Just quickly...

You my be interested in my latest blog for the Telegraph, it's about Chinese New Year this week.  Click here to read it. 

Book of the Lunar Year: The Boy with a Bamboo Heart

All the votes are now counted, and the winner of the Asian Books Blog Book of the Lunar Year in the Year of the Ram / Goat, now drawing to a close, is The Boy with a Bamboo Heart, by Dr. Amporn Wathanavongs with Chantal Jauvin, published by Maverick House (Ireland). Click here to see the blog’s coverage of the book, last October.

Just quickly...

You may be interested in my review of Tales of Two Cities in Asian Review of Books. 

Tales of Two Cities is an anthology of stories from Hong Kong and Singapore. It's in the running for the blog's Book of the Lunar Year Award. Voting closes tomorrow at 9 a.m., so if you haven't done so yet, and you want to support one of the books on the shortlist, get cracking!! See here for details of the shortlist, and of how to vote.

Just quickly...

You may be interested in two pieces I have out today:

Who Was Olivia Cassivelaun Fancourt and What's Her Connection with Singapore? / The Singapore Finder

Expat problems: household help / The UK Telegraph (A jokey post for my regular Telegraph blog)

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:

Imperial Cities as Cultural Nodes: A View from Early Twentieth-Century Tokyo by Jordan Sand
Weekend reading: links to essays about poetry, prizes, authors 
Migration and Identity in Central Asia: The Uzbek Experience by Rano Turaeva reviewed by Joshua Bird
Dragons in Diamond Village by David Bandurski reviewed by Bill Purves
The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World by Ho-fung Hung reviewed by Salvatore Babones
Russia and the Changing World Order by Francis P Sempa
Half of What I Say by Anil Menon reviewed by Jane Wallace
Recruit to Revolution: Adventure and Politics during the Indonesian Struggle for Independence by John Coast, edited by Laura Noszlopy reviewed by Tim Hannigan

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…