New Book Announcements

New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Everyday Modernism: Architecture and Society in Singapore” by Jiat-Hwee Chang and Justin Zhuang
19 December 202219 December 2022
Everyday Modernism is the first comprehensive documentation of Singapore’s modern built environment. Through a lens of social and architectural histories, the book uncovers the many untold stories of the Southeast Asian city-state’s modernization, from the rise of heroic skyscrapers to the spread of utilitarian typologies like the multi-storey car park. It investigates how modernism, through…
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New Young Readers Books
New Book Announcement: “No Quiet Water” by Shirley Miller Kamada
15 December 202214 December 2022
No Quiet Water follows 10-year-old Fumio and his family as they are forced to leave their home, farm, and their dog Flyer, while they are escorted into an internment camp. Within the harsh conditions of the camps, Fumio learns what it means to endure while discovering a new world of possibility and belonging. When waiting…
Read More New Book Announcement: “No Quiet Water” by Shirley Miller Kamada
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Have You Eaten Yet: Stories from Chinese Restaurants Around the World” by Cheuk Kwan
12 December 202212 December 2022
An eye-opening and soul-nourishing journey through Chinese food around the world. From Cape Town, South Africa, to small-town Saskatchewan, family-run Chinese restaurants are global icons of immigration, community and delicious food. The cultural outposts of far-flung settlers, bringers of dim sum, Peking duck and creative culinary hybrids, Chinese restaurants are a microcosm of greater social…
Read More New Book Announcement: “Have You Eaten Yet: Stories from Chinese Restaurants Around the World” by Cheuk Kwan
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Annoucement: “Material Contradictions in Mao’s China”, edited by Jennifer Altehenger and Denise Y Ho
8 December 2022
The growth of markets and consumerism in China’s post-Mao era of political and economic reform is a story familiar to many. By contrast, the Mao period (1949-1976)—rightly framed as a time of scarcity—initially appears to have had little material culture to speak of. Yet people attributed great meaning to materials and objects often precisely because…
Read More New Book Annoucement: “Material Contradictions in Mao’s China”, edited by Jennifer Altehenger and Denise Y Ho
New Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Wild Grass and Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk” by Lu Xun, translated by Eileen J Cheng
19 November 202219 November 2022
This captivating translation assembles two volumes by Lu Xun, the founder of modern Chinese literature and one of East Asia’s most important thinkers at the turn of the 20th century. Wild Grass and Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk represent a pinnacle of achievement alongside Lu Xun’s famed short stories.
Read More New Book Announcement: “Wild Grass and Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk” by Lu Xun, translated by Eileen J Cheng
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Ugandan Agency within China-Africa Relations: President Museveni and China’s Foreign Policy in East Africa” by Barney Walsh
13 November 202214 November 2022
In this book, Barney Walsh presents an in-depth study of China’s involvement in East Africa through specific focus on President Museveni of Uganda who has been uniquely influential in utilising China’s presence to shape regional security dynamics in his favour.
Read More New Book Announcement: “Ugandan Agency within China-Africa Relations: President Museveni and China’s Foreign Policy in East Africa” by Barney Walsh
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Calling for a New Renaissance” by Gao Xingjian
7 November 2022
Nobel laureate Gao Xingjian presents his primary concerns of the past decade or so. He indicts the lingering impact of ideology on contemporary literature and art, and for this reason calls for “a new Renaissance”, a result of which would be “boundary-crossing creations” such as the three cine-poems that he produced and describes in detail…
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New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Subcontinent Adrift: Strategic Futures of South Asia” by Feroz Hassan Khan
3 November 2022
This study identifies the latent and emergent drivers behind the mounting acrimony in South Asia—notably, India’s ambitions as a “rising power” coupled with the resurgence of China and Pakistan’s strategic anxiety as the United States unmoors itself from Afghanistan and embraces India. India is similarly concerned as China advances its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)…
Read More New Book Announcement: “Subcontinent Adrift: Strategic Futures of South Asia” by Feroz Hassan Khan
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Ships in the Desert” by Jeff Fearnside
26 October 202226 October 2022
Ships in the Desert is a collection of linked essays that seamlessly incorporates elements of memoir, travel writing, and literary journalism in a series of vivid vignettes that are both intimate and wide-ranging.
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New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Chinese Poetry as Soul Summoning: Shamanistic Religious Influences on Chinese Literary Tradition” by Nicholas Morrow Williams
20 October 202220 October 2022
This study examines the role of the soul (hun) and the soul-summoning ritual in Chinese literature from ancient times up to the twentieth century. With five case studies from different dynasties, spanning ancient Chu and the Han, Tang, Song, and Ming-Qing transition periods, Chinese Poetry as Soul Summoning shows Chinese poets were inspired by the…
Read More New Book Announcement: “Chinese Poetry as Soul Summoning: Shamanistic Religious Influences on Chinese Literary Tradition” by Nicholas Morrow Williams
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Memory Making in Folk Epics of China: The Intimate and the Local in Chinese Regional Culture” by Anne E McLaren
16 October 2022
In pre-contemporary China, folk epics performed at village level helped to construct a sense of regional as opposed to national identity. This is the first book-length study in the West on the folk epics of the Han Chinese people, who are the majority population of China. These folk epics provide an unparalleled resource for understanding…
Read More New Book Announcement: “Memory Making in Folk Epics of China: The Intimate and the Local in Chinese Regional Culture” by Anne E McLaren
New Poetry Books
New Book Announcement: “summonings” by Raena Shirali
18 September 20221 November 2022
Indebted to the docupoetics tradition, Raena Shirali’s summonings investigates the ongoing practice of witch (“daayan”) hunting in India.
Read More New Book Announcement: “summonings” by Raena Shirali
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Blind in Early Modern Japan: Disability, Medicine, and Identity” by Wei Yu Wayne Tan
16 September 202216 September 2022
While the loss of sight—whether in early modern Japan or now—may be understood as a disability, blind people in the Tokugawa period (1600–1868) could thrive because of disability. The blind of the era were prominent across a wide range of professions, and through a strong guild structure were able to exert contractual monopolies over certain…
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New Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Island of Bewilderment: A Novel of Modern Iran” by Simin Daneshvar
10 September 202211 September 2022
Twenty-six-year-old college graduate, artist, and employee of the Ministry of Art and Culture, Hasti Nourian aspires to be a “new woman”—independent-minded, strong-willed, and in control of her own destiny. A destiny that includes Morad, an idealistic young architect and artist with whom Hasti is deeply in love. Morad is a sharp critic of Iran’s Westernized…
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New Poetry Books
New Book Announcement: “Of the Florids” by Shawn Hoo
8 September 2022
Shawn Hoo’s debut poetry chapbook, Of the Florids, begins with an inability to speak of the natural world in the urban fortress of Singapore; a tropical island’s fading romanticism for a city boy.
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