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Any good books about Hong Kong?

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  1. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by drumbrake:
    One 'soon to be released' is 'Eating Smoke' - TimeOut had an interview with author Chris Thrall.
    This one looks like a really good read although the excerpt seemed a little unbelievable!

    http://www.facebook.com/EatingSmoke
    Last edited by lionrock88; 03-04-2011 at 12:27 AM.

  2. #12

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    It's all true!


  3. #13

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    I don't know if you have already mentioned "the piano teacher", by Janice Y.K. Lee.
    It is fiction, a story set in HK.
    I didn't like it, though.


  4. #14

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    I read The Last Governor: Chris Patten and the Handover of Hong Kong, liked it alot. I also read Kowloon Tong, can't actually remember much but it wasn't a happy story.

    Not strictly about Hong Kong, the following are still good read
    - China Price
    - Getting Rich First: Life in a Changing China


  5. #15

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    I can't recommend J. G. Farrell's novels more highly, especially The Siege of Krishnapur and The Singapore Grip. These are not new novels (Farrell died in the '70s in a freak fishing accident at the age of 44) nor specifically about Hong Kong, but are quite astonishingly perceptive in depicting post-colonial Southeast Asia. His writing is first-class and his wit approaches Falstaff's (which says a lot, no?).


  6. #16

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    Why not try searching the Hong Kong public library's on-line catalogue? Or the local University libraries? I'm pretty sure you can find something there since you already have a certain subject in mind.

    Last edited by xthk; 27-04-2011 at 04:44 PM.

  7. #17

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    Hong Kong as it Was: Hedda Morrison's Photographs, 1946-47


  8. #18

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    Surely the best novel about HK is "Fragrant Harbour" by John Lanchester.

    It may seem old-fashioned and sentimental, but I would recommend "A Many-Splendoured Thing" by
    Han Su-yin, set in the early 1950s.

    There is quite a good short story collection by a local English language writer: "Hong Kong Stories"
    by David T. K. Wong.

    I'd recommend a book already mentioned: "King Hui" by Jonathan Chamberlain, which is oral history.


  9. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by dipper:
    For non-fiction there is more choice. There are 3 major histories of Hong Kong: Endacott's History of Hong Kong (written in 1958) and Frank Welsh's more recent A History of Hong Kong (1997) are old school hitories of the colonial rule of Hong Kong rather than histories of Hong Kong per se but are fine in terms of the narrow history that they cover. Steve Tsang's Modern History of Hong Kong is sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read and hopefully, as the title suggests, it is a more 'modern' history of Hong Kong but I haven't read it yet.
    Can't agree with you there. I thought that Frank Welsh's "A Borrowed Place - The History of Hong Kong" was excellent and not an "old school colonial history" at all. I actually found the cumulative effect of Welsh's book (which I found used in a Berkeley bookstore long before I moved here) quite moving - whatever else we may think about HK, its disreputable beginnings and its (somewhat) laissez faire social model, its success is remarkable and inspiring, and Welsh's book, detailed but not pedantic, does a good job of telling the story.

    I read about fifty pages of Tsang's book and gave up in disgust - dry, academic, and uninteresting. It's on my bookshelf now and I will be happy to give my copy away to anyone who wants it.

    Jan (formerly James, before the sex-change operation) Morris wrote a frothy but entertaining book about HK about 20 years ago, creatively titled Hong Kong. A bit dated now and more of a travel book, but if you like Jan Morris (the Pax Brittanica series, etc.) it provides an entertaining and sympathetic history of HK.
    Last edited by Freetrader; 01-05-2011 at 02:06 AM.

  10. #20

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    Try golden boy by martin booth, its an auto biographical work that i am currently reading and its quite interesting till now. Here's the review of the book by ny times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/bo...9harrison.html