All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
The new Chinese and British Exhibition is now on at the British Library (entrance free) till next April 2023. So a few posts on things that relate to previous posts of mine here…third Xu Zhimo…
Other posts include Chiang Yee, Dymia Hsiung, and Chinese cookery books in the UK…
The new Chinese and British Exhibition is now on at the British Library (entrance free) till next April 2023. So a few posts on things that relate to previous posts of mine here…Second Dymia Hsiung…
Other posts include Chiang Yee, Xi Zhimo, and Chinese cookery books in the UK…
Dymia, the first Chiense woman in Britain to write her autobiography and also the wife of the paywright and theatrical impressario Hsiung Shih-I gets a mention in the exhibition…here in an article on the family in England, The Happy Hsiungs (also the title of Diana Yeh’s biography of the couple) and Dymia’s book Flowering Exile.
The new Chinese and British Exhibition is now on at the British Library (entrance free) till next April 2023. So a few posts on things that relate to previous posts of mine here…First Chiang Yee…
Other posts include on Dymia Hsiung, Xi Zhimo, and Chinese cookery books in the UK…
Excellent to see Chiang feature in the exhibition after out Blue Plaque and symposium for him in Oxford in 2019, my BBC radio documentary on Chiang and the other Chinese intellectuals who lived in Hampstead in the 1930s and World War Two (click here) and the recent Hong Kong University Press Ciollerction of essays dedicated to Chiang and his London Circle (click here for details).
Two Chiang Yee books feature in the British Library exhibition…A Chinese Artist in Lakeland and The Silent Traveller in War Time…
Books of the Year 2022
NB: crime & espionage included as I review a lot. True crime omitted as I didn’t read much in 2022. Kept to only 2022 books (or 2021 out in paperback this year). Probably forgotten a few so apologies. No particular order of ranking, just what came to mind fastest…
Crime
Too Far from Antibes – Bede Scott – shades of Simenon and Green in 50s Saigon
Shifty’s Boys – Chris Offutt – Grit Noir at its finest
Razorblade Tears – SA Cosby – badass revenge tragedy from a new master
The Stoning – Peter Papathanasiou – the best Outback Noir to date
City on Fire – Don Winslow – the 80’s, Provincetown, the Irish and Italian mobs, Winslow…
Espionage
Paul Vidich – The Matchmaker – the legacy of the Cold War in Berlin
The Berlin Exchange – Joseph Kanon – 1960s spy swaps from the ever-reliable Kanon
No Second Take – Joy Joyce – an Irishman mixed up in dodgy business on the WW2 Riviera
City of Spies – Maria Timon – SOE, Portugal, 1943…great fun
The Unwanted Dead – Chris Lloyd – Wartime occupied Paris, murder, Nazi machinations
Fiction
On Java Road – Lawrence Osborne – Osborne’s world-weary Greeneland eye falls on HK
Justin T Clark – the Zero Season – 2 very different journeys from Cambodia to 1949 Paris
Lucy Caldwell – These Days – the horrors and resilience of the Belfast Blitz
Quentin Tarantino – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – loads hated it; I was totally engrossed
Dwyer Murphy – An Honest Living – Brilliantly evoked just pre-digital NYC & the rare books world. A Chandler heir
Non-Fiction
A Village in the Third Reich – Julia Boyd – a tight dissection of small-town Bavarian fascism
Fragile Cargo – Adam Brookes – incredible story of saving China’s Forbidden City treasures
Hidden Heritage – Fatima Manji – deep dives on the side streets of UK multicultural history
The Barbizon – Paulina Bren – highly readable account of the famed Manhattan women-only building
Matthew Campbell & Kit Chellel – Dead in the Water – the criminality of shipping from Yemeni pirates to the nastier suited variety at Lloyds
Biography
Edda Mussolini – Caroline Moorehead – solid bio with some good China insights too
Ethel Rosenberg – Anne Sebba – finally giving Ethel her own voice in the horrible story
The Lost Cafe Schindler – Meriel Schindler – the café’s history is the story of a community destroyed
Arnold Bennett – Patrick Donovan – still sadly out of fashion Bennett is long overdue a comeback
I Used to Live Here Once – Miranda Seymour – putting Jean Rhys back in her rightful place as an important writer
Camera Man – Dana Stevens – Buster Keaton, early cinema and the growth of Hollywood
Autobiography
A Private Spy: The Letters 1945-2020 – John Le Carré – fascinating insight into the man & and his work
Abi Morgan – This is not a Pity Memoir – by turns funny & sad, but full of hope
Lea Ypi – Free – insightful page turner on growing up Albanian back in Hoxha’s day
Taste – Stanley Tucci – as delightful as you’d expect and then some…
The Language of Thieves – Martin Puchner – a personal history of Rotwelsch thieves’ cant
Short Stories
Land of Big Numbers – Te-Ping Chen – innovative short fiction explaining contemporary China
Homesickness – Colin Barrett – a great successor to Young Skins, suburban Ireland in all its glory
The Low Desert – Tod Goldberg – good novels, great short stories – the gangsters of Palm Spring/Nevada
Don Winslow – Broken – a great mix of styles but all with Winslow’s usual obsessions of betrayal and corruption
Rouge Street – Shuang Xuetao (trans: Jeremy Tiang) – 3 novellas on China’s left behind folk
A great shot from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 movie Rear Window with James Stewart and Grace kelly. Here Kelly reclining in Stewart’s apartment reading William O Douglas’s Beyond the High Himalayas (1952). Douglas An associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and an advocate of civil liberties. From 1950 to 1961, Douglas travelled extensively in the Middle East and Asia. Beyond the High Himalayas was his second book.
This rare picture mailer from Shanghai in 1937 is beautiful, though I don’t have any images from the fold out (if anyone has one I’d love to see?)…dated 6 November 1937 it’s a fold-out booklet of twenty War Pictures of Shanghai/Sino-Japanese War 1937 addressed to London and franked with a 5c Sun Yat Sen stamp.
A nice little item – a Shanghai Volunteer Corps (SVC) officer’s bi-metal cap badge…the date – 4th April 1854 refers to the Battle of Muddy Flat (click here for more), the first action for the SVC during the Taiping Rebellion fighting alongside regular British and American military units.
A long time ago I blogged about the China-related street names that survive around the West India Dock Road in E14, the East End, stemming of course from the trade destinations – Nankin, Pekin, Canton and there’s an Amoy Place. The other day I happened to be walking around the far more salubrious postcode, W9 (Warwick Avenue/Maida Vale) and noticed a Formsa Road that I’d never noticed before – not so sure of how this one came to be named?
