Category: Books
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Writing, New and Old
No blogging here recently because I am in full-on DISSERTATION MODE as I careen down the home stretch. Ten days to go before I have to deliver the finished product to my committee—I’ll make it (I hope!), but working full-bore on the final chapter and editing the ones I’ve already written hasn’t left me with…
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LA Review of Books: City of Reinvention
I took a short break from the LA Review of Books China Blog this spring, as I had conferences to attend and a dissertation to write, but I’m back now and returning to my schedule of posting there once every month or so. My latest post, a review of Amy Tan’s recent novel The Valley…
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Bookshelf: And the City Swallowed Them
Late one night in July 2008, a 22-year-old Canadian model named Diana O’Brien died in the stairwell of her Shanghai apartment building after being stabbed more than 20 times. O’Brien’s assailant was Chen Jun, an 18-year-old migrant worker from impoverished Anhui Province. Like O’Brien, Chen had traveled to Shanghai without proper papers, hoping to wedge…
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Never Apologize for Reading What You Like: Or, the Lesson I’ve Learned from Jennifer Weiner’s Books
I have never been ahead of trends. I always hear about good television shows when they’re well into their second or third seasons; I mainly buy clothes when they’re on the clearance rack, meaning that they’re already out of style; I did not start eating kale, quinoa, or polenta until they showed up a Trader…
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Bookshelf: Lean In and Leftover Women
Possibly the most commented-on thing I’ve ever written online came about when I said that I didn’t really want to read Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, a bestseller in which the Facebook COO encourages young women to take charge of their careers and aim for the top. Even though…
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Bookshelf: Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow
There’s a tricky balance to writing well about expat life. Some people are so wide-eyed and enamored with their adopted homes that all they do is gush about how wonderful and fascinating and inspiring life abroad is. At the other end of the spectrum are writers who complain so relentlessly about the country they’re living…
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Leftover Women: In Pictures
I began reading Leta Hong Fincher’s eagerly anticipated Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China last night, and one chapter in, I now know that the Marriage and Family Research Association here classifies me as a Category 3 Leftover Woman (ages 31-35, dubbed the “Buddha of victorious battles” for achieving professional advancement—though a…
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LA Review of Books: Ping-Pong Powerhouses and Table Tennis Tales
I think this will be my final post related to last month’s literary festivals. I saw journalist Nicholas Griffin speak at the Capital M Litfest in Beijing about his new book, Ping-Pong Diplomacy: The Secret History Behind the Game that Changed the World, and not long after managed to get my hands on a copy.…
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Recap: #SILF2014
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the Shanghai Litfest is one of the best things about living in the city. This is the third time I’ve been around to attend it, and I went to far more sessions this year than I ever have before. I can honestly say that I didn’t…
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LA Review of Books: River of Dust
This year’s Shanghai International Literary Festival was a whole lot of fun—I got to see half a dozen excellent writers discuss their latest work, and I hope to post a rundown of all that later today or tomorrow. I was also asked to moderate one session, which featured novelist Virginia Pye talking about the family…
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 