New Delhi World Book Fair Reaches One Million Consumers

See here for an interesting overview of the New Delhi World Book Fair, from the US-based online magazine Publishing Perspectives.

This Week In Asian Review Of Books

Asian Books Blog is not a review site.  If you want reviews, see the Asian Review of Books.  Here is a list of its newest reviews:

Most Secret Agent of Empire: Reginald Teague-Jones, Master Spy of the Great Game by Taline Ter Minassian reviewed by Peter Gordon
The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics by Andrew Small reviewed by Kerry Brown
Liem Sioe Liong's Salim Group: The Business Pillar of Suharto's Indonesia by Richard Borsuk and Nancy Chng reviewed by Tim Hannigan
Mackinder Revisited: Will China Establish Eurasian Empire 3.0? by Artyom Lukin
The Orphan Sky by Ella Leya reviewed by Peter Gordon

Space for Thought: the LSE Literary Festival

Space for Thought, a literary festival organised by The London School Of Economics (LSE), starts today. Each year, the Festival seeks to explore an idea at the heart of LSE, encapsulated in the motto: to understand the causes of things.  This year, the theme is foundations, and the Festival will therefore examine foundations of various sorts: of knowledge; of society; of identity; of literature. 

Book of the Lunar Year: full results

As announced yesterday Bamboo Heart by Ann Bennett has won the poll to find Asian Books Blog’s Book of the Lunar Year. 

Most people simply voted, but some included comments explaining why they’d made their choice. Here are some comments typical of those made about Bamboo Heart:

The story is gripping, the characters well-drawn and believable and it is very well written. 

A truly compelling read.

This was such a moving story, beautifully told, balancing a flavour of the place and time with a deep involvement in the lives of interesting, well-drawn and, above all, credible characters.

A wonderful uplifting read - a new perspective about the death railway.

Book of the Lunar Year: Bamboo Heart

The winner of the inaugural Asian Books Blog Book of the Lunar Year, in the Year of the Horse, is Bamboo Heart, by Ann Bennett, with 34% of votes cast.  

Congratulations Ann!!!  

Blog readers have said some lovely things about Bamboo Heart. Full analysis of the results, and comments from voters, will follow tomorrow.

Book of the Lunar Year New Date

The announcement of the Asian Books Blog Book of the Lunar Year will now take place on Friday, 20 Feb, not Wednesday, 18 Feb.  If you want to vote, but haven't yet got around to it, please do so!!! See here for details. Currently A Madras Miasma and Bamboo Heart are in the lead. Capital has gained quite a few votes in the last couple of days. 

Questions & Answers: Alison Jean Lester

American-born, but Singapore-based, author Alison Jean Lester has just published Lillian on Life, a wonderful novel, one that I urge you to read.  It is a funny, wise, honest, and moving exploration of one woman’s life, her loves and losses, and her thoughts on everything from sex, to English as a foreign language – indeed, the whole novel is constructed out of short reflections, On Getting To Sex, On English As A Foreign Language, etc.

Alison Jean Lester came to Singapore from Tokyo in 1999 as a trailing spouse, with two little children in tow. When she and her husband separated two years later, and then divorced, neither of them wanted to leave.  Alison says: “Singapore proved to be a very good place for us. We could pursue our working goals and raise our children in a supportive environment without many of the stresses we would have experienced in other major cities. There were certainly times when I would have liked to leave, but it made the best sense to stay, and I was rewarded by meeting my second husband here.”

So: questions and answers with Alison Jean Lester