I’ve confessed to a penchant for time travel before – and also for Connie Willis’s smart time travel books. I raved about her book Blackout previously, a great and well researched story about London during the Blitz and time travellers getting stuck in the middle of it all. In Blackout Willis really captured the atmosphere on London in late 1940 and now she’s trumped herself in the follow up to Blackout, All Clear in which she carries on the story of the Blitz but also weaves in D-Day and VE Day too! Again, the observations, detail and atmosphere are all great. I’m now a confirmed fan of Willis and she certainly made my Christmas week reading gripping. Blurb and cover below as usual and a recommendation for those who like time travel stuff.
In Blackout, award-winning author Connie Willis returned to the time-traveling future of 2060—the setting for several of her most celebrated works—and sent three Oxford historians to World War II England: Michael Davies, intent on observing heroism during the Miracle of Dunkirk; Merope Ward, studying children evacuated from London; and Polly Churchill, posing as a shopgirl in the middle of the Blitz. But when the three become unexpectedly trapped in 1940, they struggle not only to find their way home but to survive as Hitler’s bombers attempt to pummel London into submission.
Now the situation has grown even more dire. Small discrepancies in the historical record seem to indicate that one or all of them have somehow affected the past, changing the outcome of the war. The belief that the past can be observed but never altered has always been a core belief of time-travel theory—but suddenly it seems that the theory is horribly, tragically wrong.
Meanwhile, in 2060 Oxford, the historians’ supervisor, Mr. Dunworthy, and seventeen-year-old Colin Templer, who nurses a powerful crush on Polly, are engaged in a frantic and seemingly impossible struggle of their own—to find three missing needles in the haystack of history.
Told with compassion, humor, and an artistry both uplifting and devastating, All Clear is more than just the triumphant culmination of the adventure that began with Blackout. It’s Connie Willis’s most humane, heartfelt novel yet—a clear-eyed celebration of faith, love, and the quiet, ordinary acts of heroism and sacrifice too often overlooked by history.
NB:
Watch out this February for Matthew Flaming’s The Kingdom of Ohio – which blends turn of the century New York, some fictional American history, Edison, JP Morgan and Tesla as well as a bit of time travel.
Who’d be the person in charge of deciding memorials in London! not me. Some think the National Firefighters Memorial in London should be a more general memorial to the Blitz, all those like wardens etc involved in the civilian war effort and those ordinary Londoners who perished in the attacks. But then the firemen are special and need their own statue while the Blitz affected numerous British cities and ports, not just London. Problems, problems…
Anyway in this Blitz anniversary year the National Firefighters Memorial, symbolically close to St Paul’s Cathedral and depicting firemen fighting the blazes around Wren’s masterpiece during the Blitz (though commemorates the bravery of fireman across the nation and not just London, nor just during the Blitz) has been a bit of a symbolic location this year for those interested in those horrible events in late 1940 and beyond.
Personally I like it. It redolent of some of the great Blitz photos of firemen in action and the image of St Paul’s standing tall and surrounded by fire during the Blitz was a potent piece of propaganda – ‘London Can Take It’. It’s proximity to the cathedral and also to the new Jubilee Walkway over the Thames ensures plenty of visitors who stop and take time to investigate or consider the memorial.
The monument with St Paul’s behind
Fighting the real Blitz
The Cathedral stands amid the attacks – the picture that’s guaranteed to bring a tear to any true Londoners eye!
Michael Wolf’s excellent collection of stunning photographs of Hong Kong’s iconic corner buildings is available as a book but also an exhibition, at least until the 16th at Hong Kong’s Upper Station Photo Gallery. The photos are superb and well worth seeing on the walls if you can get along there.
– Illuminates the early Portuguese maritime exploration along China’s south coast, political and economic development in Macau, and current social problems.
- Makes significant contributions to a political sociology of Macau, emphasizing how different civilizations and cultures interacted with one another.
– Explores how Macau can construct a new multicultural identity, and a cosmopolitan political and economic identity.
Zhidong Hao is professor of sociology at the University of Macau. He is the author and editor of several books including Civil Society in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan (edited in Chinese), and Whither Taiwan and Mainland China: National Identity, the State, and Intellectuals.
The Shanghai Question? In order to have a modern city with a functioning public transport system and road network is it necessary to destroy everything worth preserving and all that gives a city its unique historic traditions and flavour?
The answer in Shanghai, and to an even greater extent in Beijing is ‘yes’. This was also the case until the last moment in Singapore, and is currently the answer in Kuala Lumpur. The juries out right now in Hong Kong as things look a little better, but much has been trashed in the name of development and property developers. What about Bangalore – how is that Indian city answering the Shanghai Question?
Everywhere from the Cathay Pacific Marco Polo Club magazine to Conde Nast Traveller I’ve been reading about the heritage efforts in Bangalore (or Bengaluru if you prefer). All seemed very encouraging, a bit high end perhaps but better than everything destined for the wrecker’s ball a la Shanghai. However, now all the good work that has been done along the city’s wonderfully named Hatworks Boulevard and in restoring many colonial era buildings may be about to be undone.
It should be noted that heritage and preservation in Bangalore has hardly been a smooth ride -redevelopment has seen the loss of the Cenotaph at Hudson Circle, the walls of the Bengaluru Fort, the Dharmambudi Tank, the Cash Pharmacy, the Elgin Flour Mills, the Opera theatre and the Plaza theatre. The main culprit appears to be infrastructure which never seems to be able to go around, over or under but always through (oh how we know that one in Shanghai too – less Jewish ghetto, more road widening!).
The Deccan Chronicle recently reported that it is the development of the city’s Metro Rail that is destroying all before it – the MG Road boulevard and now threatening the historical armoury of Tipu Sultan near Kalasipalya, the avenue in front of Vidhana Soudha, the Telegraph Office at Minsk Square and thousands of heritage trees (as ever, see posts on Hong Kong and Shanghai – the trees get it in the neck pretty swiftly from the developers who only like greenery and trees in their pre-sales brochures it seems).
Now I don’t doubt Bangalore needs better public transport – but do all the trees and all the heritage sites have to be smashed up to get one? It’s the Shanghai Question and, guess what, the property developers and grasping politicians say bulldoze while many people say don’t – heard that before? It’s hard not to agree with Kalpan Haridas, a professor of history at Mount Carmel College: “Bengaluru’s historical map is being wiped out by insensitive additions, alterations and encroachments. If this continues, its identity itself will be lost over time,†he warns.
The beautiful and well preserved Bangalore Library
I’ll do a bit of shameless self-promotion and link to a review in That’s Shanghai of my Old Shanghai A-Z book – I’m obviously a bit chuffed with this because it notes the design appeal of the book, which is what the project was largely about for me – creating something nice to own and leave on the coffee table as well as being a useful reference book. Nice one…
Travelling before Christmas I was grabbing airplane reads on the run. First I picked up a book, Philip Sington’sThe Einstein Girl. To be honest it’s a little slow and I was hoping for more detail and atmosphere as it’s set in 1930s Germany. Anyway, I liked the cover:
Then I wandered into a bookstore and picked up Elizabeth Wilson’s War Damage – better and set in post-war London and austerity Britain. Imagine my surprise though when the Einstein Girl suddenly pops up again on the cover of War Damage having moved, presumably, from pre-war Berlin to post-war Britain. Busy lady!
PS: the image of the girl on the cover of both books is by the fantastic American photographer Toni Frissell. the original is indeed a shot from London as witnessed by the copper in the background at a British railway station.
Evening Presentation by PAUL FRENCH ,
Founder & Chief China Representative, Asia Access
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Hong Kong Club, 1 Jackson Road, Central
Cocktail reception at 6.30 p.m., Presentation at 7.00 p.m., Close at 8.00 p.m.
$150 Asia Society members/Full-time students;
$200 Non-members (Priority to members)
A potentially disastrous side effect of China’s booming economy – along with pollution and a growing urban-rural income gap – is the effect that obesity will have on the country’s fragile healthcare system. Approximately 100 to 120 million people in China are obese, and around half of them are children. According to the Ministry of Education, almost 16% of urban children and young adults are considered clinically obese. This number is increasing at an astonishing rate of 8% a year, and in some of China’s major cities the rate of increase is as high as 20%.
What are the causes of this increased obesity? What can be done to alleviate the impact of this trend on the healthcare system? What are the consequences for China if this trend is not reversed? Paul French is based in Shanghai and the founder and Chief China Representative of Access Asia. Established 14 years ago, Asia Access specializes in providing information on China’s retail, distribution, and consumer goods markets. He is currently involved in working with retailers and brands on their expansion strategies in China. Mr. French is the author of a number of books on China’s history and current development including Through the Looking Glass: China’s Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao and Oil on Water: Tankers, Pirates and the Rise of China (co-authored with Sam Chambers).
RESERVATIONS: All reservations must be made in writing. ASHK cannot guarantee a seat without advance payment.
Checks should be made payable to The Asia Society Hong Kong Center Limited and mailed to Programs Department,
13/F, Baskerville House, 13 Duddell Street, Central. Credit card payments may be faxed to 2524 1099.
CONFIRMATIONS: Please consider your registration confirmed unless notified otherwise. No tickets will be issued.
Your name will be held on a list at the door, and your name badge may be collected on the day of the program.
CANCELLATIONS: Please note that no-shows will be charged. Any cancellation must be made in writing. Individual
cancellations will not be accepted less than two working days before the program.
Hong Kong Club, 1 Jackson Road, Central (Please note: No sneakers, denim or sportswear)
Cocktail reception at 6.30 p.m., Presentation at 7.00 p.m., Close at 8.00 p.m.
