Category: Books
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LA Review of Books: There Be Dragons
I have said here previously how much I enjoyed Dragon Day, the final volume in Lisa Brackmann’s Ellie McEnroe crime thriller trilogy. This week at the LA Review of Books China Blog, I review the book in more detail: Dragon Day sees Ellie attempting to stay in the good graces of her biggest — and scariest —…
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LA Review of Books: “Expat Identities”
Following up on my recent LA Review of Books China Blog interview with Shannon Young, I have a new post at the site reviewing How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? True Stories of Expat Women in Asia, which Young edited: Many of the anthology’s contributors speak of being changed for the better by their time abroad,…
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LA Review of Books: Q&A with Shannon Young, Author of “Year of Fire Dragons”
I have a new post up at the LA Review of Books China Blog, in which I interview Hong Kong-based author Shannon Young: Young, however, didn’t originally plan to spend her life writing; she wanted to be an editor. But after graduating from college in 2009, she found many of her plans upended. Publishing jobs…
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Reading Rainbow
Between commuting to work (about 45 minutes each way on mass transit) and traveling (greetings from Orange County, CA!), I have been plowing through books at a prodigious rate these past few months. I often read two to four books a week, making repeated trips to the New York Public Library branch close to my…
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Bookshelf: 13 Men
I made a brief mention in my latest LA Review of Books China Blog post of a new short book by Indian journalist Sonia Faleiro, 13 Men, and wanted to discuss that publication in a bit more depth. 13 Men is the most recent e-book from publishing collective Deca (it’s also available as a Kindle…
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Bookshelf: Midnight in Siberia
For me, a ride on the Trans-Siberian Railway would be an interesting vacation, and one I’ve long wanted to take. For Russians in the past, Trans-Siberian trains carried people away from their homes into exile. But for millions of Russians today, the Trans-Siberian is simply a mode of transport—the most cost-effective way to get from Point…
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LA Review of Books: Q&A with Michael Meyer, Author of In Manchuria
Now up at the LA Review of Books China Blog, my interview with Michael Meyer, author of a wonderful new travelogue/history/memoir about life in China’s Northeast called In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China: MEC: You write that you first voiced the idea of moving from Beijing to Wasteland “after…
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Winter Hibernation
I am so ready for this. Temperatures in New York have plunged this week, and I’m ready to hibernate. Between travel for work and the holidays, I don’t think I’ve spent a full week in my apartment since I moved here over Thanksgiving weekend. But now, I’m looking at my calendar and don’t see any…
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Notes from #AHA2015
The annual meeting of the American Historical Association was held in New York this past weekend. Admittedly, I didn’t have a specific reason to go—I wasn’t on a panel or interviewing for a job or trying to sell a book manuscript—but it seemed odd not to attend when the largest meeting of my (sort-of) profession…
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Bookshelf: The Secret History of Wonder Woman
“Why would a distinguished Harvard professor write about a comic book character?” Heaven forbid a distinguished Harvard professor write about something so common as a comic book character! But as I heard the distinguished Free Library of Philadelphia donor who introduced Harvard historian Jill Lepore at the library last night voice the question he had…
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 