I loved Bede Scott’s novel Too Far From Antibes (Penguin Books Southeast Asia) when it first came out (and reviewed it here in the South China Morning Post). I’m delighted to have blurbed this superb new edition of this retro noiry tale of 1950s Saigon reminiscent of Green, Ambler and Simenon.
It is 1951, and Jean-Luc Guéry has arrived in Indochina to investigate the murder of his brother, Olivier, whose body was found floating in a tributary of the Saigon River. As an avid reader of detective fiction, Guéry is well aware of how such investigations should proceed, but it is not immediately clear that he is capable of putting this knowledge into practice. In addition to being a reporter for an obscure provincial newspaper, he is also a failed writer, an incorrigible alcoholic, and a compulsive gambler who has already squandered a fortune in the casinos of the Côte d’Azur. Despite his dissolute tendencies, however, and his aversion to physical danger, Guéry does eventually manage to solve the case. In order to do so, he is obliged to enter a world of elaborate conspiracies, clandestine intelligence operations, and organized crime – only to discover, in the novel’s final pages, that the truth behind his brother’s murder is far stranger than he could have imagined.
I’m obviously fascinated with old photographs of China, but also (perhaps a little more weirdly) the albums they were often contained in. Just put ‘albums’ in my blog’s search engine and you’ll see many past examples. However, this one is special. This album of Peking photos was sold by the amazing Camera Craft Co, circa 1915. Camera Craft was run by American John David Zumbrun with premises on Legation Street (Dongjiaomin). Zumbrun (below) was very early, ahead (I think) oif other famous Peking photo studios, notably Hartung’s.
The story of the excellent doc and the historically questionable movie….as well as Tony Banham’s excellent book (from way back in 2010 but still well worth reading)…. click here to read….
Francis Wann has gathered together his relative Wen Su’s papers to create this treasure trove…. from Earnshaw Books
On February 7, 1906, a male infant was born in Beijing, and the court official Wen Su was called upon to choose a name for him. He chose the name Pu Yi, and also, according to one version of the story, personally placed the boy on the Dragon throne in 1908, just three years before the Qing Dynasty fell. Wen Su was one of the top imperial officials right at the end of the China’s long dynastic history, and he remained for decades afterwards the most loyal of all the courtiers around the dethroned emperor. He was also an accomplished poet and calligrapher and maintained a long correspondence with his sons and with others that is here collected and published for the first time.
A series of lantern slides of China tourist sites and views (some of which are easily identifiable and some not) produced by The Photo Bureau of 34 Nanking Road (Nanjing East Road) for sale to tourists who wanted to entertain their friends, Women’s Institute, church groups, schools or whatever back home to a lantern slide show. I’m afraid I don’t have a date for these.
#34 Nanking Road was obviously the Photo Bureau on the ground floor and offered furnished rooms for let on the floors above. The company advertised itself as ‘Makers of Coloured Lantern Slides, Enlargements, Cinema, Amateur Developing and Printing’. The business was owned by a Mr Vandenburgh with Mr Wong as Manager and a Mr Woo as the Chief Artist. The earliest reference I have for them being in business is the mid-1920s. Before that, around the time of the First World War, #34 appears to have been a wine merchants run by a Mr JW Gande who had been in China since the 1880s. Before Gande, in the 1890s and till the early twentieth century the store was owned by a Mr Schlichting, a general merchant whose business was called Sing Tong in Shanghainese I believe, and who lived over the store with his wife.
Anyway, here’s a random selection of lantern slides from The Photo Bureau…
The poster and first still are out for Edward Berger’s adaptation of Lawrence Osborne’s Macao-set Ballad of a Small Player novel...with Colin Farrell, Tilda Swinton, Fala Chen, Alex Jennings – and just about all filmed on location in Macao…
Pages from the original 55 Days at Peking (1963) A3 Brochure used to promote the movie – the Peking scenes were of course filmed at Las Matas, outside Madrid!!….
The Edinburgh International Book Festival was, as ever, a blast. The spiegeltent amazing, audiences terrific with loads of questions, the Waterstones Edinburgh book tent selling loads (both by me and to me!!), the festival grounds terrific, the city itself both buzzing and majestic as ever. Got to see authors I admire including Javier Cercas, Geoff Dyer, Calum McSorley and others. Thanks to Isabel Hilton who moderated so charmingly as well as Jenny Niven and her team for making 2025 another amazing Edinburgh International Book Festival….
