Posted: July 14th, 2018 | No Comments »
Yea, so those Barksdale boys and Stringer Bell thought they were pretty tough but tougher than Jack Riley? Carlos Garcia? Du Yuesheng? I don’t think so and I’ll be explaining why to Baltimore this Saturday at the Bird in Hand, a delightful cafe-bookshop in the city’s Charles Village started by the good folk at the city’s longstanding great store, The Ivy Bookshop.
More Details here….
Saturday night it’s…..
Avon and Stringer….
….VS Tulsa Tough Jack Riley
Posted: July 12th, 2018 | No Comments »
So, at last – after vanquishing the challenge of the Barbary Coast old Shanghai finally faces a challenge – New Orleans – a city that just maybe could give old Shanghai a run for its money in the sleeze and sin stakes….we shall see….
Octavia Books at 6pm – details here
It’s the greatest ever Sin City Head-to-Head – New Orleans vs Shanghai….
Posted: July 11th, 2018 | No Comments »
Enough of the West Coast already – it’s time to head inland….Scottsdale and the amazing Poisoned Pen bookstore which, if you’ve never been, is a haven for lovers of crime writing….
Paul French signs City of Devils: The Two Men Who Ruled the Underworld of Old Shanghai
When: July 12, 2018 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Where: The Poisoned Pen
4014 N Goldwater Blvd
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
USA
Posted: July 11th, 2018 | No Comments »
The City of Devils is coming to the Barbary Coast this Wednesday to teach them a thing or two about sin and lust….
I’ll be at San Francisco’s Book Passage at 1 Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA 94111 on Wednesday, July 11th.
more details here…
My credit card literally winces every time I see one of these bookstores I’m visiting!!
Posted: July 9th, 2018 | No Comments »
I’ll be at the staggering Powell’s City of Books store in Portland, Oregon this Tuesday talking old Shanghai and City of Devils. I’m delighted to be in conversation with Bill Lascher, a local journalist who wrote Eve of Hundred Midnights, a biography of the wartime China correspondents Mel and Annalee Jacoby.
Any interest in inter-war Shanghai and China?
Anywhere near Portland?
Come and say hello….
more details here
Posted: July 8th, 2018 | No Comments »
Whenever I come on a tour of anywhere talking about old China and books I always come across various interesting titbits I never knew that seem to suit this blog. And so it is with this July’s US book tour for City of Devils. First stop is Seattle and Elliot Bay Books. I’m staying in the University District to the north of the downtown area, around the marvellous buildings of the calm and peaceful University of Washington. I did not know that the genesis for the university’s vast campus was the site for the 1909 Yukon-Alaska EXPO, the World’s Fair aiming to highlight the Pacific Northwest, an area perhaps then more in people’s minds given it was barely a decade since the Klondike gold rush.
As with most EXPOs a large number of temporary buildings crowded the site – most were slapped up and so not meant to be permanent (as is the way with EXPOs) but a few of the major structures remained and became some of the core buildings of the UofW today.
There was a Chinese Village (sometimes referred to as a “Oriental” pavilion) and it sadly didn’t survive. Still three million people passed through it in 1909. The development and management of the Chinese Village was handled by Ah King (1863-1915), a successful Chinese merchant in Seattle. The “village” featured three buildings, including a Chinese temple, a restaurant, and a theatre with acts that changed daily. There’s a lot more details and images about the Chinese village here.
There was also a Japanese village. Ah King wasn’t expecting to make a profit though it apparently did (just about). Interestingly the Japanese village made about the same revenues as the Chinese village despite a) being paid for by the Tokyo government rather than local Japanese-American entrepreneurs and b) the fact that there were many more Japanese people than Chinese in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest in 1909.
Posted: July 5th, 2018 | No Comments »
Apologies – the next couple of weeks are going to be a bit hectic as on book tour and this blog might be a bit crammed with US events…but then it’ll be back to the good stuff of books, past lives and old buildings in August….
So, let’s kick things off on Monday in Seattle at the fabulous Elliot Bay Books…..if you do come along please do come and say hello….frankly I’m getting there early to browse!!
Date:Â
Monday, July 9, 2018 – 7:00pm
Location:
The Elliott Bay Book Company
1521 Tenth Avenue
Seattle, WA 98122
City of Devils:
By the New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Peking–winner of both the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction–comes rags-to-riches tale of two self-made men set against a backdrop of crime and vice in the sprawling badlands of Shanghai.
Shanghai, 1930s; it was a haven for outlaws from all over the world: a place where pasts could beforgotten, fascism and communism outrun, names invented, and fortunes made–and lost.
“Lucky” Jack Riley was the most notorious of those outlaws. An ex-U.S. Navy boxing champion, he escaped from prison and rose to become the Slots King of Shanghai. “Dapper” Joe Farren–a Jewishboy who ed Vienna’s ghetto–ruled the nightclubs. His chorus lines rivalled Ziegfeld’s.
In 1940, Lucky Jack and Dapper Joe bestrode the Shanghai Badlands like kings, while all aroundthe Solitary Island was poverty, starvation, and war. They thought they ruled Shanghai, but the cityhad other ideas. This is the story of their rise to power, their downfall, and the trail of destruction leftin their wake. Shanghai was their playground for a flickering few years, a city where for a fleeting momenteven the wildest dreams could come true.
About the Author
PAUL FRENCH was born in London, educated there and in Glasgow, and has lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. His book Midnight in Peking was a New York Times Bestseller, a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, and will be made into an international mini-series by Kudos Film and Television, the UK creators of Broadchurch and Life on Mars.
Posted: July 4th, 2018 | No Comments »
You can always rely on France for some excellently named soaps…what mkore could one want than opium in the Pearl of the Orient…
