Books on Asia

Lan Su Garden is a magnificent Ming scholar garden in downtown Portland, Oregon. It opened in 2000, a collaboration between sister cities Portland and Suzhou, hence the name: Lan Su. Photographer and local resident Carol Isaak found refuge there during the Covid pandemic, fell in love with it, and began photographing the oasis through the following seasons and years. The result: her photographic book, Seasons: Lan Su Chinese Garden, published in 2025 by Seattle-based bookstore and publisher Chin Music Press.

Carol and John chat about Lan Su, the Asian-American community in the Northwest, and Suzhou’s rich heritage as a center of book culture and scholar gardens, especially during the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644).

Also mentioned is the graphic novel We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration by authors Frank Abe, Tamiko Nimura, and illustrators Ross Ishikawa and Matt Sasaki (Chin Music Press, 2021).

To see Carol’s work, including photographs of Lan Su, visit her website.

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

The islands, in order of appearance in the episode, are: Geomun Island (Port Hamilton); the garden island of Oedo (Oe Island – “do” is the Korean word for “island”); Geojedo, site of an important Korean War POW camp and often spelled “Koje”;Ulleungdo and the nearby disputed islets of Dokdo; and the fictional island of Sukhan.

Books mentioned in this Episode:

A Korean Odyssey: Island Hopping in Choppy Waters (2020) by Michael Gibb

Anglo-Korean Relations and the Port Hamilton Affair, 1885–1887 (2016) by Stephen A. Royle

The Hijacked War: The Story of Chinese POWs in the Korean War, (2020) by David Cheng Chang

War Trash (2004) by Ma Jin

Island of Fantasy: A Memoir of an English Teacher in Korea (2005) by Shawn Matthews

The Korea Story (1952) by John C. Caldwell

The Cuttlefish (2005) by Chris Tharp

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

Books discussed in this episode, in order of appearance:

The Last Great Australian Adventurer: Ben Carlin's Epic Journey Around the World by Amphibious Jeep (Random House Australia, 2017) by Gordon Bass

Once a Fool: From Japan to Alaska by Amphibious Jeep by Boye De Mente

Japanese Swords and Armor: Masterpieces from Thirty of Japan's Greatest Samurai Warriors (Tuttle, 2024) by Paul Martin

The Modern Japanese Garden by Stephen Mansfield (Thames & Hudson, 2025)

The Wondrous Elixir of The Two Chinese Lovers (Plum Rain Press, 2025) by Tim McGirk

China Running Dog, (Plum Rain Press, 2025) by Mark Kitto

An American Bum in China: Featuring the Bumblingly Brilliant Escapades of Expatriate Matthew Evans (Camphor Press, ) by Tom Carter (Available in Audio book format, narrated by Eryk Michael Smith)

The Cuttlefish, by Chris Tharp (Plum Rain Press, 2025) 

A Tale of Three Tribes in Dutch Formosa (Plum Rain Press, 2024) by Yao-Chang Chen

The Lotus Moon: Art and Poetry of Buddhist Nun Ōtagaki Rengetsu (Floating World Editions, 2023) by John Stevens

Other podcasts mentioned:

BOA Ep. 56:Ted Goosen on translating Hiromi Kawakami's The Third Love

Formosa Files Podcast about the Amphibious Jeep

BOA Ep. 39: Paul Martin on Japanese Swords and Armor

BOA Ep. 48: Stephen Mansfield on The Modern Japanese Garden

BOA Ep.54: Mark Kitto on China Running Dog

BOA Ep. 35: John Stevens on The Healing Power of Ōtagaki Rengetsu

Formosa Files Podcast: Taiwan and Xu Fu, and the Two Chinese Lovers with Tim McGirk

Formosa Files Podcast: A Tale of Three Tribes in Dutch Formosa 

Bookish Asia Podcast: Chris Tharp on The Cuttlefish

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

Amy Chavez has a deep discussion with Ted Goossen about Japan, it's emerging culture, it's historically strong women and how Japanese literature and its themes, are changing. In addition to talking about Hiromi Kawakami's novel The Third Love, other mentioned in this podcast episode are feminist Chizuko Ueno, translator John Bester and authors Kanzaburo Oe, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, Masuji Ibuse and Mieko Kawakami. 

Goossen is currently reading books by Ruth Ozeki, and short stories by various authors. One older book that made an impression on him was The Anatomy of Dependence by psychologist Takeo Doi, which examines the idea of dependency in relationships among the Japanese.  

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

Sam Baldwin tells John Ross about some ingredients behind the success of his self-published memoir For Fukui’s Sake: Two Years in Rural Japan (the subject of a previous chat between them on the Bookish Asia podcast). They touch on Sam’s latest memoir, Dormice & Moonshine: Falling for Slovenia. But the heart of the conversation is some travel book recommendations – and Sam’s new project: a review website dedicated to travelogues and travel memoirs: https://travelmemoir.review

Sam's Recommended books (in order of mention):

Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan (1999) by Jamie Zeppa

Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer (Eng. 1953)

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea (2003) and Burma Chronicles (2007) by Guy Delisle

Tonoharu (parts 1-3, 2008-16) by Lars Martinson

River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (2001) and Country Driving: A Journey from Farm to Factory (2010) by Peter Hessler

Lost Japan (1993) by Alex Kerr

The Same Moon (2020) by Sarah Coomber

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

In his novel China Running Dog, a young man in his early twenties lives in Shanghai in the year 2000, in a greed-crazed free-for-all moral and lawless vacuum created by the Chinese Communist Party. Johnny Trent, small-time entrepreneur from Basildon in the UK, ends up in China, where he meets Felix Fawcett-Smith, fresh off the boat and from the other side of the tracks. An unlikely friendship begins.

Johnny impresses the well-bred Felix with his street smarts until Felix takes Johnny’s advice too literally – and too far – and slips into Shanghai’s murky underbelly. He enters a world where the Party, power, and connections to them, are all that matter, where criminals are given sainthoods and saints sent to hell.

Johnny tries to stop Felix’s spiral, not least because Felix is taking a sweet, angelic girl, Anita, down with him and Johnny has feelings for Anita that he has never dared to put into words. But Felix thinks he knows best. Like Johnny, all he wants is respect.

It’s up to Johnny to save whoever he can, besides himself.

Books mentioned in this podcast: Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui, Shanghai by Richie Yokomitsu (transl. Dennis Washburn), Candy by Mian Mian

Mark’s recommended books on Asia:

Six Records of a Floating Life by Shen Fu.

Frank Dikötter’s trilogy of China,

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

The Wondrous Elixir of the Two Chinese Lovers – Tim McGirk

The novel tells the story of archaeologist Ned Sheehan's discovery of two ancient Chinese tombs at a Maya site in southern Mexico. One tomb belongs to Xu Fu, a famous Taoist priest who vanished on a quest for the elixir of immortality at the behest of China’s First Emperor. The other houses the emperor’s own mother, scandalously revealed to have been Xu Fu’s lover.

Tim and John talk about what is known about Xu Fu, a historical person, and Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s obsession with immortality. They speculate on what happened to Xu Fu’s large expedition – could he have reached the Americas? Or Japan (where he is known as Jofuku)?
 

John recommends John Dougill’s Green Shinto website, which has several pieces regarding Xu Fu in Japan.

The Wondrous Elixir of the Two Chinese Lovers is published by Plum Rain Press (which John runs), and is available as a paperback and ebook on Amazon stores.

Tim McGirk’s Book recommendations:

The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom (2008) by Simon Winchester

The Grand Historian (also Records of the Grand Historian) by Sima Qian (there was various translations – the original was published circa 91 BC.)

The China Voyage: A Pacific Quest by Bamboo Raft (1994) by Tim Severin

Visit Tim McGirk’s website

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

Lauren Scharf talks about Japan's minka, kominka and akiya houses in Japan.

MinkaCon 2025, is an event to be held from Nov. 7-9, in Shinshiro, Aichi Prefecture. The two-and-a-half-day event features discussions, presentations, workshops and a writers panel for those interested in life in the Japanese countryside and preserving traditional Japanese houses. There will be a bevy of authors present, many of whom we've featured in previous episodes of the Books on Asia podcast: Azby Brown, author of Just Enough (Ep 26);  photographer and writer Everett Kennedy Brown; Alex Kerr (Lost Japan, Finding the Heart Sutra) (Ep 8) who will be beamed in via pre-recorded message; Iain Maloney author of The Only Gaijin in the Village (Ep 24); and David Joiner, author of The Heron Catchers and Kanazawa (Ep. 19).

Lauren's recommended books on Japan's countryside: 

Inaka: Portraits of Life in Rural Japan (various authors)

The Only Gaijin in the Village, by Iain Maloney

The Widow, The Priest and The Octopus Hunter, by Amy Chavez

Just Enough by Azby Brown

Lost Japan by Alex Kerr

Hokkaido Highway Blues, by Will Ferguson

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

A Tale of Three Tribes in Dutch Formosa (by Yao-Chang Chen, translated by He Wen-ching)

Sitting in for Amy is the duo John Ross & Eryk Michael Smith of Plum Rain Press and the Formosa Files podcast. They discuss their very first book release, a historical novel set in southwestern Taiwan in the mid-1600s. The Dutch East India Company’s presence there (1624-1662) came to an end after a series of battles and an epic nine-month siege by the Ming loyalist warlord Koxinga (aka Zheng Chenggong), born from a Japanese mother and a Chinese father. Three Tribes tells the story of the Dutch, the Chinese, and the Indigenous Siraya people. The main protagonist is Maria, the teenage second daughter of Reverend Antonius Hambroeck, who arrives in Formosa in 1648. Although Maria is a fictional character (Dr. Chen’s imagined Dutch ancestor), the majority of characters in the story, including her family, are real historical people.

A Tale of Three Tribes in Dutch Formosa was first published in 2012 in Chinese to great acclaim. For the author, Dr. Chen Yao-chang, then in his sixties, it was an unexpected new career as a historical novelist. The novel was translated into English by Ho Wen-ching, a professor and translator.

Notes: 

Tainan is where the Dutch settlement was and is the old capital city.

The Dongning Kingdom was from 1661-1883

Frederick Coyett was the last Dutch Governor.

See also:

Formosa Files Podcast the best podcast on the history of Taiwan

Plum Rain Press Your book gateway to East Asia

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

Asia Bookroom exhibits their most precious items at rare and antiquarian book fairs in Melbourne, Sydney, and Hong Kong. Look for them at the Sydney Rare Book Fair from Oct. 23-25.

In this podcast we discuss some of the items on offer at the Sydney Rare Book Fair:

The Disputed Islands Controversial Japanese Map by Hayashi Shihei from around 1790. This is a manuscript copy (written by hand), and includes the Takeshima/Dokdo islands indicating they belong to Korea.

A silk sample book from the 1950s

A Japanese policeman's notebook from shortly after Japan took over Taiwan. It details experiences with indigenous people of Taiwan.

Materials from Communist China

Books:

The Tokyo Higher Normal School: Life of the Japanese Women of Today (from 1937)

Samurai Tales: Manuscript Writing's on Revenge Killings and Loyalty

Books mentioned in the podcast:

The Shortest History of Japan, by Lesley Downer, China Running Dog by Mark Kitto, Samurai and Silk, by Haru Matsukata Reischauer.

Books recommended by Sally Burdon:

Myself a Mandarin by Austin Coates, about Hong Kong,

Country Driving by Peter Hestings

Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry

You can visit Asia Bookroom online at https://www.asiabookroom.com/

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.