Category: Asia

August 31, 2014

Age of Ambition by Evan Osnos *** (of 4)

Evan Osnos has been living in China for the last eight years and reporting for the New Yorker for much of that time. Age of...

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December 6, 2013

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya von Bremzen *** (of 5)

What an interesting idea. Mix together a memoir of family history in the old Soviet Union with some Soviet history and the signature foods of...

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September 9, 2013

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson **** (of 4)

Jun Do, a North Korean John Doe, lives many lives. He is an orphan in a camp for throw-away children, he undergoes pain training and...

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May 21, 2013

Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden *** (of 4)

Shin Dong Hyuk was born into slavery in Prison Camp 14 in North Korea. He is also the only person to have survived an escape...

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April 5, 2013

Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino *** (of 4)

A Japanese husband announces that he will follow through on his promise to divorce his wife because she has not borne him a child within...

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August 13, 2012

1493 by Charles Mann *** (of 4)

Prior to Columbus’s blundering into the Caribbean, there was negligible interchange of plants, animals, or humans between continents. Shortly thereafter the onset of large-scale globalization...

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July 8, 2012

Midnight in Peking by Paul French ** (of 4)

A young woman, Pamela Werner, is found brutally murdered on the wrong side of town. The town is Peking, her father is a former British...

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June 22, 2012

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami **** (of 4)

Tokyo, 1984 (the title refers to the year and the Orwell book of similar title, not the IQ measurement of intelligence). Boy meets girl in...

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April 24, 2012

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka **** (of 4)

An elegy for the Japanese women who arrived in California in the early part of the twentieth century as mail-order brides to join lonely Japanese laborers. ...

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March 19, 2012