The Sunday Post

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

Indie spotlight: book awards as part of a marketing strategy

Indie spotlight is our monthly column on self-publishing. This month our regular columnist, Siobhan Daiko, looks at awards for which indie authors are eligible. This ties in nicely with the poll Asian Books Blog is currently running, to find the book of the Lunar Year, and which pits indie authors up against traditionally published ones.  If you haven’t yet voted, you can find details of the shortlist, and instructions on how to vote, by clicking here. But now: over to Siobhan…

The Sunday Post

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

Weekly blog for UK Telegraph

You may be interested in my weekly blog about life in Singapore, for the UK Telegraph. If so, click here. This week it's on trying to track down a sculpture allegedly floating over the Singapore River...

Lion City Lit: Tom Benner

Asian Books Blog is based in Singapore. Lion City Lit explores what’s going on in the City-State, lit-wise. Here journalist Tom Benner explains why it’s a wonderful source of stories…

Authors in the UK

Authors in the UK are currently up-in-arms about the fact that, very often, everybody at a literary festival but them gets paid: the caterers; the cleaners; the organisers...For comment from the UK-based Society of Authors see here.

Booksellers disappear in Hong Kong

As even the least likely probable reader of this blog must surely be aware there have been some worrying disappearances of booksellers in Hong Kong recently. For a statement of concern from the European and International Booksellers Federation see 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:

Anuradha Roy wins DSC Prize for Sleeping on Jupiter 
Tobacco in China: an excerpt from A Token of Elegance: Cigarette Holders in Vogue 
Right Concept, Wrong Country: Tianming and Tianxia in International Relations by Salvatore Babones
Steep Tea, poetry by Jee Leong Koh reviewed by Jennifer Wong
Hong Kong-born poet Sarah Howe wins TS Eliot prize 
ARB Quarterly for January 2016

The Sunday Post

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

Just quickly...

You may be interested in one or other of these pieces, which I've had published this week:

Review of Little Aunt Crane by Geling Yan / Yan Geling for Asian Review of Books

Interview with Elisabeth Koch, a milliner in Beijing, for the UK Telegraph

My weekly blog about life in Singapore for the UK Telegraph

500 words from Ann Bennett

500 words from...is a series of guest posts from authors writing about Asia, and published by Asia-based, or Asia-focussed, publishing houses, in which they talk about their latest books. Here Ann Bennett writes about Bamboo Island, the second book in her World War II South East Asian trilogy.  Last year, in the Year of the Horse, the first book, Bamboo Heart, won the inaugural Asian Books Blog Book of the Lunar New Year. The trilogy is published by Monsoon, a company specialising in books that open windows onto South East Asian history.

So: over to Ann…

Catch-up: Asian Review of Books

Asian Review of Books kept up the flow of interesting material whilst Asian Books Blog was closed for Christmas and the Western New Year. Here are links to three weeks' worth of reviews, excerpts, letters, essays, listings, translations, news items, and round ups. 

All Monsters Must Die: An Excursion to North Korea by Magnus Bartas and Fredrik Ekman reviewed by Thomas London
Hong Kong-born poet Sarah Howe wins young writer of the year award 
Outside reading: links to interviews, essays and articles on translation, prizes, history, China 
Opera: Il Trovatore, Musica Viva, Hong Kong reviewed by Peter Gordon
China’s Disruptors: How Alibaba, Xiaomi, Tencent, and Other Companies are Changing the Rules of Business by Edward Tse reviewed by John D. Van Fleet

A tenor in Magadan: Vadim Kozin and Kseniya Melnik’s Snow in May posted by Peter Gordon
JFK’s Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, the CIA, and the Sino-Indian War by Bruce Riedel reviewed by Glyn Ford
Cosmopolites: The Coming of the Global Citizen by Atossia Araxia Abrahamian reviewed by Nicholas Gordon
Three Centuries of Conflict in East Timor by Douglas Kammen reviewed by Peter Gordon

Jade Dragon Mountain by Elsa Hart reviewed by Jonathan Chatwin
Outside reading: links to essays and news on books and writing from Japan, India, China, Israel 
The Age of Trade: The Manila Galleons and the Dawn of the Global Economy by Arturo Giraldez reviewed by Juan José Morales
The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World Historyby Tonio Andrade reviewed by Francis P Sempa

Little Aunt Crane by Yan Geling, translated from Chinese by Esther Tyldesley reviewed byRosie Milne
ARB Quarterly for January 2016 
Little Rice: Smartphones, Xiaomi, and the Chinese Dream by Clay Shirky reviewed byStephen Maire
Points of Origin, stories by Diao Dou, translated by Brendan O'Kane reviewed by Peter Gordon

The Asian Books Blog Book of the Lunar Year

Asian Books Blog runs its own literary award: The Asian Books Blog Book of the Lunar Year. The winner, for the Year of the Ram / Goat, now drawing to a close, will be announced on February 7, Chinese New Year’s Eve for the upcoming Year of the Monkey.