Words of wisdom
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Reaching Chinese art to a global audience is also high on the agenda. FLP's forthcoming The 798 Art Zone and Chinese Contemporary Art, edited by Huang Wenya and Cui Kaixuan, is a compilation of articles by seasoned arts writers who know intimately Beijing's most representative contemporary arts spaces.
Twenty-five noted artists - including the pioneers of China's contemporary art activities such as Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang and Ai Weiwei - are profiled by John Burris in a hardback, well-mounted book. Poignant shots capturing the artists with their creations are a high point of this FLP publication, titled At Work.
Paul Richardson, chairman of the Board of China Publishing Ltd, UK, recommends "two sumptuous books" on the CYPI Press (a China Youth Press Group subsidiary in UK) list, Chinese Contemporary Art and Chinese Dress and Adornment Through the Ages. "Like all CYPI's books they will be of the highest quality in terms of illustration and design," he says.
HarperCollins will be launching a follow-up on John Naisbitt's seminal tome, China's Megatrends.
Co-authored by John and Doris Naisbitt, China's Megatrends: The Eight Pillars of a New Society, is an incisive and well-researched take on the way China's time-tested social and economic models have evolved in conjunction with the demands of changing global trends.
Based on a true incident in 1930s Peking, in which 16-year-old English girl Pamela Werner's body was discovered by the invading Japanese troops, historian Paul French has put together a riveting story of intrigue against the backdrop of events leading to the making of the nation.
A Peking Murder: Or Murder at Fox Tower (Penguin) by Paul French aspires to solve the "mystery of a 73-year-old crime lost in the turmoil of invasion and revolution that followed in its wake".
The Civil Servant's Notebook, "a novel of politics, intrigue and corruption", by Wang Xiaofang is the other Penguin crime book of the season.
Kitchen Chinese (HarperCollins) by Ann Mah, former dining editor of That's Beijing, is a novel about a young Chinese-American woman's attempt to retrace her roots in China. Happily, much of this journey is through sampling Chinese cuisine.
Pan Macmillan is reissuing some of its bestsellers of 2009, such as Leslie T Chang's The Factory Girls, Yu Hua's Brothers, ZZ's China High, Moying Li's Snow Falling in Spring, the true story of a young girl's dogged refusal to give up books during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).
FLP is repackaging and reissuing works by Lao She (Teahouse, Camel Xiangzi) and Lu Xun (Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk, Call to Arms, Wandering) in translation, besides MP3 discs of audio books based on Lu Xun's works. These come in Chinese as well as English.
