Camphor Press – Publishing Taiwan and China

Mentioning Taiwan and the preservation battle currently underway in Keelng at the moment yesterday I thought another Taiwan post called for. Anyone who reads widely (or even not that widely) on China knows that Taiwan is greatly under-served in terms of books, studies, histories and memoirs in English. I’ve always been shocked at how many “China Hands” have rarely, if ever, set foot on the island or anywhere in the Republic. The tsunami wave of books on mainland China (of which I openly admit to having contributed far more than my share) has left Taiwan marginalised, and this is not a good thing. For me Taipei is a wonderful and engaging city with a fascinating history and a place I long to return to as soon as I leave. I know the rest of the island far less well, but have never found anywhere I didn’t like. The PRC uber-boosters may scoff but Taiwan is a model for the mainland and the sooner the mainland looks and feels like Taiwan the better I say.

Hence a plug for the newly launched Camphor Press, of which I know little except that they are rolling out a great series of books on Taiwan (and mainland China). Among their initial offering are, what looks to be, a fascinating book The Flight of the Lapwing: A Naval Officers Jottings in China, Formosa and Japan by Henry Shore, a Royal Navy officer attached to the old “China Station” and a welcome reprint of Somerset Maugham’s irreverent and ever re-readable On a Chinese Screen describing the great man’s roamings through China in 1919.

there’s more – check out their website and the best of luck to them…