Since we started our in-depth book surveys over six years ago, no two years have been the same. This year, we are adding a new section - audio books and dvds, to reflect the rapidly changing world in which we live. It has been a strong year for books on India, reflecting the 60th anniversary of Independence. China is also at the forefront of the news, with more and more people wanting to know of China's past and in which direction its remarkable remarkable transformation is going. There are also some wonderfully entertaining, quirky and authoritative books published on Asian culture and travel in the fiction and miscellaneous sections.
Many of the specialist Asian art booksellers have websites and, with the rise in internet use for book ordering, we encourage you to continue to use these specialist dealers and booksellers to order your books. They can also help you with rare or out-of-print books.Most keep an amazing inventory, many of which can often be difficult to find elsewhere. Specialist booksellers all also produce catalogues and lists throughout the year. Such companies include Hanshan Tang, www.hanshan.com and Vanderven Art Books, www.vandervenartbooks.com and also Paragon Books.
Of course, you can still walk into your local good bookshop and order by using the book's ISBN number. However, a word about ISBN numbers: these can change depending on the country in which the book is printed and distributed. In 2007, there was yet another change (and improvement) to ISBN numbers. ISBN-13 has taken over from the old ISBN 10. By changing the ISBN to 13 digits, the book industry has fully aligned the numbering system for books with the global GTIN identification system that is widely used to identify most other consumer goods worldwide. These new ISBN numbers all start with 978. We have used this new system in most cases.
This 2007 Book Survey, as are all our other December book surveys, can be found on our new website, which was launched at the end of November. This list is on our current December web edition, the others are archived in Back Issues at asianartnewspaper.com.
Happy Reading - and listening.
Sarah Callaghan
CHINA
Chinese Sculpture: A Great Tradition
by Ann Paludan
Archaeological discoveries over the last 50 years have revolutionised the knowledge about Chinese sculpture, revealing the strength of a hitherto unsuspected tradition, stretching back to prehistoric times. This tradition was based on a widespread belief in the power of statuary to influence events both in the seen and unseen world. Using many previously unpublished photographs, this book traces the history of Chinese sculpture through the imperial period. By outlining the principles which underlie all forms of statuary, the text shows the extent to which sculpture in China has been adapted to serve the political, practical and spiritual needs of its rules through 2,000 years.
Serindia Publications, ISBN 13:9781932476286, £50
The First Emperor of China
by Frances Wood
Unifier or destroyer, law-maker or tyrant? In this new book about the emperor Frances Wood, head of the Chinese Department at the British Library, examines the evidence and discusses the man behind the myth. Despite the achievements of his reign, the First Emperor has been vilified since his death. Wood describes his life and times and reflects on the historical arguments over the real founder of China, considered to be one of the most important figures in Chinese history. Profile Books, ISBN978 1846680328, £15.99
The Terracotta Army
by John Man
The Terracotta Army is one of the greatest, and most famous, archaeological discoveries of all time. 8,099 life-size figures of warriors and horses were interred in the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of China - each is individually carved, and they are thought to represent real members of the emperor's army. This is the remarkable story of their creation, the man who ordered them made, their rediscovery and their continuing legacy as a pre-eminent symbol of Chinese greatness. The First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, was king of the Chinese state of Qin and the first man to unite China into a single empire.
Bantam Press,
ISBN 978-0593059296, £20
Empire of Great Brightness: Visual and Material Cultures of Ming China, 1368-1644
by Craig Clunas
This is an eminently readable history of the high point of Chinese cultures, seen through the riches of its images and objects. Great Brightness introduces the reader to themes that provide original points of entry into Ming China: ideas of motion and rest; the position given to writing and objects to do with writing; ideas about pleasure, about violence and ageing. The book offers a varied and different approach to this period of China's cultural history. Reaktion Books, ISBN 978 1861893314, £35
The Arts Of China After 1620
by William Watson
The third and final volume in the late Professor Watson's major three-volume series, surveying China's immense wealth of art, architecture, and artefacts. With good coverage of prints, colour printing, design, furniture, textiles, minor and export arts, as well as high art and, therefore, unusually comprehensive.
Pelican History of Art. London, £50. Available through Hanshan Tang books.
The British Museum Book of Chinese Art
edited by Jessica Rawson
This book was first published to celebrate the opening of the Joseph E Hotung Gallery of Oriental Antiquities at the museum in 1992. It has been republished in 2007 and aims to be an in-depth introduction to and reference for Chinese art and culture, from ceramics, textiles and painting to scholar's objects and calligraphy. Chapters include jades and bronzes for ritual; calligraphy and painting for official life; sculpture for tombs and temples; decorative arts; ceramics for use; and luxuries for trade.
The British Museum Press,
ISBN 978 0714124469, £16.99
Artists in China: Inside the Contemporary Studio
by Philip Tinari and Mario Ciampi
Artists in China documents the intriguing art and interiors that are emanating from China in the wake of the recent dynamic developments in the country's contemporary arts world. Showing spaces linked to more than fifty artists working in China today, and with more than 500 powerful photographs, this sumptuous, large-format book brilliantly captures the eclectic and exciting atmosphere that prevails in the Chinese art world today.
Thames & Hudson,
ISBN 978 0500238400, £48
China: The Fragile Superpower
by Susan L Shirk
What kind of superpower will China become, cooperative or aggressive? Susan Shirk, a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for China, has spent years thinking about this critical question. In China: The Fragile Superpower, she opens up the black box of Chinese domestic politics and reveals a fragile communist regime struggling to survive in a society turned upside down by economic growth and open markets. Shirk argues that the West's greatest danger is not China's economic or military strength but its internal fragility. She makes the case that it is usually rising powers that provoke wars, and unless Western states understand the fears that motivate Chinese leaders, they are likely to misread and mishandle China - and find themselves in an avoidable international conflict.
Oxford University Press,
ISBN 978 0195306095, £15.99
What Does China Think?
by Mark Leonard
China is changing so fast that the maps in Shanghai need to be rewritten every two weeks. We also know that China has brought 300 million people from agricultural backwardness into modernity in just 30 years (something that took 200 years in Europe). China's voracious appetite for resources is gobbling up 40% of the world's cement, 40% of its coal, 30% of its steel, and 12% of its energy. It has become so integrated into the global economy that its prospects have immediate effects on our everyday lives: simultaneously doubling the cost of the London Olympics while halving the cost of our computers; keeping the US economy afloat but sinking the Italian footwear industry. The West often has an image of China as a dictatorship; a nationalist empire that threatens its neighbours and global peace. This book sets out to discuss the difference between the impressions in the West whilst looking at the debates raging within China today.
Fourth Estate,
ISBN 978 0007230686, £10
The Great Wall: China Against the World, 1000BC-AD2000
by Julia Lovell
This book tells the history of the Great Wall by exploring the conquests and cataclysms of the Chinese empire over the past 3,000 years. Julia Lovell restores a human dimension to this astonishing structure: examining the emperors who planned new phases of building; the people who constructed, lived and guarded the walls; and the millions who died - of overwork, starvation, cold and combat. Atlantic Books, ISBN 978 1843542155, £9.99
INDIA/SOUTH ASIA/HIMALAYAS
The Majesty of Mughal Decoration
by George Michell
This book acts as a visual feast of Mughal art and design, using architecture, textiles, objets d'art, painting as its reference points. Michell analyses the influences that constitute the style: the Central Asian and Persian inheritances, as well as the rich indigenous traditions that were already to be found in India. The major section of the book discusses the dominant theme of geometry in Mughal design.
Thames and Hudson.
ISBN 978 0500513774, £35
Indian Temple Sculpture
by John Guy
This book examines Indian religious sculpture through its role in the temple - its cosmoligcal meaning, function within the architectural scheme and its dynamic, interactive role in worship. The first chapter puts religious sculpture of the Indian subcontinent into context. Other chapters go on to discuss the rules of Design (the Sastric tradition), the physical temple setting, devotion and temple worship, and finally iconography and emotion and manifestations and appearances.
V&A Publications,
ISBN 978 1851775095, £35
A Teardrop on the Cheek of Time: The Story of the Taj Mahal
by Diana and Michael Preston
In 1631, the heartbroken Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan, ordered the construction of a monument of unsurpassed splendour and majesty in memory of his beloved wife. Mumtaz died in childbirth (she bore him 14 children), and. blinded by grief, Shah Jahan created this exquisite and extravagant memorial for her on the banks of the river Jumna. The story behind the Taj Mahal has the cadences of Greek tragedy and Diana and Michael Preston succeed in producing a good narrative to explain the history and background of this magnificent building.
Doubleday, ISBN 978 0385609470, £16.99
India After Gandhi
by Ramanchandra Guha
Guha writes of the myriad protests and conflicts that have peppered the history of India pre- and post-independence. However, he writes also of the factors and processes that have kept the country together, kept it democratic, and defied the numerous voices that believed that its poverty and hetereogeneity would force India to break up or come under autocratic rule. One of the strengths of this book is the wealth and breadth of its sources. Moving between history and biography, the book looks at a range of characters, from the longstanding Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi to peasants, tribals, women, workers and musicians.
Macmillan,
ISBN 978-0230016545, £25
Planet India
by Mira Kamdar
India is everywhere - Indian studios produce animated features and special effects for Hollywood movies; Indian software manages our health records; and Indian customer service centres answer our calls. A country of English speakers and a free-market democracy, with the youngest population on Earth, India not only has one of the fastest growing consumer markets, but is also a source for the technological innovation that will drive the global economy. Yet, India is also in a race against time to bring the benefits of the 21st century to the 800 million Indians who live on less than £1 per day, and it must do so in a way that is environmentally sustainable and politically viable. Mira Kamdar offers a view of India and its cultural and economic impact on the world and examines the challenges India faces while celebrating India's tremendous vitality and the opportunities it has to offer.
Simon & Schuster,
ISBN 978-1847370686, £12.99
Vishnu's Crowded Temple,
by Maria Musra
Vishnu's Crowded Temple explains the persistence of India's extremes by presenting a new interpretation of its history during the 60th anniversary of independence. Maria Misra, a don at Keble College, Oxford, argues that India is different largely because its politics rest upon a peculiar foundation, in which traditional philosophies of hierarchy, difference and privilege coexist to a remarkable degree with modern notions of equality and democracy. This book also dissects the intervening attempts of various polemicists, politicians and prophets to transcend these inherent contradictions: from the baroque pseudo-traditional fantasies of the British to the religious arcadia of Gandhi; from the planned paradise of Nehru to the Hindu-raj of high-caste elites or the cyber utopias of its new business moguls.
Allen Lane, ISBN 978 0713993677, £25
The Mughal World
by Abraham Eraly
The three centuries of their rule, as laid out in Eraly's previous volume, The Mughal Throne, marks one of the most crucial and fascinating periods of Indian history. Here, he looks beyond the story of the empires rise and fall - an exotic growth that was transplanted to India from Islamic Persia - to bring the world of the Mughal ruler and Hindu subject vividly into focus. Blending contemporary sources and detailed description he introduces an India full of strangeness and contrast: of sacred harems and suttee rites, of brutal war and cultural and artistic refinement, of staggering opulence, deviant indulgences and abject poverty. From bizarre religious cults to the Mughal fondness for formal gardening, from murderous female bandits to the sex lives of the nobles, almost every angle of life is examined making this an absorbing introduction to India's last Golden Age. First UK edition, originally published by Penguin India.
Weidenfeld & Nicholson,
ISBN 978 0297852094, £25
The Khyber Pass: A History of Empire and Invasion
by Paddy Docherty
Thirty miles long, and in places no more than sixteen metres wide, the Pass is the principal route through the great mountain borderlands between India and Central Asia - and the path of invasion for generations of conquerors. In this ground-breaking book, Paddy Docherty charts its remarkable story - one which involves so many of the world's great leaders and civilisations, from the influential Persian kings to Alexander the Great, from the White Huns to Genghis Khan, not to mention the Ancient Greeks and countless tribes of nomads and barbarians. In addition, Docherty paints an illuminating picture of mountain warriors and religious visionaries, artists, poets and scientists as well as describing how around the Pass emerged three of the great world religions - Buddhism, Sikhism and Islam. Furthermore, he depicts its more modern significance as a lawless region of gunsmiths, drug markets and as a terrorist hideout. And through his own travels in this true frontier region and the continuing presence of US and British troops in Afghanistan, he brings the story into the 21st century.
Faber, ISBN 978-0571219773, £17.99
Holy Warriors: A Journey into the Heart of Indian Fundamentalism
by Edna Fernandes
This is an eye-opening exploration of India's incendiary religious mix - based on a series of face-to-face encounters with all flavours of the faithful, the fervent and the fanatical. In Holy Warriors, British-Indian journalist Edna Fernandes travels to the country's recent and past theatres of religious extremism - from Kashmir to Gujarat, Punjab to Goa - to meet the generals and foot soldiers of communal wars who assert their faith in rhetoric and rage. Theirs are stories of bigotry and bloodshed, insecurity and despair, but Fernandes listens with understanding, tolerance and a deft sense of humour, and paints a uniquely vivid and clear-sighted picture of a country divided by dogma.
Portobello Books,
ISBN 978-1846270963 £15.99
The Art of the Gandhara in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
by Kurt A. Behrendt
Ancient Gandhara, located in the rugged foothills of the Himalayas in what is today northwest Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan, was for centuries a thriving centre of trade along the Silk Road linking China, South Asia, and the Mediterranean. Gandhara's strategic position and wealth attracted many invaders, including the Greeks, Parthians, and Kushans, who brought with them diverse religious traditions and artistic conventions. Much of Gandharan art is thus a compelling fusion of foreign styles that ultimately gave visual form to the region's Buddhist religious ideals. This volume, drawing on the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, traces the complex and evolving artistic heritage of ancient Gandhara from the time of Alexander the Great's conquest of the region, in 330 BC to 8th century AD.
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
ISBN 05-007943, US$24.95
Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire
by Alex von Tunzelmann
The stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947 liberated 400 million Indians from the British Empire. One of the defining moments of world history had been brought about by a tiny number of people, including Jawaharlal Nehru, the fiery prime minister-to-be; Gandhi, the mystical figure who enthralled a nation; and Louis and Edwina Mountbatten, the glamorous but unlikely couple who had been dispatched to get Britain out of India without delay. Within hours of the midnight chimes, however, the two new nations of India and Pakistan would descend into anarchy and terror. Nehru, Gandhi and the Mountbattens struggled with public and private turmoil while their dreams of freedom and democracy turned to chaos, bloodshed, genocide and war. This book documents these often tragic events.
Simon & Schuster,
ISBN 978 0743285889, £20
India by Design: Colonial History and Cultural Display
by Saloni Mathur
This fascinating book questions what made India fashionable to Western audiences, from the mid-19th century to the present day, through an examination of India as represented in department stores, museums, exhibitions, paintings and picture postcards of the ear.
California University Press,
ISBN 978 0520252318, £11.95
Contemporary Indian Artists Series
Lund Humphries has published four new titles in their contemporary Indian artist series: Iranna GR, Himmat Shah, Krishen Khanna and Manu Parekh. Iranna's art is thought to be a stylistic challenge to post-modernism, using instead the representative and idealistic language of contemporary Indian painting. Like the dancer on the horse, Iranna balances his inner spirituality with the technical demands of the artistic medium, producing work which is both moving and aesthetically pleasing.
An Unreasoned Act of Being looks at the career of the draughtsman and sculptor Himmat Shah. As a founder member of ‘Group 1890', Shah championed contemporary Indian art as distinct from the influential Paris and New York schools. Shah's sculptural style is instantly recognizable in the totemic and iconic heads that are rather phallic in shape. By applying techniques used in printmaking, Shah marks the surfaces with grooves and etching, creating a rich contrast between the smooth and the rough bronze surfaces.
Krishen Khanna is a painter whose work engages the social, historical and political landscape of India. Born in Lahore in 1925, Khanna learned the tools of his trade at the evening classes conducted at the Mayo School of Art, Lahore. In the wake of India's partition he moved to Simla and thereafter to Delhi, where he currently lives and works. This book is the first to combine an Indian artist's monograph with the discussion of the socio-political context which motivated a generation of Indian artists.
Manu Parekh has executed a series of paintings inspired by Banaras. This book is a collection of the essays by eight writers who have been inspired by his work. The Banaras series is a symbolic rendering of the relationship between faith and fear, a dynamic which the artist identifies as uniquely Indian. Painted in the Indian Expressionist style, these works have a significant role in the development of modern Indian painting. Lund Humphries with Mapin Publishing, £24 each
The Triumph of Modernism. Indian Artists and the Avant-Garde 1922-47
by Partha Mitter
This book spans the period 1922-47 and explores the contested history of art and nationalism in colonial India. The author shows the modernist Western art, which was rebelling against the Western academic tradition, had a strong influence on Indian art made during this period. During the colonial period, and especially after the 1920s, the Western avant-garde provided a powerful weapon of resistance for Indian artists in their struggle against colonialism. Reaktion Books, ISBN 978 1861893185, £22.50
The Nectar of Manjushri's Speech
by Kunzang Pelden
Kunzang Pelden (sometimes known as Khenpo Kunpel) was born in Tibet in 1862. One of the great monk scholars of the Nyingma tradition, he was a close disciple of Patrul Rinpoches (author of The Words of My Perfect Teacher) and composed The Nectar of Manjushri's speech from his teacher's instructions during a six-month teaching given by the Rinpoche at Dzogchen Monastery.
Shambala, ISBN 978 1590304396, US$34.95
JAPAN/KOREA
Kingdom of Beauty, Mingei
and the Politics of Folk Art in Imperial Japan
by Kim Brandt
This book shows that the discovery of mingei (folk art) by Japanese intellectuals in the 1920/30s was central to the complex process by which Japan became both a modern nation and imperial world power. Brandt's account of the mingei movement locates its origins in colonial Korea, where middle-class Japanese artists and collectors discovered that imperialism offered them special opportunitites to amass art ojeects and gain social, cultural and even political influence. In tracing the history of mingei activisim, Brandt considers not only the well-known leaders of the folk-art movement, but also the networks involved in its success.
Duke University Press, ISBN 978 0822340003, paperback, £14.99
Kickboxing Geishas; How Modern Japanese Women are Changing Their Nation
by Veronica Chambers
Forget the stereotypes. Today's Japanese women are shattering them - breaking the bonds of tradition and dramatically transforming their culture. Shopping-crazed schoolgirls in Hello Kitty costumes and the Harajuku girls Gwen Stefani helped make so popular have grabbed the media's attention. But Veronica Chambers has discovered through years of returning to Japan and interviewing Japanese women, the more interesting story is that of the legions of everyday women, from the office suites to radio and TV studios to the worlds of art and fashion and on to the halls of government, who have kicked off a revolution in their country. With her keen eye for all facets of Japanese life, Veronica Chambers travels through the exciting world of Japan's new modern women to introduce these ‘kickboxing geishas' and the stories of their lives: the wildly popular young hip-hop DJ; the TV chef who is also a government minister; the entrepreneur who founded a market research firm specializing in charting the tastes of the teenage girls driving the country's GNC: ‘gross national cool'; and the Osaka assembly-woman who came out publicly as a lesbian - the first openly gay politician in the country.
Free Press, ISBN 978-0743271561, US$25
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Indonesian Women Artists: The Curtain Opens
by Carla Bianpaen, Farah Wardani and
Wulan Dirgantoro
This is the first book on modern and contemporary female Indonesian artists, to accompany the major exhibition held in Jakarta earlier this year . The book covers the history of female artists alongside the development of the various artistic movements in Indonesia in the 20th and 21st centuries. The book aims to be the groundwork for future studies in this area.
Yayasan Senirupa Indonesia (The Indonesian Arts Foundation), 2007,
ISBN 9789791656207,
www.indonesianwomenartists.com
Contemporary Art in Singapore
by Gunalan Nadarajan, Russell Storer and Eugene Tan
Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore has published a book dedicated to contemporary visual art in the city-state. It is doubtless the ICA's most significant monograph to date. Featuring 37 artists and cooperatives, the book is constructed straightforwardly as a listing, the artists presented in alphabetical order, each attributed a page of biographical detail and commentary, as well as three more illustrating their work. It is, above all and most usefully, a visual survey of the Singapore contemporary scene, including internationally-established figures such as Matthew Ngui, Amanda Heng, Zai Kuning, Suzann Victor and Tang Da Wu as well as younger, less well-known locals.
Institute of Contemporary Arts,
ISBN 978 9810564612, S$45,
Bayon: New Persepctives
edited by Joyce Clark
Bayon is a collection of articles from leading Angkor scholars brought together to produce fresh insights and research on the religion and mythology of the Khmer people and the life of Jayavarman VII. Claude Jacques presents a detailed vision of Jayavarman's life, family and successors, while TS Maxwell produces the first in-depth study of the Bayon's ‘short inscriptions' and through the unqiue Buddhist-Hindu-ancestral religion imposed by Jayavarman. Vittorio Roveda looks a the political reliefs of the Bayon's outer gallery to discuss the events of the reign. Extensive bibliography, detailed glossary of Sanskrit terms, as well as glossaries on Vietnamese and Cham terms and Khmer terms.
River Books, ISBN 9789749863473, £39.95
The Khmer Empire: Cities and Sanctuaries from the 5th to 13th Century
by Claude Jacques and
Philippe Lafond
At its height the Khmer empire stretched from Angkor in Cambodia as far west as Muang Singh on the border of present-day Burma and Thailand and as far north as Wat Phu on the banks of the Mekong. This book explores the achievements and developments of the Khmer empire from the 5th to 13th century, beginning with the early pre-Angkorian site of Funan and ending with the reign of Jayavarman VII.
River Books, ISBN 9749863305, £45
The Shan, Culture, Art and Crafts
by Susan Conway
The book begins by tracing the history of the Shan people and their royal families who ruled from the 13th to the middle of the 20th century. The focus is on fine art and crafts, including Buddhist mural paintings, textiles, furniture, lacquer ware, silverware, pottery and basketry, with illustrations in the form of historic photographs.
River Books, ISBN 9749863062, £35
The Invincible Kris 2
by Vanna Ghiringhelli
This new book focuses on the Indo-Malay kris with detailed technical descriptions, including blade forging. The last section looks at the little covered area of women's kris.
Saviolo Publishing, US$50,
Dutch East India Company Merchants at the Court of Ayutthaya: Dutch Perceptions of the Thai Kingdom c.1604-1765
by Bhawan Ruangslip
The history of Ayutthaya is based on a relatively small source of historical materials and this recent research by historian Bhawan Ruangslip has added considerably to the extant body of information. Using the primary sources of the Dutch East India Company from Ayutthaya to the offices in Batavia (now Jakarta). These dagregisters or day books and Dutch dispatches give detailed daily accounts of the period. The main body of the book concentrates on the city's final 80 years, from King Narai's death to the Burmese sacking, where the Dutch observations bring valuable insights to the events.
Tanap and Brill, ISBN 9004156003, US$99
The Secrets of Southeast Asian Textiles: Myth, Status and the Supernatural
edited by Jane Puranananda
This is the catalogue produced from the James HW Thompson Foundation Symposium papers. Throughout Asia, textiles have played an important role in concepts of power and kingship and are also closely associated with shamanistic, Buddhist and Islamic beliefs. These papers represent the research of leading scholars from around the world who participated in the symposium in 2005. Subjects include Cambodian textile hangings, minority textiles in Burma, Lao women's dress, the relationship between Buddhism and textiles and royal brocades in the Siamese court.
River Books, ISBN 978 9749863381, US$35
Early Landscapes of Myanmar
by Elizabeth H Moore
In this book, Elizabeth Moore describes the emergence of the Buddhist landscapes of Burma using data from her fieldwork and research in the area over the past 10 years. Sites, archaeology, artefacts and ecology of Upper and Lower Burma are mapped from the Paleolithic, Neolithic and Bronze-iron chiefdoms that preceded the Hindu-Buddhist periods. While the book's focus is Burma, this is linked to sites in Yunnan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Asia, emphasising the central theme of the relationship between man and the environment.
River Books, ISBN 9749863313, £22.50
ARCHITECTURE
Under The Eaves of Architecture:
The Aga Khan Builder and Patron
by Phillip Jodidio
The Aga Khan celebrates his Golden Jubilee in 2007. This book looks at the numerous initiatives and projects that have been launched to improve the built environment of the Muslim world. The book includes interviews with people that have been associated with these efforts.
Prestel, ISBN 978 379133784, £40
Beyond Bawa: Modern Masterworks of Monsoon Asia
by David Robson
Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa (1919-2003) was amongst the most influential architects in southeast Asia and in the last decades of the 20th century was one of the principal forces behind ‘tropical modernism'. This book looks at his career and the continuing legacy of Bawa's influence on contemporary architects working across Asia today.
Thames & Hudson,
ISBN 9780500342381, £39.95
Sultans & Mosques: The Early Muslim Architecture of Bangladesh
by Perween Hasan, I.B. Tauris, £49.50
The early muslim architecture of Bangladesh is an important but little studied part of the architectural heritage of the Islamic world and the Indian subcontinent. Before the Mughal style came to dominate the Islamic architecture of South Asia, Bengal and its rulers had developed their own forms. The mosque architecture of the Independent Sultanate period (14th to 16th centuries), represents the most important element of the Islamic architecture of Bengal. In this book, Perween Hasan demonstrates that the distinctive style of the region drew its inspiration from the indigenous vernacular architecture of Bengal, which is also a source for the Buddhist/Hindu temple architecture of the region. I.B. Taurus, ISBN 978-1845113810, £49.50
MISCELLANEOUS
30,000 Years of Art: The Story of Human Creativity Across Time and Space
This enormous tome certainly sets itself an ambitious aim - to produce 1,000 masterworks from different countries, cultures and civilizations in chronological order. Thankfully, there is a good comparative timeline, which also lists the chosen works of art. Just under 90 countries feature, with Asian and Islamic art well represented. It is like taking a walk through every museum in the world from the comfort of your own home. As a source for comparative decorative arts, it is not only an extremely useful tool, but also utterly fascinating. One to buy, if your bookshelves can take the weight.
Phaidon, ISBN 978 0714847894, £29.95
The Times Complete History of the World edited
by Richard Overy
This indispensable work, now in its 7th edition, has sold over 2.25 million copies since its first publication in 1978. Divided into seven sections: Human Origins and Early Cultures; The First Civilisations; The Classical Civilisation of Eurasia; The World of Divided Religions; The World of The Emerging West; The Age of European Dominanace; and The Age of Global Civilisation which ends by portraying the world in the early years of the 21st century. History is recounted in concise, clear sections and illustrated through the use of maps, diagrams, photographs and quotes to illustrate the text.
HarperCollins, IBSN 978 0007259274, £75
Disappearing World: The Earth's Most Extraordinary and Endangered Places
by Alonzo C Addison
Since 1972, 851 places around the world have been included on the official list of World Heritage Sites (WHS). Whilst the listing brings some protection, it does not automatically keep them safe from harm. Here, Alonzo C Addison, a special advisor to the head of UNESCO, explores 101 of these most-threatened heritage sites. Asian sites included are the Taj Mahal, The Great Wall of China, Angkor, The Kathmandu Valley, The tropical Rainforests of Sumatra, the minaret of Jam, Afghanistan, and the archaeological remains of the Bamiyan Valley. A proportion of book sales goes to the conservation of WHS.
HarperCollins,
ISBN 978 0007261185, £25
From Persepolis to the Punjab; Exploring Ancient Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan
by Elizabeth Errington and Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis
The authors bring together the most up-to-date research drawn from several disciplines in order to examine the personalities, scripts, empires, dynasties and religions of the complex region. The phrase ‘from Persepolis to the Punjab' refers to the west Iranian empires of the Achaemenids (550-331 BC), Parthians (238 BC -224 AD) and Sassanians (224-651), which extend eastwards through Afghanistan to the north-western borderlands of the Indian subcontinents. Includes a glossary of Chinese names, list of rulers and dynasties, as well a comprehensive bibliography.
The British Museum Press,
ISBN 978 0714111650, £66.99
The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In
by Hugh Kennedy
This book mainly covers the period between 632 and 750 and looks at the Byzantine and Persian conquests by an Arab Muslim empire. In the East, Muslim rule extended to the borders of China and in the West they were only stopped from conquering France at the Battle of Poitiers in 732. This book explores the reasons, as well as the background of the rise of this powerful Caliphate.
Weidenfeld & Nicholson,
ISBN 978 0297846574, £25
After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire
by John Darwin
Tamerlane was the last of the ‘world conquerors': his armies looted and killed from the shores of the Mediterranean to the frontiers of China. Nomad horsemen from the Steppes had been the terror of Europe and Asia for centuries, but with Tamerlane's death in 1405, an epoch of history came to an end. The future belonged to the great dynastic empires - Chinese, Mughal, Iranian and Ottoman - where most of Eurasia's culture and wealth was to be found, and to the oceanic voyagers from Eurasia's ‘Far West', just beginning to venture across the dark seas. After Tamerlane describes world history on a grand scale, allowing the reader to reflect on the fate of global powers.
Allen Lane, ISBN 798 0713996678, £25
Mumbai to Mecca: A Pilgrimage to the Holy Sites of Islam
by Ilija Trojanow
One January morning, Ilija Trojanow, with the help of his friends donned the ibraw, the traditional garb of the pilgrim, and boarded a plane in Mumbai to fly to Dhiba. He joined hundreds of thousands of Muslims, who each year go on the Hajj - the greatest demonstration of the Muslim faith. This is the story of his personal journey.
Haus Publishing, ISBN 978 1904950295, £12.99
The Travels and Journal of Ambrosio Bembo edited
by Anthony Welch
In 1671, Ambrosio Bemo, a young nobleman from Venice, set off on a four-year voyage to Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and the Portuguese colonies of western India. His journal has now been translated into English for the first time. Bembo was a keen observer and his vivid account is full of descriptions of the people he met, their social customs as well as the cities and landscapes he explored during his travels.
University of California Press, ISBN 978 0 520249394, £14.95
Islamic Calligraphy in the Wellcome Library
edited by Nikolaj Serikoff
Detailed and well-illustrated catalogue of a small but important collection. Contributions by the editor and six internationally distinguished scholars.
Serindia, ISBN 978 1932476330, £40. Available from Hanshan Tang.
Shanghai Museum
edited by Chen Xiejun
The new guide to the Shanghai Museum, which reopened in 1993 in its new building in Renmin Square. It has approximately 120,000 objects from its collections on show displayed in nine major collections: Ancient Bronzes, Sculpture, Ceramics, Painting, Calligraphy, Seals, Jades, Coins and Ming and Qing furniture, as well as the arts and crafts of China's minority cultures. Illustrated with highlights from the collection.
Scala, ISBN 978 1857594997, US$35
China Road
by Rob Gifford
Route 312 - China's Route 66 - is the artery along which 150 million Chinese are daily travelling in search of work and a better life. Running 3,000 miles from the east-coast boomtown of Shanghai to the border of Kazakhstan in the northwest, crossing many ethnic and provincial boundaries, it is the transcontinental road that Rob Gifford has always wanted to travel. Part personal pilgrimage, part reportage, Gifford's book cuts right through the middle of the turmoil of China in change.
Bloomsbury, ISBN 978 0747588924, £12.99
The River of Lost Footsteps:
Histories of Burma
by Thant Myint-U
Thant Myint-U relates the story of modern Burma, partly by telling his own family's history, in an interwoven narrative that is by turns lyrical, dramatic and appalling. His maternal grandfather, U Thant, rose from being the schoolmaster of a small town in the Irrawaddy Delta to become the Secretary General of the United Nations in the 1960s. And on his father's side, the author is descended from a long line of courtiers who served at Burma's Court of Ava for nearly two centuries. Through their stories and others, he portrays Burma's rise and decline in the modern world, from the time of Portuguese pirates and renegade Mughal princes through the decades of British colonialism, the devastation of World War II, and the current troubles that continue today.
Faber & Faber, ISBN 978 0571217557, £20
Inside the Red Mansion
by Oliver August
In 1999, shortly after arriving in Beijing as The Times' China correspondent, Oliver August set out on the trail of China's most wanted man, Lai Changxing. An illiterate peasant from the coastal city of Xiamen, Lai created his own shipping empire from nothing before vanishing abruptly when the Communist Party accused him of corruption and fraud. Once the richest man in the country, Lai was now public enemy number one because his immense wealth became a threat to Beijing's power. Oliver August's highly entertaining search for Lai takes him to the brothels, backwaters and boardrooms that define the spirit of an emerging nation. Part investigation, part personal memoir, it is a deeply atmospheric journey into the new China, from the austere bureaucrats of Beijing to the gilded pirate coast opposite Taiwan; from the Gobi desert plains where migrant labour is recruited, to the skyscrapers and nightclubs of boomtowns like Xiamen.
John Murray, ISBN 978 0719560064, £20
The Dragon and The Elephant
by Robyn Meredith
Robyn Meredith traces the rise of economic power within the two Asian giants: China and India. The author looks at the repercussions of their phenomenal growth and its impact of the West, through examining how business works in the two countries, with their opposing economic and political strategies.
WW Norton & Co,
ISBN 978 0393062366, £16.99
Murder in Samarkand
by Craig Murray
Craig Murray took up his post as British Ambassador in Uzbekistan in 2002. But after hearing accounts of dissident prisoners being tortured and killed by agents of the state, he started to question both his role and that of his country in the so-called democratising states. This is his dark and shocking memoir.
Mainstream Publishing,
ISBN 978 1845962210, £7.99
In Search of Kazakhstan: the land that Disappeared
by Christopher Robbins
Crisscrossing a vanished land, Christopher Robbins finds Eminem by a shrinking Aral Sea, goes wolf-hunting by helicopter, visits the scene of Dostoyevsky's doomed first love, takes up residence beside one-time neighbour Leon Trotsky and visits some of the most beautiful, unspoilt places on earth.
Profile Books, ISBN 978 1861978684, £12.99
Storm and Conquest: The Battle for the Indian Ocean, 1808-10
by Stephen Taylor
In 1809, the Indian Ocean was a fiercely contested region and this accessible book tells of how the British navy sought to drive Napoleon's fleets from these waters, thus securing the area for the East India Company. The book related the stories of these ‘Indiamen', who fought to keep the commercial sea route to India open.
Faber & Faber,
ISBN 978 0571224654, £20
Asian Furniture: A Directory and Sourcebook
edited by Peter Moss
This compendium is a visual reference guide that traces the development of furniture design and styles over eight countries: China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Tibet and the Philippines. The furniture is organised by country, then by type to allow for easy reference. A usual introduction to the various woods, as well as tools used, is included at the back of the book.
Thames and Hudson,
ISBN 978 0500513781, £39.95
Birds of the Paleartic: Passerines
by Norman Arlott
A field guide to all the songbirds found from Britian, eastwards to Japan and as far south as the Sahara and Himalayas. Perfect for any Asian-art loving, travelling birdwatcher!
Collins, IBSN 9780007147052, £25
EXHIBITION CATALOGUES
CHINA
The First Emperor
edited by Jane Portal
This catalogue looks at the historical and archaeological context of the Terracotta Warriors, the major exhibition of 2007 at the British Museum, and explores the new research and excavation that has been carried out in the years since the first discovery in 1974. The book is divided into five sections, all written by experts in the field. The first chapter concentrates on the Qin's rise and military conquest and unification of the Warring States. The second chapter explores the Qin Empire, its ideology and practices, and the emperor's achievements and legacy. The third chapter examines imperial tours and mountain inscriptions, and the fourth focuses on the mausoleum itself and the rituals that surrounded it. The fifth and final chapter, the crux of the book, examines the site itself, the Terracotta Army, the various new excavations that have taken place and future plans. Large numbers of the Terracotta Army's men and horses, displayed in military formation, are illustrated with striking photography. Their manufacture is explained and demonstrated with moulds, inscriptions, broken warriors and heads of warriors. Also illustrated and discussed are fascinating new discoveries such as terracotta bureaucrats, acrobats and strong men, life-size bronze birds, hundreds of suits of stone armour and terracotta warriors with coloured faces preserved with new technology.
British Museum Press,
ISBN 978 0714124476, £25
Chinese Prints
1950-2006 in the Ashmolean Museum
by Shelagh Vainker and Weimin He
Focusing on the period since the establishment of the People's Republic of China, this catalogue which accompanies the museum's current exhibition. Prints include the New Year's pictures of the 1950s, the propaganda style woodcuts produced during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution period of the 1960s-70s, and those made after China's open door policy of the 1980s up to the present day. The catalogue reflects the way in which artists have responded to these cultural, political and economic transformations through their work and aesthetic ideas. Some 120 works from 67 established Chinese printmakers are reproduced to the highest standard in this catalogue, tracing the development from the first generation of printmaking masters to younger generations. An informative introduction and useful chronology are also included.
Ashmolean Museum,
ISBN 978-1854442284, £14.95
New Songs on Ancient Tunes 19th/20th Century Chinese Painting and Calligraphy
by Stephen Little
New Songs on Ancient Tunes presents a sweeping selection of Chinese paintings and calligraphies from the turbulent century between 1850 and 1950. Drawn entirely from the private San Francisco collection of the Reverend Richard Fabian, the works span the years between the Opium Wars and the Cultural Revolution. The book includes a survey of the bold style of the late 19th-century Shanghai School, as contrasted with the conservative artists of the late Qing dynasty Orthodox School, and examines the impact on artists of the new urban (and international) culture of Shanghai, and interactions with Western and Japanese art. The book also explores the influence of Chinese archaeology on late Qing dynasty calligraphy and in turn, the influence of new styles of calligraphy on painting.
Honolulu Academy of Arts,
ISBN 978-0937426791, £41
Picturing China 1870-1950 Photographs from British Collections
This catalogue has been produced to accompany the travelling exhibition, which is at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, London and moves to Museum of East Asian Art in Bath and on to Durham later in 2008. The ‘Historical photographs of China' project at the University of Bristol aims to explore a major potential source of records of that vanished or vanishing Chinese past: photographs held overseas in private hands, or locked in libraries and archives which do not have the capacity to make them available. Between 1842 and 1954, tens of thousands of Britons visited or lived and worked in China. In the Chinese Maritime Customs Service alone 5,500 were employed at some point. Two thousand five hundred men served in the police in Shanghai. Many bought, commissioned, or took, or otherwise acquired, photographs while they were there. They often brought back to Britain significant sets of materials. As records of the China contemporary to their sojourns, or as records of colonial lifestyles, such images are of immense interest.
ISSN, 17556643, £15
Yixing Zisha Wares in the Palace Museum, Beijing
Catalogue of a delightful and very sophisticated exhibition at the Gugong Museum in Beijing showing 200 superb Yixing objects, many from the Qing court collection. Comprises 10 objects from the Ming, 180 from the Qing and 10 contemporary Yixing items by modern masters donated to the Gugong. The majority of exhibits are, of course, yixing teapots, a number of which are glazed (the seldom-seen Yijun ware) and many bear inscriptions and designs. The exhibition also included other Yixing objects such as tea canisters, brushpots, inkslabs, cups and water containers. Most of the objects have never previously been exhibited. Preface, introduction, list of contents and captions in English. Fuller text in Chinese. Available from Hanshan Tang, £60
Masterpieces of Buddhist Images, National Museum of China
Catalogue of a superb exhibition held at the National Museum of China in Beijing showing 200 examples of Tibetan bronze or gilt-bronze buddhist sculpture dating from the 8th to 19th centuries. A few exhibits are from Nepal or the Himalayan region. This is the first time these bronzes have been publicly exhibited, being held in the collection of the China Cultural Relics Information Advisory Centre. A large amount of the material exhibited is pre-18th century. The exhibition provides a detailed overview of the history and development of bronze buddhist sculpture in Tibet with objects of the highest quality and rarity. All 200 exhibits are illustrated in colour plates, many in multiple views. Text in Chinese. Printed in a limited number and hard to obtain, £90, available from Hanshan Tang.
The Silk Road in Inner Mongolia
Dao Chu Wu Wai: Zhongguo Beifang
Caoyuan Sichou Zhi Lu.
Catalogue accompanying the exhibition at the Hong Kong University Museum and Art Gallery which showed 80 extraordinary artefacts dating from the Tang, Liao and Yuan dynasties, many from the collection of the Inner Mongolia Museum. Includes porcelain, glass, gold and silver wares, harnesses and Nestorian Christian items. Many of the objects have seldom been exhibited before. Includes essays: Wang: A Nestorian Christian Porcelain Plaque of the Ogodei Khan Period; Wang: The Great Plain Truth: Precepts of Genghis Khan; Ding: Gold and Silver Wares Unearthed in a Yuan Tomb by the Engee'r River; Su: The Influence of Foreign Cultures on Ceramics Excavated in Inner Mongolia. Bilingual Chinese and English texts, £50
Available from Hanshan Tang.
Le Masque de la Chine
by Yves Crehalet
Catalogue from the exhibition of Chinese Nuo ritual masks in Paris in 2007. In French, ISBN 978 2742766772
China Onward: The Estella Collection 1966-2006
by Britta Erickson, Hou Hanru, and Martina Koppel-Yang
This large volume was published to accompany the exhibition held earlier this year at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen. It covers most of the major Chinese artists working today, including Wang Keping, Huang Rui, Ai Weiwei, Cai Guo-Qiang, Cai Jin, Feng Zhengjie, Wenda Gu, Huang Yong Ping, Rong Rong and Inri, Su-en Wong, Xu Bing, Yue Minjun, Weng Fen and Zhang Huan, amongst others. Includes an artist index and bibliography. A good introduction to the subject.
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, ISBN 978 8791607387, £48
JAPAN
Awakenings: Zen Figure Paintings in Medieval Japan
by Gregory Levine and Yukio Lippit
Transmitted from China to Japan in the 13th century, Zen Buddhism not only introduced religious practices but also literature, calligraphy, philosophy, and ink painting to Japanese disciples. This elegant book discusses these fields as they combined to encompass the evocative practice of figure painting within Zen Buddhism in medieval Japan. Focusing on approximately fifty exceptional Japanese and Chinese paintings and sculptures from the 12th to the early 17th centuries which together illustrate the story of the ‘awakening' of Zen art, this book features essays by distinguished scholars discussing the rituals and functions of figural paintings within Zen monastic and lay communities. The authors explore the ideology underlying the development of Zen's own pantheon of characters created to imagine the Buddha's wisdom and offer fresh insights into the role of the visual arts within Zen practice as it developed in Japan in close dialogue with the Asian continent. Japan Soceity/Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0300119640, US$45
Crafting Beauty in Modern Japan
edited by Nicole Rousmaniere
Japan has a long tradition of superb art-craft skills in many media - ceramics, textiles, lacquerware, metals, wood and bamboo, dolls, cut gold-leaf inlay, glass, cloisonné. Indeed, the respect for the beauty of the objects created, the materials and techniques, is embedded in Japanese social attitudes and culture. This book, published to coincide with an exhibition at the British Museum, presents some of the best art-crafts to have been produced in Japan over the last fifty years. The pieces illustrated also represent the finest examples submitted to the annual Japan Art Crafts Association exhibition since its inauguration in 1954 - an open, competitive exhibition that has become the major showcase for modern decorative arts. A number of the artists featured are ‘Living National Treasures': the holders of special craft skills, as designated by the Japanese government. Some of the works are traditional in form or function; others are infused with modern beauty.
British Museum Press,
ISBN 978 0714124483, £25
© MURAKAMI
by Paul Schimmerl
Murakami is the monograph accompanying the first retrospective devoted to Takashi Murakami at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in the fall of 2007. The book traces back the career of today's most famous and successful contemporary artist from Japan. The various essays by Paul Schimmel, Dick Hebdige, Midori Matsui, Mika Yoshitake, and Scott Rothkopf discuss Takashi Murakami the artist, the brand, the entrepreneur, the innovator, his influences, and his impact. © Murakami features the artist's most famous pieces as well as his earlier works that have rarely been published.
Rizzoli International Publications, ISBN 978 0847830039, US$65
Kannon Divine Compassion: Early Buddhist Art from Japan
edited by Katharina Epprecht
Accompanied the exhibition at the Rietburg Museum, Zurich in 2007, Catalogue available in German and English.
Paul Holberton Publishing,
ISBN 978 3907077306, £26.99
Nabeshima: Porcelain for the Shogunate,
Kyushu Ceramic Museum
Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Kyushu Ceramic Museum in Japan of 234 Nabeshima ware, considered the finest porcelain in Japan and made for presentation to the Shogun and immediate family. The exhibits date from the 1640s to the mid-19th century and the whole comprises an excellent visual reference on this ware. Foreword, 10 page introduction to the exhibition and 10 page list of plates in English. Main text in Japanese.
Saga, £60, Available Hanshan Tang
The Peacock's Feather, Gentlemen's Jewelry of
Old Japan.
by J Kurstin and G Lorin,:
Published to coincide with an exhibition of netsuke, inro and sagemono at the Morikami Museum in Florida. 112 pieces were loaned from numerous collections, many pieces never shown before.
Available from Hanshan Tang, £40
77 Dances: Japanese Calligraphy by Poets, Monks, and Scholars, 1568-1868
by Stephen Addiss
This is the first book to cover Japanese calligraphy spanning the significant Momoyama and Edo periods (1568-1868), examines the art of writing at a time when it was undergoing a remarkable creative flowering. Everything from complex Zen conundrums to gossamer haiku poems were written with a verve, energy, and creativity that display how deeply the fascination for calligraphy had penetrated into the social fabric of Japan. Many different groups of calligraphers created works for diverse audiences, including educated admirers of professional calligraphy, Chinese-style poets, Confucianists, literati, followers of Zen, devotees of courtly waka waka poetry, and haiku enthusiasts. Stephen Addiss shows how these artistic worlds both maintained their own independence and interacted to create a rich brocade of calligraphic techniques and styles.
Weatherhill Inc,
ISBN 978-0834805712, £52
Degas and the Art of Japan
by Jill de Vonyar
This is the first publication in English devoted to the engagement of Edgar Degas with Japanese culture. Degas' fascination with Japanese art began in 1868 when the artist was still in his early twenties. What has been lacking, however, is evidence that Degas had access to the specific Japanese works or variants when in Paris. This exhibition and catalogue essays attempt to track indivudual prints to collections known to Degas, to works exhibited or reproduced during his career, as well and prints known to be in his possession.
Yale University Press,
ISBN 9780300126334, £18
The Culture of Copying in Japan: Critical and Historical Perspectives,
edited by Rupert Cox
This book challenges the perception of Japan as a ‘copying culture' through a series of detailed ethnographic and historical case studies. It addresses a question about why the West has had such a fascination for the adeptness with which the Japanese apparently assimilate all things foreign and at the same time such a fear of their skill at artificially remaking and automating the world around them.
Routledge, ISBN 978-0415307529, £75
SOUTH ASIA/HIMALAYAN
Tibet: Kloster Offnen Ihre Schatzkammern
Major catalogue that accompanied the exhibition Tibet: Monasteries Open Their Treasuries at the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin in 2007. In German only.
L'Age d'or de l'Inde Classique, L'Empire des Gupta
edited by the late MC Joshi,
Accompanied the exhibition in Paris earlier this year. Published by Reunion des musees nationaux, 2007. In French only
Kingdom of the Sun: Indian Court and Village Art from the Princely State of Mewar
by Joanna Williams
This major catalogue, edited by exhibition curator Joanna Williams of the University of California, Berkeley, accompanied the exhibition Princes, Palaces, and Passion, and includes five original essays by leading scholars as well as detailed entries on each of the objects in the exhibition. Containing 170 full-colour illustrations as well as a glossary, a bibliography, and an index, providing an authoritative overview of the varied arts of Mewar.
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco,
ISBN 0-939117-39-8, US$40
CENTRAL ASIA
Central Asian Ikats
by Ruby Clark
Centuries old, the ikat technique is a complex sequence of tie-dying silk threads to create elaborate patterns in striking colours before weaving. This introduction to the magnificent ikats of Central Asia sets the creation of these fabrics into the context of a long history of textile production, which once centred around the trade of the famous Silk Road. Illustrated with examples from the collection of Doris Raus, the exhibition is currently on show at the museum. The book also examines the social significance and various functions of these fabrics in Central Asian culture, as well as describing the complex making technique. V&A Publications,
ISBN 978-1851775255, £19.99
FICTION
A Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hosseini
This epic is the tale of two women brought together through family connections to live through the unfolding events of the past 30 years in Afghanistan. An unforgettable portrait of a wounded country and a deeply moving story of family and friendship.
Bloomsbury Publishing,
ISBN 978 0747582793, £11.99
The Sleeping Buddha
by Hamida Ghafour
This is an evocative family memoir and unique portrait of Afghanistan from a young Afghan journalist. Hamida Ghafour's family fled Kabul after the Russian invasion. In 2003, she was sent back by the Telegraph to cover the country's reconstruction. She finds a place changed utterly from the world her parents had described and her grandmother - an Afghan Virginia Woolf - had written about. But the people she meets reveal a different kind of nation building: the ‘beautician without borders' whose school teaches women a new kind of independence; her cousin's determined parliamentary campaign; the archaeologist digging for his country's lost civilization in the form of a giant sleeping Buddha. As she participates in her country's present, its elusive past and her family's own story come vividly together for Hamida. Constable and Robinson,
ISBN 978 1845293130, £8.99
Fireproof
by Raj Kamal Jha,
In February 2002, a helpless nation watches as the city of Ahmedabad in India was rocked by religious violence. More than a hundred Muslim men, women and children were killed, most of them burnt alive. Above the smoke and flames, the dead decide to intervene. So begins "Fireproof", Raj Kamal Jha's mesmerizing new novel, in which the murdered whisper from footnotes and photographs. At the heart of the novel is its narrator Jay - a man who carries with him an unspeakable secret and a newborn baby - and a mystery woman, who writes with her fingers on glass, drawing man and child out of their home and on a journey across the burning city.
Picador, 978 0330493765, £12.99
The Elephanta Suite
by Paul Theroux
This book captures the tumult, ambition, hardship and serenity that mark modern India. The three novellas include a holidaying middle-aged couple, who veer heedlessly from idyll to chaos. A buttoned-up Boston lawyer finds relief in Mumbai's slums. A young woman befriends an elephant in Bangalore.
Hamish Hamilton,
ISBN 978 0241143667, £17.99
Filming: A Love Story
by Tabish Khair,
Set primarily in India and spanning the 20th century, Filming tells a series of stories, including that of one-time prostitute, Durga, who is persuaded to give away her young son, Ashok, and that of Saleem, the son of a prostitute and two-times star of the silver screen.
Picador, ISBN 978 0330419222, £16.99
The Solitude of Emperors
by David Davidar
Suffocating in the small-town world of his parents, Vijay is desperate to escape to the raw energy of Bombay in the early 1990s. He finally gets a job on a small Bombay publication, which exposes him to the damage caused by to his nation by the mixing of religion and politics. A year after his arrival in Bombay, Vijay is caught up in violent riots that rip though the city, a reflection of the upsurge of fundamentalism everywhere in the country. He is sent to a small tea town in the Nilgiri mountains to recover, but finds that the unrest in the rest of India has touched this peaceful spot as well, specifically a spectacular shrine called The Tower of God, which is the object of political wrangling. As the discord surrounding the local shrine comes to a head, Vijay tries to alert them to the dangers, but his intervention will have consequences he could never have foreseen. Weidenfeld & Nicholson,
ISBN 978 0297852083, £12.99
The Inheritance of Loss
by Kiran Desai
In the foothills of the Himalayas sits a once grand, now crumbling house - home to three people and a dog. There is the retired judge dreaming of colonial yesterdays; his orphaned granddaughter Sai who has fallen for her clever maths tutor; the cook, whose son Biju writes untruthful letters home from New York City; and Mutt, the judge's beloved dog. Around the house swirls mountain mist, but also the forces of revolution and change. For a new world is clashing with the old, and the future offers both hope and betrayal ... Penguin Books,
ISBN 978 0141027289, £7.99
The Peacock Throne
by Sujit Saraf
31 October, 1984 begins like any other day for Gopal Pandey as he sets up his tea stall in a lane off Chandni Chowk -- the most magnificent and crowded street in all Delhi. At its head lies Red Fort, once the home of the gem-encrusted Peacock Throne, symbol of the Mughal Empire's dazzling might, and of its downfall. By the end of the day, Indira Gandhi has been assassinated, violent riots have erupted and Gopal is the bemused possessor of a large sum of money. Fourteen turbulent years and four dramatic turning points in Indian history later, this illiterate, bumbling man stands on the verge of immense political power. Gopal's unlikely journey is a tale of accidents, scheming, murder and tragedy, religious and political rivalries, corruption and hubris. Irreverent, farcical and as enlightening as it is entertaining
Sceptre, ISBN 978 0340899694 £12.99
Mosquito
by Roma Tearne
A story of love, loss and civil war, set in Sri Lanka, London and Venice. When author Theo Samarajeeva returns to his native Sri Lanka after his wife's death, he hopes to escape his loss amidst the lush landscape of his increasingly war-torn country. But as he makes a life in his beautiful, tortured homeland, he also finds himself slipping into friendship with an artistic young girl, Nulani, whose family is caught up in the growing turmoil - a friendship that gradually blossoms into love set against the background of civil war. Harper Press, ISBN 978-0007251124, £14.99
Oracle Bones
by Peter Hessler
Peter Hesseler's previous Book River Town was an acclaimed success, in Oracle Bones, he returns to the Chinese countryside, excavating its long history and immersing himself in the lives of young Chinese as they migrate from the traditional Chinese countryside to the booming ever-changing cities and try to cope with their society's modern transformation.
John Murray, ISBN 9780719564413, £9.99
The Dissident
by Nell Freudenberger
A famous Chinese performance artist and political activist accepts an artist's residency in Los Angeles, where he is to stay with a wealthy Beverly Hills family. From the moment he arrives, however, it becomes clear that all is not what it seems - on either side. The dissident seems strangely reluctant to talk about his past, and is happier teaching than working on projects of his own; his hosts appear - on the surface at least - to be a happy, nuclear family, yet their relationships are, in fact, fraught with rivalries and tensions. Set in Los Angeles and Beijing, a story of a life in flux and a family near breaking point - and what happens when the two collide.
Picador, ISBN 9780330493437, £14.99
February Flowers
by Fan Wu
Set in modern China, February Flowers tells the stories of two young women's journeys to self-discovery and reconciliation with the past. Seventeen-year-old Ming and twenty-four-year-old Yan have very little in common other than studying in the same college. Ming, idealistic and preoccupied, lives in her own world of books, music and imagination. Yan, by contrast, is sexy but cynical, beautiful but wild, with no sense of home. Insightful, sophisticated, and rich with complex characters, February Flowers captures a society torn between tradition and modernity, dogma and freedom.
Picador, ISBN 978 0330447713, £12.99
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
by Xiaolu Guo
Z is a 23-year-old Chinese language student who has come to London to learn English. When the book begins she can barely ask for a cup of tea, but when language comes, so does love. As she gets to know British culture she also falls for an older English man who lives a resolutely bachelor life in Hackney. It's a million miles away from the small Chinese town she comes from, where her parents want nothing more for her than that she should follow them into the shoe business. Written in short chapters, each the definition of a word, this is a brilliantly clever book that pokes fun at England and China and explores the endless possibilities for misunderstanding between East and West, men and women.
Chatto & Windus,
ISBN 9780701181141, £7.99
Miss Chopsticks
by Xinran Xue
Three sisters who, like so many migrant workers in today's China, are forced to leave their peasant community to seek their fortune in the big city (Nanjing). As the Li sisters discover Nanjing, so do we: its past, its customs and culture, and its future as a place where people can change their lives.
Chatto, ISBN 9780701180423, £7.99
Grotesque
by Natsuo Kirino
Two prostitutes have been murdered in Tokyo. Twenty years previously, both women were educated at an elite school for young ladies, and both exhibited exceptional promise prior to their brutal, unnecessary deaths. How and why did this tragedy occur? With narration from Yuriko's embittered, unattractive sister and through the girls' journals and diaries Kirino allows their shocking story to unfurl. The extreme need to succeed, and the vicious desire to be accepted in the bewildering environment of modern life is explored here with acute and chilling insight. The Harvill Press,
ISBN 978 1843432708, £17.99
Free Food for Millionaires
by Min Jin Lee
The elder daughter of working-class Korean immigrants who run a dry cleaning shop in Manhattan, Casey inhabits a New York a world away from that of her parents. As Casey navigates an uneven course of small triumphs and spectacular failures, a clash of values, ideals and ambitions plays out against the colourful backdrop of New York society, its many layers, shades and divides.
Hutchinson, ISBN 978 0091921088, £11.99
Audio Books
Mark Tully's India
by Mark Tully
Tying in with the 60th anniversary of India's independence, this is a compliation of Mark Tully's actual reports (he was the BBC's India correspondent from 1972-1994). Along with news reports are reflections/insights on India's history by Tully, putting historic and often complex events into context. Listening to Tully with his wealth of knowledge is an enjoyable and fulfiling way of experiening India's modern history.
BBC Audiobooks,£12.99, two hours on 2 CDs, downloadd £9.09 on bbb, ISBN 978 140568757. It can also be dowloaded from such sites as Audible, Simply Audiobooks, iTunes, Spoken Network or TuneTribe or bbcaudiozone.
The History of India,
by Michael Wood
In a different vein is Michael Wood's audio hsitory series, produced as a companion to the BBC TV series of the same name, which was shown in the autumn (the series is also available on DVD with a book to accompany the series). The six programmes of cultural history spanned from the Indus Valley Civilisatoin to modern-day India. The programme and accompanying material explore the ways in which Indian ideas and inventions have shaped the history of the world, and shows how some of ancient India's conclusions about the nature of civilisation have lost none of their relevance for our own times. One tiny criticism would be it would be good to have a play list/running order for the CDs to be able to find chapters easily and quickly.
BBC Audiobooks, 10 hours on 8 CDs, ISBN 978 1405677325, £25, download from www.bbcaudiozone.com.
