15 September 2015

Goodreads

2015-09-15T20:51:24+08:00September 15th, 2015|publishing|0 Comments

We've just joined Goodreads, the networking website for people with a serious book reading problem. Join up with us if you're also there. https://www.goodreads.com/blacksmith_books

30 August 2015

August news

2020-06-24T18:21:09+08:00August 30th, 2015|publishing|0 Comments

If you missed out on our summer email newsletter, you can read it here below... Share If you cannot view this email,please Click Here to view an online version. Unsubscribe/Update Profile | Share With Friends | Subscribe Blacksmith Books, Hong Kong Newsletter August 2015 New biography: Shanghai's Baghdadi Jews Shanghai’s Baghdadi Jews: A Collection of Biographical ReflectionsA compilation of 26 [...]

25 August 2015

And now a word from our intern…

2016-11-24T01:14:01+08:00August 25th, 2015|hong kong, publishing|2 Comments

This internship began with a long email to an unknown (to me) English publisher in Hong Kong (whom I found by googling “English publisher Hong Kong”), and a desperate hope that said unknown publisher would respond and give me some work experience in the summer. But as the days wore on, and the weeks, which then turned into two months, [...]

20 July 2015

Shanghai’s Baghdadi Jews: An interview with the author

2016-11-24T01:14:02+08:00July 20th, 2015|authors, china, new books|0 Comments

"This book is a record of descendants of Baghdadi Jewish merchants who settled in the Treaty Port of Shanghai in the mid-19th century," says Maisie Meyer. "They are authentic voices, allowing us a glimpse of bygone days of privilege, and the rich diversity that made the community so vibrant. It offers infinite perspectives of personalities whose lives were shaped by [...]

12 June 2015

Review: No City for Slow Men

2016-11-24T01:14:02+08:00June 12th, 2015|hong kong|0 Comments

Hong Kong is a complex city, and one that is full of contradictions. Nowhere else can a person stay for years, decades even, and still not fully understand the place. Which other city can be ranked ‘the world’s freest economy’ for 21 years in a row and yet still leave its’ residents feeling like the prisoners of greedy businessmen? Jason [...]

12 June 2015

Review: Street Life Hong Kong

2016-11-24T01:14:02+08:00June 12th, 2015|hong kong, new books|3 Comments

Scaffolders. Tram drivers. Recyclers. Sign holders. Hawkers. Shoe shiners. We see these workers every day in Hong Kong, and yet hardly ever realize it. They are mostly invisible — labourers who we are so used to seeing out on the streets that our minds often blur them out when we walk past them. Yet these workers often toil the hardest [...]

10 May 2015

Paper Tigress is reprinted

2016-11-24T01:14:03+08:00May 10th, 2015|authors, hong kong, publishing|2 Comments

We're pleased to announce that Paper Tigress, Rachel Cartland's memoir of her years in the Hong Kong government, sold out. And it's now reprinted and is back in the shops. To mark the occasion, we print below the text of a speech Rachel gave to a Hong Kong business group late last year. A Difficult Passage I was a Hong [...]

18 February 2015

Shannon Young on the radio

2015-07-12T05:10:35+08:00February 18th, 2015|authors, hong kong, media attention, new books|0 Comments

Our author Shannon Young has been interviewed on RTHK Radio 3 twice this month. Click the links below to listen online! 1. Shannon Young is a young American writer currently living in Hong Kong who writes under two names. Her travel memoir about the year she followed a man she met at a fencing club to Hong Kong, only for [...]

29 January 2015

Remembering the mighty Bruce Lee

2016-11-24T01:14:03+08:00January 29th, 2015|authors, book excerpt, hong kong, new books|1 Comment

Even four decades after the passing of Asian martial-arts superstar Bruce Lee, his achievements still attract adoration from millions of movie fans. The biggest fan of all may be Jon Benn, who befriended the high-kicking hero while playing “the Big Boss”, a villain in Lee’s acclaimed 1972 movie The Way of the Dragon. In Remembering Bruce Lee, a tell-tale autobiography, [...]

12 January 2015

Think of chopsticks as friends

2016-11-24T01:14:04+08:00January 12th, 2015|book excerpt, hong kong, new books|0 Comments

Fred Schneiter moved to Hong Kong in the 1960s and wasted no time in getting to know the food. Here’s a story and a recipe for Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce from his new book, The Taste of Old Hong Kong. If unaccustomed to chopsticks you’ll find the going easier—in initial encounters—simply by maintaining an affirmative attitude. Dismiss any thought [...]

1 January 2015

The Yunnan Cookbook: Dai Grilled Fish with Lemongrass

2015-07-12T13:16:49+08:00January 1st, 2015|book excerpt, china, new books|0 Comments

Dai grilled fish scented with lemongrass and fresh herbs is one of the great fish dishes of China's Yunnan province, alongside the Bai fish stew made with carp from Dali’s commanding Erhai Lake. The fish from Yunnan’s majestic lakes are generally highly prized. It is a land-locked province, and so it is unusual to find seafood and salt-water fish, but [...]

26 December 2014

Year of Fire Dragons on Radio 3

2016-11-24T01:14:04+08:00December 26th, 2014|authors, hong kong, media attention, new books|0 Comments

Author Shannon Young visited the studios of RTHK Radio 3 to tell Noreen Mir about the making of her latest book, Year of Fire Dragons. Her new memoir is a wide-eyed newcomer’s account of Hong Kong wrapped up in an international long distance love story. Click here to listen online to the 10-minute interview. When she's not writing books, Shannon [...]

21 December 2014

The Taste of Old Hong Kong: Suki’s clams

2016-11-24T01:14:04+08:00December 21st, 2014|book excerpt, hong kong, new books|0 Comments

Fred Schneiter moved to Hong Kong in the 1960s and wasted no time in getting to know the food. Here's a recipe (and a reminiscence) from the old Causeway Bay typhoon shelter. It appears in his new book, The Taste of Old Hong Kong. Living in one of the world’s major tourist destinations, the culinary epicenter of the China Seas [...]

17 November 2014

New Hong Kong memoir: Year of Fire Dragons

2015-07-13T01:23:26+08:00November 17th, 2014|authors, hong kong, new books|0 Comments

An American Woman’s Story of Coming of Age in Hong Kong n 2010, bookish 22-year-old Shannon follows her Eurasian boyfriend to Hong Kong, eager to forge a new love story in his hometown. But when work sends him to London a month later, Shannon embarks on a wide-eyed newcomer's journey through Hong Kong – alone. She teaches in a local [...]

17 September 2014

The Taste of Old Hong Kong

2016-11-24T01:14:04+08:00September 17th, 2014|authors, hong kong, new books|0 Comments

Look at the picture. That's our author Fred Schneiter and his children, on their arrival in Hong Kong at Chinese New Year in 1964. Fred has written a combination of cookbook and memoir that includes 70 of the best recipes he collected over his three decades roaming the China coast, with a mix of adventurous and nostalgic stories thrown in. [...]

6 August 2014

Writing the city and finding one’s identity

2017-10-05T21:39:40+08:00August 6th, 2014|authors, hong kong, media attention|0 Comments

Chitralekha Basu at the China Daily newspaper interviews our author Jason Y. Ng. Ng’s primary focus ... is evident from the pages of his last book  — No City for Slow Men: Hong Kong’s Quirks and Quandaries Laid Bare (Blacksmith Books) — published earlier this year. What quirks?  What quandaries? Well, for instance, he writes about losing one’s Hong Kong [...]