Category — Books

Previously posted Ching-He Huang has just release her second book called Chinese Food Made Easy. Ching is one of the brightest stars in modern Chinese cooking in the UK.

Each week in her new BBC2 series she re-invents the nation’s favourite Chinese dishes, modernising them with fresh, easy to buy ingredients, and offering simple practical tips and techniques. These are brought together in this beautiful book to accompany the series.

Drawing on the experiences of top chefs, her family and friends, growers and producers and celebrity enthusiasts Ching sets out to discover the best Chinese cooking in the UK today, introducing easy-to-make Chinese food to sometimes resistant Brits, and painting a picture of modern Anglo-Chinese life in the UK as she goes.

Using ingredients from high-street supermarkets and some imaginative suggestions for alternative ingredients, these classic Chinese dishes are updated, fresh and healthily prepared so that anyone can make and enjoy them.

Get CHINESE FOOD MADE EASY: 100 simple, healthy recipes from easy-to-find ingredients

Or get Ching’s first book, China Modern: 100 Cutting-Edge, Fusion Style Recipes for the 21st Century

Technorati Tags: book, Chinese cook book, Chinese food, Chinese Food Made Easy, Ching-He Huang, cuisine

Live better, the Japanese way, with Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan.

The book contains more than 100 tricks and solutions - stuff like using a piece of bread to pick up broken glass, and using mouthwash to clean your toilet - that will have you amazing your friends with your newfound skills….

Get Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan on Amazon

Via Uncrate

Technorati Tags: book, Japan, tips and tricks, Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan

“Eiji Tsuburaya is still widely honored in Japan, but his international recognition is often eclipsed by his iconic creatures.”

BoldType review:

August Ragone’s Master of Monsters is the first book published outside of Japan to examine the life and work of special-effects master Eiji Tsuburaya.

While today’s big-budget CGI creations often relegate previous styles to the realm of kitsch, Ragone’s account is an insightful look at the innovation and technology behind one of the industry’s pioneering craftsmen.

Tsuburaya is still widely honored in Japan, but his international recognition is often eclipsed by his iconic creatures: from Godzilla and Mothra to Booska and Ultraman, these unforgettable characters represent the height of kaiju culture and presage the modern taste for nightmarish chaos and catastrophe.

And yet, as Ragone tells it, the story behind their construction is as engrossing as their infamous acts of destruction.

Master of Monsters is part biography, part coffee-table art book. The large volume is organised into chronological chapters about Tsuburaya’s life and career, balancing Ragone’s absorbingly detailed account with stunning images of the man in action. Along with his nationalist propaganda films and sci-fi superheroes, the photographs variously capture Tsuburaya in conversation with reptilian actors, measuring toy-size models of cityscapes, and directing his army of technical engineers.

Although the subject matter may seem esoteric, Tsuburaya’s story is as much about the evolution of Japanese cinema as it is about one of its most pivotal practitioners.

See more on BoldType.com

At Amazon : Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters

Technorati Tags: August Ragone, book, Booska, Eiji Tsuburaya, entertainment, Godzilla, Japan, Master of Monsters, Mothra, kaiju, special-effects, Ultraman

A potentially interesting book called The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee.

There are more Chinese restaurants in America than McDonalds, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken combined.

In The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, author Jennifer 8. Lee takes readers on a remarkable journey that is both foreign and familiar: penetrating this subculture by traveling the world (and almost every American state) in her quest to understand Chinese food and the people who make it.

Her journey took her to the hometown of General Tso (a military hero immortalized as much for crunchy chicken as his conquests), the surprising origins of the fortune cookie (it’s not China), and to six continents in search for the world’s greatest Chinese restaurant.

The book also sparks debates as to who really invented chop suey and why Jews love Chinese food, or as she puts it: Why is chow mein the chosen food of the chosen people?

For more information, check out www.fortunecookiechronicles.com

Buy it at Amazon : The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food

Via BoldType

Technorati Tags: book, literature, Jennifer 8. Lee, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles

I’ve just heard about Manga : The Complete Guide which is a new book (set to be released in October 07) written by former Viz editor Jason Thompson. I haven’t flicked through it, but it sounds like a fantastic resource for both newcomers and seasoned readers on the genre.

The book will contain:

• Reviews of more than 900 manga series
• Ratings from 0 to 4 stars
• Incisive, full-length reviews of stories and artwork
• Guidelines for age-appropriateness–from strictly mature to kid-friendly
• Number of series volumes
• Background info on series and artists
• Profiles of the biggest names in manga, including CLAMP, Osamu Tezuka, Rumiko Takahashi, and many others
• The facts on the many kinds of manga–know your shôjo from your shônen
• An overview of the manga industry and its history
• A detailed bibliography and a glossary of manga terms

Jason Thompson has over ten years’ experience as a manga editor, working at SHOHEN JUMP magazine and other publications. His writing has appeared in Animerica and The Comics Journal.

Read an interview with Jason Thompson here

Get Manga: The Complete Guide at Amazon…

Technorati Tags: book, comics, culture, Japanese, Jason Thompson, manga, Manga : The Complete Guide

YumSugar posted about an interesting book called “Hungry Planet: What the World Eats” by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio.

It has portraits of families, surrounded by the food they eat during the course of a week, and provides a visually interesting index of culinary lifestyles around the world for you to compare.

There are 30 families in 24 countries, and each of them are profiled with a small story, a full shopping list (with prices) and a family recipe.

From the book, here are the Ukita family of Kodaira City, Japan. Their food expenditure for one week: 37,699 Yen or $317.25. Their favorite foods: sashimi, fruit, cake, potato chips.

Technorati Tags: Books, cuisine, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, world

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This book was first published in 1997 (symbolic?) and contains a superb collection of 16 short stories that serve up slices of British Chinese culture.

If you’re British Chinese and grew up in the UK, you’ll easily recognise the scenarios that the diverse authors have placed their characters in. In fact, the book will probably reach out to anyone who has experienced the meeting of two (or more) cultures and offers itself as a thoroughly entertaining read.

I bought a copy when Dim Sum was first published, and only recently stumbled upon it again when going through my things. I didn’t hesitate to post about this, as to me, the book stands as a valuable record of the British Chinese cultural experience.

“Dim Sum will open your mind and open your eyes to a new vision, a new voice of the British Chinese.” David Yip - British Chinese actor, best known for the lead role in the 1981 BBC drama The Chinese Detective

Get Dim Sum: Little Pieces of Heart at Amazon, before it goes out of print!

Technorati Tags: Books, British Chinese, dim sum, short stories

The 2005 Pearl Award winner for Creative Excellence Xiaolu Guo has been nominated for a £30,000 Orange Prize.

The 33-year-old, who wrote her first English novel in in 2002, is nominated for her romantic comedy, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers.
Xiaolu’s book is deliberately written in bad English and tells the story of a Chinese woman sent to London by her parents to study. Her heroine quickly renames herself Z after arriving at Heathrow, because no one can pronounce her name. She soon discovers, however, that she is no better at English.
Z winds up lodging with a Chinese family in Tottenham, North London but, when she meets a man, she enters a new world of sex, freedom and self-discovery. And although her English improves, she still struggles to understand him.
Other nominees for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction are Rachel Cusk, US Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Tyler, Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Indian writer Kiran Desai.
The winner of the award, which is in its 12th year and honours women writers, will be announced at a ceremony on June 6. Good luck Xiaolu!

Article from The Metro
guoxiaolu.com
The Pearl Awards
Buy “A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers” at Amazon

Technorati Tags: Books, culture, United Kingdom, Xiaolu Guo