presents many marketing opportunities, to those with a book to sell.

Just quickly

I wrote an account of viewing snow in Singapore, for the UK Telegraph. If you're interested, click here.

The Sunday Post

A rojak* of items that caught my eye this week…

Lion City Lit: Swag

Asian Books Blog is based in Singapore. Lion City Lit explores what’s going on in the City-State, lit-wise. Here Jo Furniss introduces Swag, the new online literary magazine she's launching. Its events calendar,  which brings all relevant listings together in one convenient place, is already live, and is packed with ideas. From January, the quarterly journal will feature author interviews and new writing.

So: over to Jo…

Just quickly

My weekly blog from Singapore for the UK Telegraph is here, if you're interested.

This week in Asian Review of Books

See the Asian Review of Books for ever-interesting discussion. Here are links to its newest reviews, excerpts, letters, essays, listings, translations, news items, and round ups:

Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World by Jeremy Friedman reviewed by Francis P Sempa
Asian books among the Economist’s best of the year, and ARB reviews 
Staging Corruption: Chinese Television and Politics by Ruoyun Bai reviewed by Coraline Goron
Outside reading: links to essays and articles on translations, children’s books, China, North Korea, Philippines 
The Great Wall in 50 Objects by William Lindesay reviewed by Peter Gordon
Frontiers Reimagined. Art that Connects Us: 44 Artists, 25 Countries by Sundaram Tagore and Marius Kwint (curators) reviewed by Juan Jose Morales

The Sunday Post

A rojak* of items that caught my eye this week…

500 words from William L. Gibson

500 words from...is a series of guest posts from authors writing about Asia, published by Asia-based, or Asia-focussed, publishing houses, in which they talk about their latest books. Here Jakarta-based William L. Gibson talks about Singapore Yellow, volume two in his 19th century Detective Hawksworth trilogy, set in Singapore and Malaya – it kicked off with Singapore Black, and will conclude with Singapore Red. The trilogy is published by Monsoon, a company specialising in books that open windows onto south-east Asian history.

Just quickly...

I wrote an account of the amazing building housing Singapore's new National Gallery, for the UK Telegraph.  If you're interested, click here.

This Week in Asian Review of Books

See the Asian Review of Books for ever-interesting discussion. Here are links to its newest reviews, excerpts, letters, essays, listings, translations, news items, and round ups:

Asian books among the New York Times 100 Notable for 2015, and ARB reviews 
Conquerors: How Portugal Seized the Indian Ocean and Forged the First Global Empireby Roger Crowley reviewed by Jame DiBiasio
DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2016 shortlist and ARB reviews 
Muslim, Trader, Nomad, Spy: China’s Cold War and the People of the Tibetan Borderlands by Sulmaan Wasif Khan reviewed by Glyn Ford
Cathay: Ezra Pound’s Orient by Ira Nadel reviewed by Kerry Brown