A Christmas Carol

Yes, It Is True

Enigma of China (An Inspector Chen Novel) by Qiu Xiaolong

Paperback:  Enigma of China (2013) is the eighth book in the Inspector Chen Novel series and is dedicated to the Chinese netizens who fight for their citizenship in the cyberspace - unimaginable elsewhere - in the face of authoritarian control.

Chief Inspector Chen Cao - a poet by training and inclination - was assigned by the Party to the Shanghai Police Department college.

Now he's a rising cadre in the Party, in line to take over the top political position in the police department, while being one of the most respected policemen.

As such, he's brought in by the Party to sign off on the death of Zhou Keng.

Zhou Keng - son of a major Party member - was head of the Shanghai Housing Development Committee when a number of his corrupt practices were exposed on the Internet.

Placed into extralegal detention, Zhou apparently hanged himself while under guard.

The Party is anxious to have Zhou's death declared a suicide, and for the renowned Chief Inspector Chen to sign off on that conclusion, but the sequence of events don't quite add up.

Now Chen will have to decide whether to investigate it as a possible homicide and risk angering powerful people, or to seek the justice that his position requires him to strive for.

About the author:  Qiu Xiaolong is a poet and author of several previous novels featuring Inspector Chen, as well as Years of Red Dust, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2010.  Born and raised in Shanghai, the Cultural Revolution began in his last year of elementary school, and out of school, out of job, he studied English by himself in a local park.  In 1977, he began his studies at East China Normal University in Shanghai, and then the Chinese Academy of Social Science in Beijing.  In 1988, he came to Washington University in St. Louis, U.S. as a Ford foundation fellow to do a project on Eliot, but after the Tiananmen tragedy of 1989, he decided to stay on.  He lives with his family in St Louis, Missouri.  Qiu's Inspector Chen series is a many-faceted study of contemporary China.

The next and ninth book in the Inspector Chen Novel series - Shanghai Redemption - will be released on 28 July 2015.

Rating:  5/5

Don't Cry, Tai Lake (An Inspector Chen Novel) by Qiu Xiaolong

Paperback:  Chief Inspector Chen Cao, of the Shanghai Police Department, is taking a vacation at a private resort near the once-legendary Tai Lake.

Inspector Chen arrives to find the lake, renowned for its clear waters, all but covered by fetid algae, polluted by toxic runoff from local manufacturing plants.

When the director of one of the plants responsible for the pollution - a man from whom Beijing expects "bigger things" - is found murdered, the police arrest a local environmental activist for the crime.

Drawn into the case by a young woman connected to both the victim and the accused, Inspector Chen has to tread carefully.

Surrounded by corruption, party politics, and long-buried resentments, Chen must unearth the truth behind the brutal murder if he is to find a measure of justice for everyone involved.

About the author:  Qiu Xiaolong is a poet and author of several previous novels featuring Inspector Chen, as well as Years of Red Dust, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2010.  Born and raised in Shanghai, the Cultural Revolution began in his last year of elementary school, and out of school, out of job, he studied English by himself in a local park.  In 1977, he began his studies at East China Normal University in Shanghai, and then the Chinese Academy of Social Science in Beijing.  In 1988, he came to Washington University in St. Louis, U.S. as a Ford foundation fellow to do a project on Eliot, but after the Tiananmen tragedy of 1989, he decided to stay on.  He lives with his family in St Louis, Missouri.  Qiu's Inspector Chen series is a many-faceted study of contemporary China.

Don't Cry, Tai Lake (2012) is the seventh book in the Inspector Chen novel series set in China and addresses the issue of the polluted lakes and rivers in China.

Rating:  5/5

Money Logging: On The Trail of the Asian Timber Mafia by Lukas Straumann

Paperback:  A unique way of life in the rainforests has been destroyed in a single generation.  Read this book and weep.  But then get angry. - Wade Davis, author.

Money Logging (2014) investigates what Gordon Brown has called "probably the biggest environmental crime of our times" - the massive destruction of the Borneo rainforest by Malaysian loggers.

Historian and campaigner Lukas Straumann goes in search not only of the lost forests and the people who used to call them home, but also the network of criminals who have earned billions through illegal timber sales and corruption.

Straumann singles out Abdul Taib Mahmud, current governor of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, as the kingpin of this Asian timber mafia, while he shows that Taib's family - with the complicity of global financial institutions - have profited to the tune of fifteen billion US dollars.

Money Logging is a story of a people who have lost their ancient paradise to a wasteland of oil palm plantations, pollution, and corruption and how they hope to take it back and highlights the role of corruption as a key driver of tropical deforestation.

"This book investigates two crimes.  The first is how a single man, Abdul Taib Mahmud, along with a small group of very rich politicians and businessmen could destroy the richest ecosystem on earth despite not owning it, despite local and global outcry, despite international laws and regulations.  Simply put:  Who has stolen our trees?"

"The second crime is more subtle.  Surely, if my people have lost their ecosystem, their traditional way of life, their clean drinking water, and their freedom to roam the forests, they must have gained something.  Yet they haven't.  Many of the people of Sarawak are as poor as they were when I was born.  And yet, the value of the trees that have been felled is estimated to exceed US$50 billion.  This profit has fed corruption, kept oligarchs in power, been used to commit further crimes.  Fortunes have moved through the world's financial system, mostly secretly, to places as distant as Zurich, London, Sydney, San Francisco, and Ottawa."

"This book should be essential reading for anyone who uses a bank, buys property, or invests in the stock market.  Only by understanding how a rainforest can be converted into a building as far away as the FBI headquarters in Seattle can we hope to stop the kind of corruption that threatens the world's natural places and the people for whom these are home." - Mutang Urud, Kelabit tribe native to the tropical island of Borneo, July 2014.

About the author:  A historian by training, Lukas Straumann is the executive director of the Bruno Manser Fund, a human rights and environmental organization that champions the rights of the indigenous peoples of Borneo.
Before joining the Bruno Manser Fund, Lukas was a research fellow with the Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland - Second World War, which was tasked to probe Switzerland’s wartime past.  He is the co-author of a widely-reviewed study on Swiss Chemical Enterprises in the “Third Reich”.

Lukas was born near Basel, Switzerland, in 1969.  He holds a PhD in History from Zurich University and worked as a freelance journalist for various Swiss media.  His first book, Nützliche Schädlinge (2005), covered the history of applied entomology and the discovery of DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane).

Chinese Proverb No 11

White Ginger by Thatcher Robinson

Paperback:  Fierce loyalties, staunch compassion, and a weakness for strays lead Bai Jiang, San Francisco's best-known souxun - people finder - into violent conflicts that test her pacifist beliefs.

Armed with Buddhist philosophy and wicked knife skills, Bai works at being a better person by following her conscience, while struggling with a quick temper, smart mouth, and what she likes to think of as "aggressive assertiveness."

When a girl goes missing in San Francisco's Chinatown, Bai, herself the mother of a twelve-year-old girl, is called on to find her.  The trail leads to wannabe gangsters, flesh peddlers, real estate deals gone bad, and eventually to those who have marked Bai for death.

Enlisting the aid of her closest friend and partner, Lee - a sophisticated gay man who protects her, mostly from herself - and Jason - a triad assassin and the father of her daughter - Bai follows the dangerous trail of the missing girl, hoping to avoid the inevitable violence.

She confronts paid assassins and triad hatchet men, only to find that being true to her beliefs as a Buddhist and staying alive are often at odds.

At the same time, fighting a faceless enemy who seems committed to having her killed fills her with anger and fear that sometimes turns into a burning rage that threatens deadly consequences for her and those around her.

Flavoured with dark humour, White Ginger (2013) serves the perfect cocktail of wit, charm, sex and violence mixed with Chinese philosophy and heart-pounding action.

About the author:  Thatcher Robinson is a full-time writer.  He was previously employed as the chief operating officer of an Internet security firm that develops top-secret cyber-warfare materials for the military and various government agencies.  Prior to that, he was a software specialist at IBM research laboratories in Research Triangle Par, North Carolina.  He lives and writes in Northern California with his wife and two cats, all of whom boss him around.  When he's not writing, he likes to swim laps and restore old cars.

White Ginger (2013) is the first book in the White Ginger series.

The second book in this series, Black Karma (2014), is out now.

Rating:  5/5

It Is Time To Take Action - Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize Winner 2014

I Am A Monogamist, Extrovert and Altruist Reader

Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States and the World by Graham Allison and Robert D Blackwill, with Ali Wyne

Hardback:  When Lee Kuan Yew speaks, presidents, prime ministers, diplomats and CEOs listen.

Lee, the founding father of modern Singapore and its prime minister from 1959 to 1990, has honed his wisdom during more than fifty years on the world stage.

Almost single-handedly responsible for transforming Singapore into a Western-style economic success, he offers a unique perspective on the geopolitics of East and West.

American presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama have welcomed him to the White House;  British prime ministers from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair have recognised his wisdom;  and business leaders from Rupert Murdoch to Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, have praised his accomplishments.

This book gathers key insights from interviews, speeches, and Lee's voluminous published writings and presents them in an engaging question and answer format.

Lee offers his assessment of China's future, asserting, among other things, that "China will want to share this century as co-equals with the US."

He affirms the United States' position as the world's sole superpower but expresses dismay at the vagaries of its political system.

He offers strategic advice for dealing with China and goes on to discuss India's future, Islamic terrorism, economic growth, geopolitics and globalization, and democracy.

Lee does not pull his punches, offering his unvarnished opinions on multiculturalism, the welfare state, education, and the free market.

This little book, Lee Kuan Yew (2013), belongs on the reading list of every world leader.

The Interviews and Selections from this book were compiled by:  Graham Allison is Douglas Dillon Professor of Government and Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.  The Belfer Center is the hub of the Harvard Kennedy School's research, teaching, and training in international security affairs, environmental and resource issues, and science and technology policy.

Robert D Blackwill is Henry A Kissinger Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ali Wyne is an Associate at the Belfer Center.

Emma (A Modern Retelling) by Alexander McCall Smith

Hardback:  'I'm not at all sure that Emma will be the sort to want a husband,' she said quietly.  'I know I'm talking about a twelve-year-old girl here, but character;  Mr Woodhouse, is formed at a very early stage in our lives, and there are some girls who, even though only just twelve, give very clear indications of what lies ahead in the amorous department.'

Prepare to meet a young woman who thinks she knows everything.

Emma Woodhouse's widowed father is an anxious man, obsessed with nutrition and the latest vitamins.  He lives the life of a country gentleman in contemporary England, protectively raising his young daughters, Isabella and Emma.

While Isabella grows into a young woman, marries a society photographer for Vogue at the age of nineteen and gets down to the business of reproducing herself, Emma pursues a degree in interior design at university in Bath, and then returns to set up shop in her home village.

With her educated eye for the coordination of pattern and colour, Emma thinks she can now judge what person would best be paired with another, and sets about matchmaking her young friend, Harriet, with various possible suitors.

Little does she know she is not the only person encouraging romantic pairings in the village.  As Emma's cupid-like curiosity about her neighbours, both young and old, moves her to uncover their deeper motives, there is only one person who can play with Emma's indestructible confidence, her friend and inscrutable neighbour George Knightley - this time, has Emma finally met her match?

Ever alive to the small courtesies and customs that allow society to flourish, Alexander McCall Smith brings his signature warmth, wit and invention to Jane Austen's much-loved Emma (1815) in his modern retelling of Emma (2014).

About the author:  Like Mr Woodhouse, Alexander McCall Smith is the father of two daughters.  Unlike Mr Woodhouse, he achieved global recognition in 1999 for his award-winning series The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, and he now devotes his time to the writing of fiction, including the 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie seres.  He is the author of over eighty books on a wide array of subjects, and his work has been translated into forty-six languages.

Before becoming a full-time writer, he was for many years Professor of Medical Law at Edinburgh University and served on national and international bioethics bodies.  He lives in Edinburgh with his wife, Elizabeth, a doctor.

Rating:  5/5

The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café by Alexander McCall Smith

Hardback:  One quiet morning as she sips her redbush tea, the proprietress of the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency has the firmest impression that turmoil is coming to Tlokweng Road.

In this, as in almost all matters, Precious Ramotswe is right.  Change is heralded by Mma Makutsi's arrival bearing a business plan for Mma Ramotswe and an outline of her own ambitions as a restaurateur with the Handsome Man's De Luxe Café.

Before the day is out, the agency has both gained a dubiously qualified new Assistant Detective and taken on the challenge of identifying a lady with no name and no memory, her sole landmark the premises of Sengupta Office Supplies.

'I hope that you will discover something,' said Miss Rose.  'Mrs is very keen to find out who she is so that she can go back to her own home and her own people.'

Mma Ramotswe nodded reassuringly.  She had no idea how to proceed in this case.  But she wanted to try, because she had taken to Mrs, and could imagine how terrible it must be to find yourself cast adrift in the world, not knowing who or where you are, but aware that there must be people who are missing you and wanting you home.

But when Mma Makutsi's weakness for the underdog threatens her entrepreneurial future, Charlie is led astray and Violet Sephotho turns restaurant critic, only Mma Ramotswe's infallible instincts - that no one comes from nowhere, and however meandering the dusty path through the Botswana bush, it will lead you home - can transform disruption into a force for good.

About the author:  Alexander McCall Smith is the author of over eighty books on a wide array of subjects.  For many years, he was Professor of Medical Law at Edinburgh University and served on national and international bioethics bodies.  Then in 1999, he achieved global recognition for his award-winning series The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, and thereafter has devoted his time to the writing of fiction, including the 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie series.  His books have been translated into forty-six languages.  He lives in Edinburgh with his wife Elizabeth, a doctor.

The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café (2014) is the fifteenth book in The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

Rating:  5/5

Fall In Love

Singapore Black by William L Gibson

Paperback:  Singapore/Malaya, 1892.

When a dead American is found floating in Rochor Canal, Chief Detective Inspector David Hawksworth begins an investigation that quickly leads into a labyrinth of deceit and violence the polyglot steam-cooker of turn-of-the-century Singapore.

As Chinese gangs verge on open turf war and powerful commercial enterprises vie for control of the economy, a stolen statue that houses an ancient Hindu goddess becomes the object of a pursuit with a mounting body count, and it seems that everyone is suffering from maniacal erotic nightmares.

Will Hawksworth be able to restore order before the colony is tipped into a bloodbath?

Explore the dark underbelly of nineteeth-century Singapore's Chinatown and colonial district in this trilogy of hard-boiled historical thrillers, comprising Singapore Black (2013), Singapore Yellow (due for release in 2015) and Singapore Red (?).

About the author:   William L Gibson is a writer and educator based in Southeast Asia.  He is currently the Campus Academic Coordinator and Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at SAE Institute, Jakarta.  William holds a PhD from the University of Leeds.

William's work has appeared in numerous publications, including academic journals as well as commercial magazines such as Signal to Noise and Asian Geographic:  The Read.  His nonfiction book Art and Money in the Writing of Tobias Smollett was published in 2007.  In 2009, he collaborated with the record label Sublime Frequencies to release a compilation of 1960s Singapore-Chinese go-go music.  His other crime fiction book is Crime Scene Asia Volume 1:  Crime Fiction from India, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam (2013).  More information can be found on the author's website.

Rating:  5/5