Earnshaw Books

14/01/2025

Thank you to Du Chinese for featuring the Tang series for "Best Books to Learn about the History of China"

The books featured on this list allow us to dive deeper into the History of China and while there, allow us to discover more.

14/01/2025

TOPIC TUESDAY: Have you ever heard the phrase "curry favour"? It means to ingratiate yourself with someone hoping for a favor in return.

As explained by Michael Quinion, curry is the word meaning to brush or groom a horse, not the Indian spice. The second word was originally Fauvel (later substituted with favour) the name of a horse in a satirical French medieval poem from the early 1300s. While the word favour made perfect sense with the meaning of the phrase, the verb curry remained as a curious puzzle.

14/01/2025

Mark O'Neill's recent interview with John Mackay 👇

Dr John Mackay arrived in Hong Kong in 1963 and has lived here ever since. For 30 years. he was one of the city’s most respected physicians in one of the largest medical practices and then chose a

14/01/2025

Jewish Life in Harbin, China: A Conversation with Jean Hoffmann Lewanda by Susan Blumberg-Kason

https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/interviews/jewish-life-harbin-china-conversation-jean-hoffmann-lewanda-susan-blumberg-kason

13/01/2025

MONDAY MEMORIES - Here's a throwback to William Lindesay's inspirational Wild Wall, a journey on foot along the entire length of the Great Wall 🇨🇳👣

Wild Wall-The Foundation Years tells the story of his daring west-to-east endeavour, staggered and rerouted by multiple arrests and interrupted by a deportation from which he found a way back. He recounts the incredible hospitality he met along the way, and a whirlwind romance with the woman he was to marry.

12/01/2025

SNEAKPEAK SUNDAY - Snippets from Shoot, Ask... And Run! by Chris Stowers 🗺📸

In these pages, recalled from diaries kept at the time, Stowers paints a harsh, humorous and very human picture of media life in Asia—and beyond—during the boom years of the early 1990’s. Based in Hong Kong, in the dying days of both empire and analog photography, he finds himself constantly on the road, in trouble, and out of film. A natural-born observer and nomad, the question nonetheless arises: where is home?

Love travel and adventures? This one's for you!

12/01/2025

SATURDAY SPOTLIGHT - This week we're spotlighting Naoko Kato's powerful book Kaleidoscope which looks at the story of Uchiyama Kanzo and his bookstore from a fresh perspective, breaking it down into a series of reflections that shift as the years turn.

Uchiyama's bookstore was a fulcrum of Sino-Japanese contacts, many of the members of Uchiyama's salon were intellectuals behind the Chinese Communist Party, then an illegal organization in Shanghai. The ability of Uchiyama and his bookstore to transcend intellectual divisions and borders makes his story of unique inter-cultural interest. And the context of Uchiyama's efforts to bring peace between his home country of Japan and his chosen home of China is one of the most intellectually uplifting stories of the 20th century.

10/01/2025

An extremely thorough review of Joel Bigman's Journey to the West ⭐📖

Note: I was not paid for this review. Format: Ebook ($6.99 USD) and paperback (280 pages; $19.99 to $21.99 USD) [1] Publisher: Earnshaw Books Ltd. Release date: December 17th, 2024 Purchase links: …

09/01/2025

THROWBACK THURSDAY - Did you know that Shanghai was considered the Paris of the East? ✨

During the 1930s, Shanghai was best known as the city that never slept, with its vibrant nightlife. There were hundreds of cabarets, nightclubs, and elite ballrooms, of which The Paramount was the most famous, attracting Shanghai’s rich and famous, including starlets, gangsters, businessmen, and politicians.

Just like Paris during the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai was experiencing a renaissance of its own. Thanks to an East-West fusion, the Haipai culture emerged. This was a Shanghai-style culture that influenced arts, fashion, culture, literature, film, and even cuisine.

08/01/2025

WEDNESDAY WORDS - an excerpt from Kaleidoscope by Naoko Kato 📚

In the 1920s, a Japanese businessman set up a bookshop in the city of Shanghai which changed the course of history by providing a forum for Chinese and Japanese intellectuals to meet and discuss the great issues of the day. Uchiyama’s bookstore was a fulcrum of Sino-Japanese contacts, many of the members of Uchiyama’s salon were intellectuals behind the Chinese Communist Party, then an illegal organization in Shanghai. The ability of Uchiyama and his bookstore to transcend intellectual divisions and borders makes his story of unique inter-cultural interest. And the context of Uchiyama’s efforts to bring peace between his home country of Japan and his chosen home of China is one of the most intellectually uplifting stories of the 20th century.

07/01/2025

TOPIC TUESDAY - Cameras have evolved enormously since humans invented an object to capture images. From camera obscuras to the first ever portable camera made for photography in 1685 and the possibility to make multiple print negatives in 1834. Who knew cameras went this far back in history?! 📸🎥🤳

The first commercially available digital camera was created by Logitech and released as the Dycam Model 1 in 1990. The first cell phone to offer a camera was the Kyocera VP-210 which was developed in 1999. With today's smartphone technology, most people don't give taking photos and videos a second thought. Do you still use any other cameras? Let us know in the comments!

06/01/2025

MONDAY MEMORIES - Shanghai Saga by John Pal: who remembers this fascinating memoir and not to mention GORGEOUS book cover? 📚✍

No book provides a more authentic view of the colorful and corrupt world of old Shanghai through the eyes of a foreign resident than Shanghai Saga. The Shanghai you know today looked very different in the 1930s.

05/01/2025

SNEAKPEAK SUNDAY - Snippets from Shalama by Jean Hoffmann Lewanda 🕍

Told in story form by Shirley’s daughter, Shalama is a moving epic that captures the feel of those dangerous times when the world had lost its moorings. After the family’s escape from Shanghai, after the Communist takeover, Paul and Shirley moved to the United States, but towards the end of her life, an unexpected turn of events brought both enlightenment and closure to questions that had remained a mystery throughout her lifetime.

04/01/2025

SATURDAY SPOTLIGHT - This week we're spotlighting the highly anticipated The Phoenix and The Firebird. With cinematographic crispness, this romantic vision of a distant time and culture conjures up a tale of friendship, family, and magic, seamlessly weaving together Chinese and Russian folktales. 🐉🐲

02/01/2025

THROWBACK THURSDAY - Do you know about Chinese customs around pregnancy? Ever heard about women not showering for a whole month post-pregnancy? One of the earlier examples of books on gestation is Taichanshu (Book of Gestation and Birth) dating from at least 168BC. 🤰

“In the fourth month, water is bestowed on the fetus and blood first forms. Appropriate foods are rice, wheat and mud eel, which clarify the blood and brighten the eyes." The book also mentions eating white-haired dog to have a "dazzling" child. Though many of these customs and suggestions wouldn't pass today, there are still many superstitions around pregnancy and birthing in China today.

You can read about a lot of them in Simon Gjeroe's memoir Made in China.

South China Morning Post

01/01/2025

WEDNESDAY WORDS - an excerpt from The Phoenix and the Firebird by Alexis Kossiakoff and Scott Forbes Crawford 🐲

A bullet-riddled train staggers into a Chinese station in 1920, and Lucy discovers that her father, a Russian officer, has been kidnapped. A mysterious feather guides her into a dangerous realm of magic and monsters to rescue him. But she knows she can’t take on the quest alone. With her friend Su, a girl as quick with words as with her fists, the two uncover the terrifying truth: a notorious warlord has seized Lucy’s father. Worse, he is about to invade their city. The friends brave the criminal underworld, cross a haunted forest, and outsmart creatures they thought lived only in fairytales. But will their wits and bravery be enough to beat the warlord’s army of human soldiers and magical beasts?

31/12/2024

TOPIC TUESDAY - During the 1930s, as the N***s stepped up their persecution of German and Austrian Jews, many countries in the West were limiting the visas they granted to refugees. So, 20,000 Jews went where they didn't need a visa - Shanghai.

Life wasn't always kind to them in Shanghai, but the refugees tried as best they could to recreate the community they had in Europe. Lawyers and doctors set up shop. Jewish schools were established. Musicians formed orchestras – and inspired a generation of Chinese to learn European classical music. After World War II, most Shanghai Jews moved to Israel, the United States or back to Europe.

30/12/2024

MONDAY MEMORIES - In his ever-so-fascinating memoir, Simon Gjeroe offers a friendly helping hand to other foreigners attempting, like him, to navigate a path through a landscape of often perplexing cultural differences. This one was a hit in Shanghai - who read it? 🤰🏻