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06 Feb 2012 | |
| Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami - February 9, 2012 |  |
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| Title: | Norwegian Wood | |
| Date: | February 9, 2012 | |
| "When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past." Publisher's description. | ||
| Kokoro – Natsume Soseki – March 22, 2012 | |
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| Title: | Kokoro |
 more info/BUY |
| Date: | March 22, 2012 | |
| "Kokoro", meaning 'heart', is a tantalizing novel about the friendship between a young man and an enigmatic elder whom he calls Sensei. Set in the early twentieth century, when the death of the emperor Meiji gave way to a new era in Japanese politicial and cultural life, the novel enacts the transition from one generation to the next in the dynamic between Sensei, who is haunted by mysterious events in his past, and the unnamed young man, one of the new generation's elite who will inherit the coming era.
The translator, Meredith McKinney, will be joining us for this special meeting. |
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| Highways to a War – Christopher Koch – May 3, 2012 | |
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| Title: | Highways to a War | |
| Date: | May 3, 2012 | |
| 'A quite outstanding novel about the Indochina war, the best I have read since Graham Greene's THE QUIET AMERICAN.' Richard West, LITERARY REVIEW When Mike Langford, a war photographer with a reputation for unusual risk-taking, disappears inside Cambodia, he becomes a mythic figure in the minds of his friends. The search for him which is at the heart of this novel explores the personal highways that led him to war, and to his ultimate fate. | ||
| Staying On – Paul Scott – June 14, 2012 | |
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| Title: | Staying On |
 more info/BUY |
| Date: | June 14, 2012 | |
| In this sequel to The Raj Quartet, Colonel Tusker and Lucy Smalley stay on in the hills of Pankot after Indian independence deprives them of their colonial status. Finally fed up with accommodating her husband, Lucy claims a degree of independence herself. Eloquent and hilarious, she and Tusker act out class tensions among the British of the Raj and give voice to the loneliness, rage, and stubborn affection in their marriage. Staying On won the Booker Prize and was made into a motion picture starring Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson in 1979. "Staying On far transcends the events of its central action...[The work] should help win for Scott ...the reputation he deserves--as one of the best novelists to emerge from Britain's silver age."--Robert Towers, Newsweek "Scott's vision is both precise and painterly. Like an engraver cross-hatching in the illusion of fullness, he selects nuances that will make his characters take on depth and poignancy."--Jean G. Zorn, New York Times Book Review "A graceful comic coda to the earlier song of India...No one writing knows or can evoke an Anglo-Indian setting better than Scott."--Paul Gray, Time | ||
| A Chinese novel by Cao Xueqin: Volume 1. 'The Golden Days' – July 19, 2012 | |
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| Title: | A Chinese novel by Cao Xueqin: Volume 1. 'The Golden Days' |
 more info/BUY |
| Date: | July 19, 2012 | |
| "The first volume in the classic Chinese work of literature also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber, a novel which follows the glory and decline of the Jia family." Publisher's description. | ||
| River of Smoke – Amitav Ghosh – August 30, 2012 | |
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| Title: | River of Smoke | |
| Date: | Thursday August 30, 2012 | |
| Second novel in the Ibis trilogy
The much awaited sequel to Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies. In September 1838 a storm blows up on the Indian Ocean and the Ibis, a ship carrying a consignment of convicts and indentured laborers from Calcutta to Mauritius, is caught up in the whirlwind. When the seas settle, five men have disappeared - two lascars, two convicts and one of the passengers. Did the same storm upend the fortunes of those aboard the Anahita, an opium carrier heading towards Canton? And what fate befell those aboard the Redruth, a sturdy two-masted brig heading East out of Cornwall? Was it the storm that altered their course or were the destinies of these passengers at the mercy of even more powerful forces? On the grand scale of an historical epic, River of Smoke follows its storm-tossed characters to the crowded harbors of China. There, despite efforts of the emperor to stop them, ships from Europe and India exchange their cargoes of opium for boxes of tea, silk, porcelain and silver. Among them are Bahram Modi, a wealthy Parsi opium merchant out of Bombay, his estranged half-Chinese son Ah Fatt, the orphaned Paulette and a motley collection of others whose pursuit of romance, riches and a legendary rare flower have thrown together. All struggle to cope with their losses - and for some, unimaginable freedoms - in the alleys and crowded waterways of 19th century Canton. As transporting and mesmerizing as an opiate induced dream, River of Smoke will soon be heralded as a masterpiece of twenty-first century literature. |
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| Adieu Hanoi. A Bittersweet Memoir of French Indochina – Mandaley Perkins – Oct 18, 2012 | |
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| Title: | Adieu Hanoi. A Bittersweet Memoir of French Indochina | |
| Date: | October 18, 2012 | |
| Burma related - Autobiography
A haunting memoir of a young man growing up during the years of French rule in Vietnam. Michel L'Herpiniere is a teenager when he arrives in Indochina in the years before World War II. He immediately falls in love with the country and the people, but gradually becomes aware that what is an idyll for the French is not seen the same way by the local population. Michel's story is inevitably entwined with the history of Vietnam in those years: the French response to the Viet Minh nationalist movement (Michel's high school history teacher is Professor Giap, later to become a leading figure in the Viet Cong), then the war and the Japanese occupation, and the refusal of the US to aid 'a colonial regime'. Michel is imprisoned by the Japanese, and defies curfews in the darkened streets of Hanoi. This is a story full of drama, but also of family, of love and growing up. Hanoi, Adieu contains within it the paradoxes of colonialism, the genuine affection for the place and the people, and the bewilderment when the people turn violently against the coloniser and demand self determination. It is also the moving human story of a life caught up in historic events. |
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| From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey – Pascal Khoo Thwe – Dec 6, 2012 | |
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| Title: | From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey | |
| Date: | Dec 6, 2012 | |
| In lyrical prose, Pascal Khoo-Thwe describes his childhood as a member of the Padaung Hill tribe, where ancestor worship and communion with spirits blended with the tribe's recent conversion to Christianity. In the 1930s, Pascal's grandfather captured an Italian Jesuit, mistaking him for a giant or a wild beast; the Jesuit in turn converted the tribe. (The Padaung are famous for their "giraffe women" - so-called because their necks are ritually elongated with ornamental copper rings. Pascal's grandmother had been exhibited in a touring circus in England as a "freak"). The brutal military regime of Ne Win cracked down on "dissidents" in the late 1980s. Pascal's girlfriend was raped and murdered by soldiers, and Pascal took to the jungle with a guerrilla army. How he was eventually rescued with Cambridge don Casey's help is a dramatic story, which ends with his admission to Cambridge to study his great love, English literature. Pascal developed a love of the English language through listening to the BBC World Service, and it was while working as a waiter in Mandalay to pay for his studies that he met Casey. | ||
| More Details about the Book Group | |
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What Books Does the Asia Book Group Read?Asia Book Group reads a wide variety of books on all parts of Asia. The books we read are chosen by the group and could be fiction or non fiction, literary or popular - but all of them have in common interesting themes and ideas which are ideal for discussion. From time to time we are privileged to have the author or translator present.Who Can Join?Everyone is welcome. We know how daunting it can be to join a new group, but rest, assured everyone is welcome. We really value everyone's input - the more different views, the more interesting.Members come from a variety of different backgrounds and include people who have travelled or lived in Asia, people with an Asian family background, people who have studied an Asian language or culture, as well as people who have never left Australia but are interested in reading and discussing something different! The group size varies from time to time but usually about 10 - 15 people attend a meeting. Does It Cost to Belong?No, there is no charge to belong to the group but we do ask that you buy the book group choice from Asia Bookroom. The good news is that book group members receive a 10% discount on all book group books.When Does The Asia Book Group Meet?Our meetings are generally held between 6pm and 7.30pm on a Thursday every 6 - 8 weeks but can occasionally vary from this. Please join our bookgroup mailing list to be sure you are kept up to date, inquire at Asia Bookroom or visit this section of our website for up to date details.I Am Not Sure That I Can Attend Every Meeting - Does This Matter?No, you are welcome to come as regularly or irregularly as you like. We understand that members' lives are busy and we welcome you when you can come but understand when you can't. RSVPs for seating and refreshment purposes are appreciated but not essential.How Do I Know What Books to Read and the Date of the Next Meeting?The best way to know what we are reading and when we are meeting is to join our Book Group email list which will keep you up-to-date with book details and meeting dates. Alternatively visit this section of our website or inquire from Asia Bookroom directly.During 2011 our book group read:Singapore Grip - J.G. Farrell Nine Lives - William Dalrymple Wasted Vigil - Nadeem Aslam Between Stations - Cheng Boey Kim A Fortune Teller Told Me - Tiziano Terzani Curfewed Night - Basharat Peer The Gate - Francois Bizot Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata Books that the book group read in the years before were:A Fortune Teller Told Me - Tiziano Terzani Ali and Nino - Said Kurban Anil's Ghost - Michael Ondaatjie Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress - Dai Sijie Between Stations - Cheng Boey Kim Brick Lane - Monica Ali Curfewed Night - Basharat Peer Fortress Besieged - Qian Zhongshu Hikayat: Short Stories - Lebanese Women edited - Roseanne Saad Khalaf Handpicked - Siew Siang Tay Home and the World - Tagore Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami Kim - Rudyard Kipling Leaving Mother Lake - Yang Erche Namu Many Lives - M R Kukrit Pramoj Map of the Invisible World - Tash Aw Monkey - Arthur Waley translation Nine Lives - William Dalrymple Noli Me Tangere - Jose Rizal Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories - Ryunosuke Akutagawa Sea of Poppies - Amitav Ghosh Singapore Grip - J.G. Farrell Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio - John Minford translation. Soul Mountain - Gao Xingjian Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud - Sun Shuyun The Boat - Nam Le The Gate - Francois Bizot The Gift of Rain – Tan Twan Eng The Hamilton Case - Michelle De Kretser The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai The Invisible Ones – Karel van Loon The Kim Van Kieu of Nguyen Du The Man Who Died Twice. The life and adventures of Morrison of Peking - Peter Thompson and Robert Macklin The Orientalist - Tom Reiss The Red Queen - Margaret Drabble The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid The Tale of Genji. Murasaki Shikibu. Translated - Royal Tyler. The Three Cornered World - Natsume Soseki This Earth of Mankind - Pramoedya Ananta Toer Translating Lives compiled & edited by Mary Besemeres & Anna Wierzbicka Two Lives - Vikram Seth Wasted Vigil - Nadeem Aslam When Elephants Dance - Tess Uriza Holthe White Butterflies - Colin McPhedran White Tiger - Aravind Adiga Wolf Totem - Jiang Rong |
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