45 Highlights from 2019

This year’s subjective list of books we thought worthy of particular mention over the past 12 months. Fiction (in translation and not), poetry, short stories, essays, history, biography, literature, culture, politics, society, journalism, children’s books covering Asia from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, from Siberia to India.

The year refers to the date of review, not of publication. Click on the title or book cover for the review.

History

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• Silk Roads: Peoples, Cultures, Landscapes, edited by Susan Whitfield
• The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple
• Early Indians: The Story Of Our Ancestors And Where We Came From by Tony Joseph
• Maoism: A Global History by Julia Lovell
• The Storm on Our Shores: One Island, Two Soldiers, and the Forgotten Battle of World War II by Mark Obmascik
• Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad by Gordon H Chang

Society and culture

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• China’s Hong Kong: The Politics of a Global City by Tim Summers
• Redefining a Philosophy for World Governance by Zhao Tingyang
• Thailand’s Movie Theatres: Relics, Ruins and the Romance of Escape by Philip Jablon
• Chinese Movie Magazines: From Charlie Chan to Chairman Mao, 1921-1951 by Paul Fonoroff
• The Shanghai Free Taxi: Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China by Frank Langfitt
• Our Women On The Ground: Essays By Arab Women Reporting From the Arab World, edited by Zahra Hankir
• Bandit Saints of Java: How Java’s eccentric saints are challenging fundamentalist Islam in modern Indonesia by George Quinn
• Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000-Mile Adventure by Monisha Rajesh
• Portraits of Trees of Hong Kong and Southern China by Chun Chiu Pang and Richard Sanders, illustrated by Sally Bunker

Biography

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• Wanderlust: The Amazing Ida Pfeiffer, the First Female Tourist by John van Wyhe
• The Chinese Lady: Afong Moy in Early America by Nancy E Davis
• Not a Hazardous Sport: Misadventures of an Anthropologist in Indonesia by Nigel Barley
• Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells by Pico Iyer
• An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin’s Master Agent by Owen Matthews
• The Banished Immortal: A Life of Li Bai by Ha Jin
• Sōseki: Modern Japan’s Greatest Novelist by John Nathan

Novels in translation

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• Fu Ping: A Novel by Wang Anyi
• Broken Wings by Jia Pingwa
• My Enemy’s Cherry Tree by Wang Ting-Kuo
• The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
• The Ten Loves of Mr Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami
• A Shameful Life: (Ningen Shikkaku) by Osamu Dazai
• The Dead Wander in the Desert by Rollan Seisenbayev
• A Gujarat Here, A Gujarat There by Krishna Sobti
• Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri

Novels in English

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• Delayed Rays of a Star by Amanda Lee Koe
• Plastic Emotions by Shiromi Pinto
• We, The Survivors by Tash Aw
• Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
• Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad

Short stories

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• Interpreter of Winds by Fairoz Ahmad
• Kitchen Curse, stories by Eka Kurniawan
• The Book of Tehran: A City in Short Fiction, edited by Fereshteh Ahmadi
• Flowers of Mold by Ha Seong-nan
• Hong Kong Noir, edited by Jason Y Ng and Susan Blumberg-Kason

Poetry

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• Paper-Thin Skin, poetry by Aigerim Tazhi
• Gilgamesh: The Life of a Poem by Michael Schmidt
• How to Read a Japanese Poem by Steven D Carter

Children’s books

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• Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini