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08 Sep 2008 | |
| Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio - 3 April 2008 |  |
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| Title: | Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling |
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| Date: | Thursday April 3, 6 - 7.30pm. | |
| Speaker: | Professor John Minford | |
| The Strange Tales of Pu Songling (1640-1715) are exquisite and amusing miniatures that are regarded as the pinnacle of classical Chinese fiction. With their elegant prose, witty wordplay and subtle charm, the 104 stories in this selection reveal a world in which nothing is as it seems. Here a Taoist monk conjures up a magical pear tree, a scholar recounts his previous incarnations, a woman out-foxes the fox-spirit that possesses her, a child bride gives birth to a thimble-sized baby, a ghostly city appears out of nowhere, and a heartless daughter-in-law is turned into a pig. In his tales of humans coupling with shape-shifting spirits, bizarre phenomena, haunted buildings and enchanted objects, Pu Songling pushes back the boundaries of human experience and enlightens as he entertains.
Professor John Minford, the translator of the Penguin Classics edition of this famous work has very kindly agreed to join us to help us to understand and enjoy this important collection. |
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| Home and the World - 15 May 2008 | |
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| Title: | Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore. |
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| Date: | Thursday May 15, 6 - 7.30pm. | |
| Set against the backdrop of the Partition of Bengal by the British in 1905, this is the story of a liberal-minded zamindar Nikhilesh, his educated and sensitive wife Bimala, and Nikhilesh's friend Sandip, a charismatic nationalist leader whom Bimala finds herself attracted to. A classic novel by Nobel Prize-winner Rabindranath Tagore. | ||
| The Gift of Rain - 26 June 2008 | |
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| Title: | The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng |
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| Date: | Thursday June 26, 6 - 7.30pm. | |
| Penang, 1939. Sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton is a loner. Half English, half Chinese and feeling neither, he discovers a sense of belonging in an unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip shows his new friend around his adored island of Penang, and in return Endo trains him in the art and discipline of aikido.
But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. The enigmatic Endo is bound by disciplines of his own and when the Japanese invade Malaya, threatening to destroy Philip’s family and everything he loves, he realises that his trusted sensei — to whom he owes absolute loyalty — has been harbouring a devastating secret. Philip must risk everything in an attempt to save those he has placed in mortal danger and discover who and what he really is. With masterful and gorgeous narrative, replete with exotic and captivating images, sounds and aromas — of rain swept beaches, magical mountain temples, pungent spice warehouses, opulent colonial ballrooms and fetid and forbidding rainforests — Tan Twan Eng weaves a haunting and unforgettable story of betrayal, barbaric cruelty, steadfast courage and enduring love. Longlisted for 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. |
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| The Invisible Ones - 7 August 2008 | |
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| Title: | The Invisible Ones by Karel van Loon. |
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| Date: | Thursday August 7, 6 - 7.30pm. | |
| Min Thein, a lawyer in a provincial town in Burma, has struggled to avoid confrontation with his country's military regime, despite defending its victims. This is a novel about the life of a refugee, descriptions of the fate of Burma's political prisoners blend with Buddhist myth and memories of a carefree childhood., Min Thein, a lawyer in a sleepy provincial town in Burma, has struggled to avoid confrontation with his country's military regime, despite defending its victims. But when he incurs the wrath of the district commander, he is shadowed, intimidated and thwarted - he loses his country, his wife and his sight. In this gripping novel about the life of a refugee, harrowing descriptions of the fate of Burma's political prisoners blend with Buddhist myth and memories of a carefree childhood. | ||
| The Kim Van Kieu of Nguyen Du - 18 September 2008 | |
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| Title: | The Kim Van Kieu of Nguyen Du |
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| Date: | Thursday September 18, 6 - 7.30pm. | |
| Nguyen Du was a Vietnamese official displaced in a dynastic shift and sent into provincial exile in the service of his new overlord. The epic poem, Kim Vân Kieu, was his most notable work during this period. This saga of a rich, sophisticated and multifaceted culture - derivative in its special way from the classical traditions of China - launches a romantic girl of good family, Kieu, into an epic of dissolution, intrigues and refined cruelty.
As one picaresque episode follows another, it becomes clear that the saga of Kieu's wanderings and travails is also Nguyen Du's lament of the overthrow of the ruling house of his youth and the loss of his former state. While dedicated to its portrayal of bygone Sino-Vietnamese times, the incisive intellectual, moral and social commentary of the Kim Van Kieu still speaks to the reader across these cultural and historical distances. |
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| The Reluctant Fundamentalist - 30 October 2008 | |
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| Title: | The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid. |
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| Date: | Thursday October 30, 6 - 7.30pm. | |
| At a cafe table in Lahore, a Pakistani man begins the tale that has led to his fateful meeting with an uneasy American stranger...
Changez is living an immigrant's dream of America. He thrives on the energy of New York, his work at an elite firm, and his budding relationship. For a time, it seems that nothing will stand in the way of his meteoric rise to success. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his relationship crumbling and his exalted status overturned. Allegiances are subsequently unearthed, proving themselves more fundamental than money, power and maybe even love. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2007. |
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| Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories - 11 December 2008 | |
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| Title: | Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. |
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| Date: | Thursday December 11, 6 - 7.30pm. | |
| Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan's foremost stylists - a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. This work features stories such as "Rashomon", "In a Bamboo Grove", "The Nose", "O-Gin", "Loyalty", "Death Register", "The Life of a Stupid Man" and "Spinning Gears". | ||
| Two Lives - 22 February 2007 | |
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| Title: | Two Lives by Vikram Seth. | |
| Date: | Thursday February 22 2007, 6 - 7:30pm. | |
| This was our first book for 2007. The meeting was held at Asia Bookroom on Thursday February 22.
"Two Lives tells the remarkable story of Seth's great uncle and aunt. His great uncle Shanti left India for medical school in Berlin in the 1930s and lodged with a German Jewish family. In the household was a daughter, Henny, who urged her mother 'not to take the blackie'. But a friendship developed and each managed to leave Germany and found their way to Britain as the Nazis rose to power. Shanti joined the army and lost his right arm at the battle of Monte Cassino, while Henny (whose family were to die in the camps) made a life for herself in her adopted country. After the war they married and lived the emigre life in north London where Shanti, despite the loss of his arm, became a much-loved dentist. During his own adolescence in England, Vikram Seth lived with Shanti and Henny and came to know and love them deeply. His is the third life in this story of TWO LIVES. This is also a book about history, encompassing as it does many of the most significant themes and events in the 20th century, whose currents are reflected in the lives of Shanti, Henny and their family: from the Raj and the Indian freedom movement to the Third Reich, the Holocaust and British postwar society." Publisher's description. |
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| The Inheritance of Loss - 29 March 2007 | |
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| Title: | The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. |
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| Date: | Thursday March 29 2007, 6 - 7.30pm. | |
| In the north-eastern Himalayas, at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga, in a crumbling isolated house ,there lives a cantankerous old judge, who wants nothing more than to retire in peace. But with the arrival of his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, and the son of his chatty cook trying to make his way in the US and stay a step ahead of the immigration services, this is far from easy.
When a Nepalese insurgency threatens the blossoming romance between Sai and her handsome tutor, they, too, are forced to consider their colliding interests. And the judge must revisit his past, his own journey and his role in this grasping world of conflicting desires - every moment holding out the possibility of hope or betrayal. A story of such depth and emotion, hilarity and imagination, rich, beautiful and infinitely wise, 'The Inheritance of Loss' is a glorious second novel from the author of the universally praised 'Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard'. |
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| Hikayat: Short Stories by Lebanese Women - 10 May 2007 | |
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| Title: | Hikayat: Short Stories by Lebanese Women edited by Roseanne Saad Khalaf. |
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| Date: | Thursday May 10 2007, 6- 7:30pm. | |
| An anthology of Lebanese women fiction writers, this title offers a mix of stories by published authors with established reputations, such as Emily Nasrallah, Hanan Sheikh, and Alaweeya Sobh, alongside the narratives of younger women whose voices explore new terrain. These voices reflect the rich diversity of a complex multi-cultural society. | ||
| Monkey - 21 June 2007 | |
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| Title: | Monkey translated by Arthur Waley.. |
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| Date: | Thursday June 21 2007, 6 - 7:30pm. | |
| "Prince Tripitaka, a young Buddhist priest, has undertaken a dangerous quest to travel to India to retrieve sacred scriptures from a temple. On his way he finds three unruly companions who become his disciples: the greedy pig creature Pigsy, the river monster Sandy - and Monkey. Hatched from a stone egg and given the secrets of immortality, the mischievous trickster Monkey can fly through the air, ride on clouds, become invisible and transform himself into other shapes. And these skills prove very handy when the four travellers come up against the dragons, bandits, demons and evil wizards that seem determined to get in their way." Publisher's description. | ||
| Leaving Mother Lake - 9 August 2007 | |
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| Title: | Leaving Mother Lake: A Girlhood at the Edge of the World by Yang Erche Namu and Christine Mathieu. | |
| Date: | Thursday August 9 2007, 6 - 7:30pm. | |
| Leaving Mother Lake is the extraordinary story of Yang Erche Namu - a girl growing up in the borderlands between Tibet and China, who left her remarkable childhood behind for the bright lights of Shanghai and singing stardom.
Namu's home is an area so primitive that during the Cultural Revolution the Red Guards arrived and left because there was nothing to destroy. It is a place known as the 'Country of Daughters' because of its matriarchal society: there is no word for father; property is passed on from mother to daughter; women choose lovers for as long as they like; and men mostly sleep in the stables. |
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| Kim - 20 September 2007 | |
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| Title: | Kim by Rudyard Kipling. |
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| Date: | Thursday September 20 2007, 6 - 7:30pm. | |
| Tells the story of Kimball O'Hara, an orphaned Irish boy growing up in late nineteenth-century India, and his quest for identity as he strives to reconcile his Western inheritance with the Indian life he has always known. This edition sets the novel in the context of the historical period and addresses Kipling's ambivalent relationship with Inida, the Empire's treatment of the "other" classes and races who worked to maintain the British presence in India, and the place of Kim in Kipling's career as a writer." Publisher's description. A classic "Empire" novel. | ||
| The Three Cornered World - 25 October 2007 | |
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| Title: | The Three Cornered World by Natsume Soseki. | |
| Date: | Thursday October 25 2007, 6 - 7:30pm. | |
| An artist leaves city life to wander in the mountains on a quest to stimulate his artistic endeavours. When he finds himself staying at an almost deserted inn, he becomes obsessed with the beautiful and strange daughter of the innkeeper, who is rumoured to have abandoned her husband and fallen in love with a priest at a nearby temple. Haunted by her aura of mystery and tragedy, he wants to paint her. As he struggles to complete his picture and solve the enigma of her life, his daily conversations with those at he inn and in the village provide clues and inspiration toward solving the mysteries she presents. | ||
| The Red Queen - 6 December 2007 | |
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| Title: | The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble. |
 more info/BUY |
| Date: | Thursday Decmeber 6 2007, 6 - 7:30pm. | |
| Two hundred years after being plucked from obscurity to marry the Crown Prince of Korea, the Red Queen's ghost decides to set the record straight about her extraordinary existence - and Dr Babs Halliwell, with her own complicated past, is the perfect envoy. Why does the Red Queen pick Babs to keep her story alive, and what else does she want from her? A terrific novel set in 18th century Korea and the present day, The Red Queen is a rich and atmospheric novel about love, and what it means to be remembered. | ||
| 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. |
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