Imminent: Out in the next few weeks - Rowan Simons' story of the development of football in China, Bamboo Goalposts: One Man's Quest to Teach the People's Republic of China to Love Football; Jonathan Fenby's Penguin History of Modern China 1850-2008 and; Misha Glenny's McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers (which has a good chapter on China). May is also the scheduled release date for Simon Winchester's The Man Who Loved China: Joseph Needham and the Making of a Masterpiece - though our sources tell us that China Hands will be sorely disappointed as it's a pretty shallow work. We shall see.
 
It's the environment man: Plenty of books on environmental themes planned including tomes from Tim 'Mr China' Clissold and Guardian Beijing correspondent Jonathan Watts.
 
Hack attack: We hear several other hacks are in the final stages with their China books, and one is even going on a sabbatical to get it done. We don't know the content (a lot of developmental policy we think) but we do expect interesting things from James Fallows, who also says he's going to be working on a China book after his extended stay in Shanghai and Beijing. And Jasper Becker's long awaited City of Heavenly Tranquillity, the story of how Beijing is being flattened while collective memory is remade is out in a few months. A way off, apparently, but upcoming is Peter Hessler's third China book - all about driving in China.
 
We love business: The biz crowd are out in force: Belgian China Hand Jacques LeBlanc's excellent book about his experiences in China Business Republic of China is out and, after a long wait and a number of false starts, Jack 'Asimco' Perkowski's book on China is out soon Managing the Dragon: How I'm Building a Billion-Dollar Business in China. Someone who's already read it assures us it's OK. Also Jörg Wuttke, the head of BASF in China has written a book looking at how business is conducted in China, which sounded a bit different from the usual 'how to' China books of which there are now officially too many. One that adds to the 'too many' list we expect will be China's CEO Challenge: An Inside Story of Leadership at the Crossroads written by a team at the consultants at the Hay Group. We know there's a book detailing the rise of KFC in China from long-time fried chicken seller Warren Liu, and another case study book being prepared on eBay's experiences (rather mixed to say the least) in China. There's also a useful case study of Hong Kong's successful public transport system and its development from Rikkie Yeung coming - Moving Millions. And, for those who like their luxury consumers, there's Pierre Xiao Lu's Elite China: Luxury Consumer Behavior, which apparently argues that China's rich are a bit harder to reach than the luxury-groupies would have you believe in their hype.
 
Bad titles: There's always a few with really bad titles. A candidate for this year's most over-hyped and unimaginative title is China Fireworks: How to Make Dramatic Wealth from the Fastest-Growing Economy in the World by Robert Hsu and out in May, closely followed by Becoming Your Own China Stock Guru: The Ultimate Investor's Guide to Profiting from China's Economic Boom by Jim Trippon.
 
Whodunnit and Thrillers: Crime fans have plenty to look forward to with another from Qiu Xiaolong, which this time takes Inspector Chen to Beijing - it's out in French first and then later in the year in English. Meanwhile Catherine Sampson is back with a book called The Slaughter Pavilion (out in September) and featuring her new character, Beijing private investigator Song. Also NY Times writer Alex Berenson has turned his hand to fiction again with a story involving rogue Chinese PLA generals, North Korean dissident scientists and China's curious rise. Berenson claims he based the details of the story on conversations with NY Times Shanghai correspondent David Barboza - so blame him if it's rubbish. The Ghost War is the second outing for Berenson's character CIA agent John Wells.
 
A Spot of History: Solomon Bard's autobiography comes out in September, Light and Shade, from Hong Kong University Press, tracing his life from a childhood in Siberia, via Harbin and Shanghai in the 1930s, before fighting the Japanese in Hong Kong and finally being interned in Sham Shui Po camp. HKUP are also publishing Frank Dikotter's The Age of Openness: China Before Mao that examines the period between 1900 and 1949. Both will be available from HKUP's site. Also out this year is Michael Aldrich's follow up to his excellent Vanishing Beijing (now out in paperback)- The Perfumed Palace: Islam's Journey From Arabia to Peking.
 
Miscellaneous other: We hear of a variety of other interesting projects from a history of the old China press corps to a detailed study of the history of foreigners in Beijing. There's Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895-2008, out in May, that goes from China's nineteenth century obsession with western sports through to the Olympic fest this August and beyond.
 
This weeks' well read Weekly Update includes (as well as lots of pictures) a newly updated report on Dairy Products in China as well as the never ending flood of Olympics clichés, the Coke Torch fiasco, how to get a hotel room in Beijing for the Olympics, a new rash of Blade Runner outpourings from the UK press, the annual nonsense that is the Boao Forum, some books on rarely heard aspects of China and some competition for UK flash trash retailer Next in Shanghai.

Last update : Monday, 21 April 2008

Keywords : London Book Fair, China Week, Books, Publishing, London, Paul French

Average user rating

   (0 vote)