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15 Mar 2010 | |
| The Coroner's Lunch - Colin Cotterill - February 11, 2010 |  |
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| Title: | The Coroner's Lunch | |
| Date: | Thursday 11 February, 6 - 7.30pm. | |
| The Communist Pathet Lao has taken over this former French colony. Dr. Siri Paiboun, a 72-year-old Paris-trained doctor, is appointed national coroner. Although he has no training for the job, there is no one else; the rest of the educated class has fled. He is expected to come up with the answers the party wants. But crafty and charming Dr.Siri is immune to bureaucratic pressure. At his age, he reasons, what can they do to him? And he knows he cannot fail the dead who come into his care without risk of incurring their boundless displeasure. Eternity could be a long time to have the spirits mad at you.
Crime fiction set in Laos. Written with verve and humour this is the first in a series of crime novels featuring Dr Siri Paiboun. |
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| Stubborn Twig - Lauren Kessler - March 25, 2010 | |
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| Title: | Stubborn Twig |
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| Date: | Thursday March 25, 6 - 7.30pm. | |
| Stubborn Twig is a classic American story, a story of immigrants making their way in a new land.
It is a living work of social history that rings with the power of truth and the drama of fiction, a moving saga about the challenges of becoming an American. Masuo Yasui traveled from Japan across the other Oregon Trail - the one that spanned the Pacific Oceanain 1903. Like most immigrants, he came with big dreams and empty pockets. Working on the railroads, in a cannery, and as a houseboy before settling in Hood River, Oregon, he opened a store, raised a large family, and became one of the areas most successful orchardists. As Masuo broke the race barrier in the local business community, his American-born children broke it in school, scouts and sports, excelling in most everything they tried. For the Yasui's first-born son, the constraints and contradictions of being both Japanese and American led to tragedy. But his seven brothers and sisters prevailed, becoming doctors, lawyers, teachers, and farmers. It was a classic tale of the American dream come true - until December 7, 1941, changed their lives forever. The Yasuis were among the more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry along the West Coast who were forced from their homes and interned in vast inland arelocation camps. Masuo was arrested as a spy and imprisoned for the rest of the war; his family was shamed and broken. Yet the Yasuis endured, as succeeding generations took up the challenge of finding their identity as Americans. Stubborn Twig is their story - a story at once tragic and triumphant, one that bears eloquent witness to both the promise and the peril of America. |
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| Pyongyang. A Journey in North Korea - Guy Delisle - May 6, 2010 | |
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| Title: | Pyongyang. A Journey in North Korea |
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| Date: | Thursday May 6, 2010 | |
| Famously referred to as an 'Axis-of-Evil' country, North Korea remains one of the most secretive and mysterious nations in the world today. A series of manmade and natural catastrophes have also left it one of the poorest.
When the fortress-like country recently opened the door a crack to foreign investment, cartoonist Guy Delisle found himself in its capital Pyongyang on a work visa for a French film animation company, becoming one of the few Westerners to witness current conditions in the surreal showcase city. Armed with a smuggled radio and a copy of 1984, Delisle could only explore Pyongyang and its countryside while chaperoned by his translator and a guide. But among the statues, portraits and propaganda of leaders Kim Il-Sung and his son Kim Jong-Il - the world's only Communist dynasty - Delisle was able to observe more than was intended of the culture and lives of the few North Koreans he encountered. His astute and wry musings on life in the austere and grim regime form the basis of this remarkable graphic novel. "Pyongyang" is an informative, personal and accessible look at an enigmatic country. |
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| Joss and Gold - Shirley Geok-Lin Lim - June 17, 2010 | |
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| Title: | Joss and Gold |
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| Date: | Thursday June 17, 6 - 7.30pm. | |
| When cultures clash, when worlds collide, when civil unrest provokes personal upheaval, established roles and values are the first casualties of independence as individuals become entangled in extraordinary events.
Beginning in the newly established nation of Malaysia in the late 1960s and stretching to America and Singapore 20 years later, Lim's coming-of-age novel traces the development of Li An, a young, rebellious Chinese woman struggling to find her own place in the world while her fledgling nation strives to forge a unique identity from its contentious, multicultural heritage. Thrown into this melange is Chester, an American Peace Corps volunteer whose friendship Li An relies on as she questions her marriage, her career, and her place in a society that has traditionally limited women's roles. Their alliance sets in motion disruptive changes with unresolved conflicts that neither time nor geography can diminish. Lim's novel is dominated by strong, independent, and goal-oriented women wrestling with individual development issues within the larger framework of a society also in transition. |
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| In an Antique Land- Amitav Ghosh - July 29, 2010 | |
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| Title: | In An Antique Land |
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| Date: | Thursday July 29, 6 - 7.30pm. | |
| In the 1980s Amitav Ghosh moved into a converted chicken coop. It was on the roof of a house in Lataifa, a tiny village in Egypt. During the day he poured over medieval letters sent to India from Cairo by Arab merchants. In the evenings he shut out the bellowing of his fat landlord by turning up the volume of his transistor radio and wrote stories based on what he had seen in the village. The story of Khamees the Rat, the notorious impotent (already twice married); of Zaghloul the weaver determined to travel to India on a donkey; of one-eyed Mohammad, so obsessed with a girl that he spent nights kneeling outside her window to listen to the sound of her breathing; of Amm 'Taha, part-time witch, always ready to cast a spell for a little extra money; and, of course, the story of Amitav Ghosh himself, known in the village as the Indian doctor, the uncircumcised, cow-worshipping kaffir who would not convert to Islam. This book is the story of Amitav Ghosh's decade of intimacy with the village community.
Mixing conversation and research, imagination and scholarship, it is also a charged, eccentric history of the special relationship between two countries, Egypt and India, through nearly ten centuries of parochialism and sympathy, bigotry and affection. |
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| Empire of the Sun - J.G. Ballard - September 9, 2010 | |
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| Title: | Empire of the Sun |
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| Date: | Thursday September 9, 6 - 7.30pm | |
| The heartrending story of a British boy's four-year ordeal in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War. Based on J. G. Ballard's own childhood, this is the extraordinary account of a boy's life in Japanese-occupied wartime Shanghai - a mesmerising, hypnotically compelling novel of war, of starvation and survival, of internment camps and death marches. It blends searing honesty with an almost hallucinatory vision of a world thrown utterly out of joint. Rooted as it is in the author's own disturbing experience of war in own time, it is one of a handful of novels by which the twentieth century will be not only remembered but judged. | ||
| Paradise of the Blind - Duong Thu Huong - October 21, 2010 | |
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| Title: | Paradise of the Blind |
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| Date: | Thursday October 21, 6 - 7.30pm. | |
| Paradise of the Blind is an exquisite portrait of three Vietnamese women struggling to survive in a society where subservience to men is expected and Communist corruption crushes every dream. Through the eyes of Hang, a young woman in her twenties who has grown up amidst the slums and intermittent beauty of Hanoi, we come to know the tragedy of her family as land reform rips apart their village. When her uncle Chinh's political loyalties replace family devotion, Hang is torn between her mother's appalling self-sacrifice and the bitterness of her aunt who can avenge but not forgive. Only by freeing herself from the past will Hang be able to find dignity - - and a future. | ||
| Lust, Caution and Other Stories - Eileen Chang - November 25, 2010 | |
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| Title: | Lust, Caution and Other Stories | |
| Date: | Thursday November 25 2009, 6 - 7:30pm. | |
| In 1940s Shanghai, beautiful young Jiazhi spends her days playing mahjong and drinking tea with high society ladies. But China is occupied by invading Japanese forces and things are not always what they seem in wartime. Jiazhi's life is a front. A patriotic student radical, her mission is to seduce a powerful employee of the occupying government and lead him to the assassin's bullet. Yet as she waits for him to arrive at their liaison, Jiazhi begins to wonder if she is cut out to be a femme fatale and coldly take Mr Yi to his death. Or is she beginning to fall in love with him? A passionate tale of espionage, deception and love, Lust, Caution is accompanied here by four further dazzling short stories by Eileen Chang. | ||
| 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 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 2009 our book group read:Wolf Totem - Jiang Rong White Tiger - Aravind Adiga The Boat - Nam Le Handpicked - Siew Siang Tay Fortress Besieged - Qian Zhongshu Sea of Poppies - Amitav Ghosh Map of the Invisible World - Tash Aw Noli Me Tangere - Jose Rizal Books that the book group read in the years before were:Ali and Nino - Said Kurban Anil's Ghost - Michael Ondaatjie Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress - Dai Sijie Brick Lane - Monica Ali Hikayat: Short Stories by Lebanese Women edited by Roseanne Saad Khalaf 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 Monkey - Arthur Waley translation. Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories - Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio - John Minford translation. Soul Mountain - Gao Xingjian Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud - Sun Shuyun 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 by 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 When Elephants Dance - Tess Uriza Holthe White Butterflies - Colin McPhedran |
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