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Asian Review of Books

New Books Network

The Asian Review of Books is the only dedicated pan-Asian book review publication. Widely quoted, referenced, republished by leading publications in Asian and beyond and with an archive of more than two thousand book reviews, the ARB also features long-format essays by leading Asian writers and thinkers, excerpts from newly-published books and reviews of arts and culture. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review

arts books

All Episodes

43:35

Jonathan Chatwin, "Long Peace Street: A Walk in...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/04/15

Changan Jie, or Long Peace Street, stretches across central Beijing. Along it are several critical historical sites, including Zhongnanhai, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City: all important to Beijing’s history as the center of Imperial, Republican and then Communist China. Jonathan Chatwin, in his book Long Peace Street: A Walk in Modern China (Manchester University Press, 2019), recently published in paperback, uses the road as a way to present the modern history of Beijing and China

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45:17

Timon Screech, "Tokyo Before Tokyo: Power and Magic...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/04/08

In 1800, the Shogun’s chief minister wrote the following about the city of Edo: "Someone said that if Edo did not have frequent fires, then people would be more showy and flash. In the capital or in Osaka they do everything with lavish elegance: people hang up paintings in their homes or put out arrangements of flowers. But in Edo, even in the affluent areas, everything is restrained. People only display a single flower [in a bamboo tube or a simple pot]. The wealthy have fine chess sets, but the

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42:52

Eugenia Cheng, "x + y: A Mathematician's Manifesto...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/04/01

From its more mainstream, business-focused and business-friendly “Lean In” variants, to more radical, critical and intersectional understandings of feminism, the past decade has seen a flourishing of discussion from those proposing and critiquing different schools of thought for the way we think about gender in society. Dr. Eugenia Cheng’s addition to this conversation is x+y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender (Basic Books, 2020). She applies insights gained from her mathematical

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40:29

Janet M. Hartley, "The Volga: A History" (Yale UP, 2021)

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/03/25

"The Volga! There is a mystery, a charm in all mighty rivers, which has ever made us gaze upon them with an interest beyond that inspired by other great and glorious sights; but to look on the largest of the European rivers gave a thrill of joy surpassing all former pleasure of the kind." This quote by Robery Bremner in 1830 opens Professor Janet M. Hartley’s latest history, The Volga: A History (Yale University Press, 2021). The book uses the Volga to frame the history of Russia: from its

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34:02

Te-Ping Chen, "Land of Big Numbers: Stories" (Mariner...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/03/18

An old farmer, trying to build a plane in his village. A young man that gambles everything on the roaring stock market. A community transformed by a magical fruit that evokes vivid memories. A Chinese woman unable to understand her American partner. People stuck in a train station, waiting for a train that never comes. These stories, among others, make up Land of Big Numbers (Mariner Books: 2021), the debut story collection by Te-Ping Chen. Chen’s fiction spans a wide array of styles and narratives,

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34:30

Wu Cheng'en, "Monkey King: Journey to the West,"...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/03/11

Journey to the West, and especially the character of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, is beloved by readers across China, East Asia, and beyond. The story and its characters have been written and rewritten in books, comics, graphic novels, movies, television shows, and video games. In many ways, Journey to the West and Son Wukong have become archetypes: stories and characters that people refer to and recognise, without ever looking at the original source material. But for those interested in reading the

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49:39

Priya Basil, "Be My Guest: Reflections on Food,...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/03/04

The French philosopher Jacques Derrida once described his idea of absolute hospitality as follows: Absolute hospitality requires that I open up my home and that I give not only the foreigner, but to the absolute, unknown, anonymous other, and that I give place to them, that I let them come, that I let them arrive, and take place in the place I offer them, without asking of them either reciprocity (entering in a pact) or even their names. Be My Guest: Reflections on Food, Community, and the Meaning

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43:27

Debashree Mukherjee, "Bombay Hustle: Making Movies in...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/02/25

In 1935, the writer Baburao Patel writes the following about Bombay’s film industry: “In India, with financing conditions still precarious, the professional film distributor thrives. . . . He comes with a fortune made in share and cotton gambling, advances money to the producer at a killing rate of interest plus a big slice of royalty and recovers his investment by blackmailing the exhibitors into giving heavy and uneconomic minimum guarantees. His only aim in life is to multiply his rupee and in

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45:24

Dexter Roberts, "The Myth of Chinese Capitalism: The...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/02/18

Around the Chinese New Year period, millions of Chinese migrant workers return home from jobs in China’s major cities to their rural villages to visit their families. China’s urban centers and factory towns rely on migrant workers from provinces like Guizhou: places that are still relatively underdeveloped, despite the massive growth seen on China’s coasts. The fact that, this year, many migrants likely can’t return home due to the COVID-19 pandemic is a reminder of the instability that defines much

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38:49

Oliver Craske, "Indian Sun: The Life and Music of...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/02/11

At 10:20pm on August 15th, 1969, Ravi Shankar — then, and still, the most famous practitioner of the sitar and Indian classical music — takes the stage at Woodstock. It’s arguably the zenith of Indian music’s popularity in the West, with musicians like the Beatles, the Byrds and Led Zeppelin embracing elements of Indian music. But this was merely the middle-point of Shankar’s artistic development, nor was it a personal highlight in a long and storied career. For many musicians in several different

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36:07

Ethan Lou, "Field Notes from a Pandemic: A Journey...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/02/04

We are just over a year from when global news first reported a new type of pneumonia emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan. A lockdown of Wuhan on January 23rd, 2020, was the first indication that these stories were more serious than originally thought. All of us know what happened next: COVID-19 spread from China to other countries in Asia, then to Europe, then to North America, then worldwide. To slow the spread, countries frantically imposed travel restrictions on those coming from places

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34:40

Ed Caesar, "The Moth and the Mountain: A True Story...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/01/28

In 1933, Maurice Wilson — First World War hero, drifting veteran, and amateur aviator, lands in the aerodrome at Purnea in British India. His goal is to be the first man to climb Mt. Everest. And nothing — not his complete lack of climbing experience, the lack of official permission, and the efforts of British civil servants — will stop him. Ed Caesar’s The Moth and the Mountain: A True Story of Love, War, and Everest (Avid Reader/Simon & Schuster, 2020) tells Wilson’s tale, tracing his story from

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45:05

Chloe Gong, "These Violent Delights" (Margaret K....

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/01/21

“These violent delights have violent ends. And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which as they kiss, consume.” These Violent Delights (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2020) is the debut novel by Chloe Gong. At first glance, the book seems like Romeo and Juliet transplanted to 1920s Shanghai: two rival families, and two main characters: Juliette Cai and Roma Montagov. But Chloe Gong takes the tropes of Romeo and Juliet and transforms them in ways beyond the new setting: Juliette and Roma have

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41:13

David Chaffetz, "Three Asian Divas: Women, Art and...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/01/14

The “diva” is a common trope when we talk about culture. We normally think of the diva as a Western construction: the opera singer, the Broadway actress, the movie star. A woman of outstanding talent, whose personality and ability are both larger-than-life. But the truth is throughout history, many cultures have featured spaces for strong female artists, whose talent allows them to break free of the gender roles that pervaded their societies. In Three Asian Divas: Women, Art and Culture in Shiraz,

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41:58

Devadas Krishnadas, "Confronting Covid-19: A...

Asian Review of Books ·

2021/01/07

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every country around the world in a manner not seen since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, and is perhaps one of the most transformative events in decades. Most countries and governments have played catch-up to the pandemic, trying to get a handle on case numbers after an explosive increase. But a few places: Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam and China appear to have kept the virus largely under control. Confronting

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41:43

Sophia Chang, "The Baddest Bitch in the Room"...

Asian Review of Books ·

2020/12/31

Enter the Wu-Tang. Return to the 36 Chambers. People listening to these albums by the Wu-Tang Clan and its members likely never knew about Sophia Chang: a Korean-Canadian woman who worked with members like RZA, ODB and Method Man. Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest called Sophia Chang “an integral part of the golden era of hip-hop.” The Baddest Bitch in the Room (Catapult, 2020) charts Sophia Chang’s life, from her childhood in Vancouver, through time in New York’s hip-hop scene and travels between the

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38:24

Jonathan C. Slaght, "Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest...

Asian Review of Books ·

2020/12/24

The Blakiston’s fish owl is the world’s largest living species of owl, with larger females of the species weighing as much as ten pounds. It lives in the Russian Far East and Northern Japan. It is also endangered: global populations are estimated to be around 1500 owls in total. The story of one conservationist’s efforts to save these owls is told in Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 2020), the first book by Jonathan Slaght. The

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30:58

Susie Yang, "White Ivy" (Simon & Schuster, 2020)

Asian Review of Books ·

2020/12/17

"Ivy Lin was a thief but you would never know it to look at her” White Ivy (Simon & Schuster: 2020), the debut novel by Susie Yang, is the story of Ivy Lin, a Chinese-American teenager growing up just outside of Boston, where she struggles to achieve the trappings of suburban teenagerhood. Years later, as a 27-year-old teacher haunted by confused feelings about her upbringing, she comes across characters from her past, which spurs a desire — perhaps an obsessive one — to remake her life. “White Ivy”

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35:31

Sunisa Manning, "A Good True Thai" (Epigram Books, 2020)

Asian Review of Books ·

2020/12/10

Det, Chang and Lek are young university students living in Thailand during the 1970s. It is a turbulent time for the country’s politics: student-led protests in 1973 succeeded in (briefly) overthrowing the country’s military dictatorship. Det, Chang and Lek — three students from very different backgrounds — navigate the country’s changing politics from the streets of Bangkok to the jungles of northern Thailand. This is the premise behind A Good True Thai (Epigram Books: 2020), the debut novel by

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37:13

Diana Darke, "Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic...

Asian Review of Books ·

2020/12/03

Visitors around the world have travelled to Europe to see the tall spires and stained glass windows of the continent’s Gothic cathedrals: in Cologne, Chartres, Milan, Florence, York and Paris. The trappings of Gothic architecture have become shorthand for “medieval Europe”. Yet in Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe (Hurst: 2020), Diana Darke investigates the Islamic origins of Gothic architecture, tracing its history through pre-Islamic Syria through the Islamic

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266 results

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