Our newest book, Hong Kong Noir: Fifteen true tales from the dark side of the city, has been on the South China Morning Post’s top five bestseller list since Christmas. Author Feng Chi-shun has been interviewed by RTHK Radio 3 and HK Magazine, and the book has been reviewed by Susan Blumberg-Kason, the SCMP and Asia Times, which said: Who [...]
We've just spent three days cooking, shooting and eating over 70 dishes from Yunnan province, the most diverse in China for both food and people. Linda has brought some hard-to-find ingredients from the province; we've been to various shops and markets in Wan Chai; and Linda has cooked up the dishes with Annabel in her Hong Kong kitchen. See a [...]
From Peter Wood, husband of author Pam Shookman: At the beginning of September 2009 Pam was diagnosed with Stage 4 bladder cancer. That afternoon we stumbled out of the urologist’s office into the unreal bustle of Central and headed straight for the Joel Robuchon café. There was only one possible response to cancer, Pam announced: cakes from the café and [...]
Here's some Chinese New Year greeting advice from our new book Hong Kong Unveiled: Bye neen, 拜年, praise the year; shake your fist enclosed in your other hand (it doesn’t matter which hand is on the outside) as a greeting while saying something auspicious to family members and all you meet during Chinese New Year. Auspicious sayings: Guung hay fart [...]
From Murray Gunn, author of Dragon Bones: Two Years Beneath the Skin of a Himalayan Kingdom: I tried very hard to allow the Bhutanese people in Dragon Bones to tell their own stories and to minimise the bias created by my beliefs, my mood and other aspects of my life. I knew it was an impossible task before I began [...]
The Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong is holding a wall exhibition of Ira Chaplain's photos from Kowloon: Unknown Territory. "In my 19 years spent in various parts of Hong Kong, I have never lived in Kowloon. Before I took this assignment, like so many in this city, my life existed largely on Hong Kong side. I never knew the [...]
As we count down the final four weeks to Christmas, come and get your Hong Kong gift books signed at Bookazine. We’ve brought together 14 Blacksmith authors who have all written about Hong Kong. Come and meet them over a festive glass of wine, and get your books signed by: Jonathan Chamberlain, author of King Hui: The Man Who Owned [...]
What do "deep water pier", "nine dragons city" and "mandarin's lake" have in common with "Wong Tai Sin", the name of a Taoist deity? They're all districts in Kowloon. This new book is an exploration of what is often seen as Hong Kong's shadow-side, from the viewpoints of community, consumerism, art, food, fashion and sex – 15 years after the [...]
Asians have a powerful sense of humour with a long history, a study says. But the region lost its ability to laugh 60 years ago and is only now regaining it. Self-deprecating humour, associated with Jewish and British comedy, existed in Asia for more than 1,000 years. In ancient China, aristocrats kept comedians in their homes, and in India, taxpayers [...]
Sorry for our recent silence on the blog -- we're working on getting 12 books out by the end of November, our busiest season ever. Half of these are reprints, and that's good news for publishers! Look out for updates on the new books in the next few weeks.
The issue of mainland Chinese mothers coming to Hong Kong to give birth is much in the news lately, with some people hoping new chief executive Leung Chun-ying will take steps to limit the number of beds available to mainland mothers. I thought it was a good time to excerpt this story from Yeeshan Yang’s book Whispers and Moans — [...]
Robert Wang spoke about Hong Kong's tycoons on RTHK Radio 3's "Money for Nothing" programme. The show's name is a nice reflection of something top tycoon Li Ka-shing once said to the author: "Robert, there is so much money lying on the ground, I don't have the time to bend down and pick it all up." Photo courtesy of RTHK. [...]
Robert Wang's Walking the Tycoons' Rope got off to a great start -- No. 1 on the South China Morning Post's best-sellers list on its first week of release. Well done Robert, and we hope it stays there!
Goodreads is hosting a readers' Q&A with Hong Kong best-selling author Jonathan Chamberlain. message 1: by A.F. Please welcome Jonathan Chamberlain to our Q and A discussions. He is a writer who has been hijacked by life. When his daughter, Stevie, exploded into his life with all the problems she had to cope with, he ended up founding two charities [...]
Author Robert Wang spoke about his new book on Radio 3 yesterday, and you can now listen to the interview online. Hear how he fled from civil-war Shanghai in 1949 and took a perilous journey to Hong Kong, jumping from the train when it came under attack. Robert's memoir of his incredible life, Walking The Tycoons' Rope, is Dymocks' book [...]
Come and hear from longtime Lantau resident Cecilie Gamst Berg as she ploughs through the non-stop surreal-fest that is today’s China, stopping occasionally to ruminate about the travails of trying to make Cantonese a world language, and how the Chinese have invented a new English: Manglish. You’ll find answers to everything you wanted to know about China, such as: What [...]
Since the start of this year, our books have been available in Singapore (and Malaysia) through Select Books, a company which specialises in books from all parts of Asia. (It's my dream to one day open a similar bookshop in Hong Kong). The timing is good, as several of our recent and upcoming titles have Singapore connections. Select Books' store [...]
Blacksmith publisher Pete Spurrier was among four writers who shared their insights with Hong Kong members of the Asian American Journalists Association on the evening of April 3. Pete has written guidebooks to Hong Kong, while the other authors -- Cameron Dueck, Michelle Yu and Blossom Kan -- have written travelogues and novels, so there were different perspectives and a [...]