Books on Asia

BOA Podcast 79—Simon Elegant’s City on Fire: A Novel of Hong Kong

May 5, 2026

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Episode Notes

John chats with writer and journalist Simon Elegant about his third novel, a crime thriller set during the Hong Kong protests of 2019. City on Fire is published by Pegasus Crime, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. The novel follows Inspector Killian Tong’s investigation of a brutal murder against a backdrop of political chaos, police tensions, and also personal conflict – Killian’s half-sister is a radical protester. John and Simon also discuss the background to the 2019 protests, including the National Security Law and the earlier 2014 Umbrella Movement.

Among the books mentioned were:

Manchu (1980) by Robert Elegant (a swashbuckling novel by Simon’s father).

Gorky Park (1981) by Martin Cruz Smith

Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy (2023) by Shibani Mahtani & Timothy McLaughlin

Simon’s Reading Recommendations

The Immobile Empire (French 1989, English 1992) by Alain Peyrefitte. This is on the 1973 Macartney mission to Peking.

Apple in China (2025) by Patrick McGee, which explores Apple’s deep entanglement with China’s manufacturing system.

Ginkgo Season (2025) by Naomi Xu Elegant, a coming-of-age novel set in Philadelphia.

To learn more about Simon Elegant and his novel, visit the publisher’s website.

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 78: Jane Lawson—Secret Japan

April 28, 2026

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Episode Notes

Amy Chavez talks with Jane Lawson about her book Secret Japan: An Insider’s Guide to Deeper Travel in the World’s Most Fascinating Country (Affirm Press AU/Simon & Schuster, 2026).

Jane encourages people to get off the beaten track to discover the most amazing people, places, and foods. This gives travelers a chance to see and experience Japanese life and culture from the inside by spending time in smaller places. It’s the difference between tourism being forced on locals and those locals being granted the choice to reach out and connect. Use Jane’s prescription for travel to let the Japanese introduce you to their culture, in their way. Find a more relaxing way of travel by discovering the smaller events and more local foods.

Her short and to the point suggestions for travel include: Stop ticking boxes, let go of your expectations, get out and experience the real culture and you’ll learn a lot about yourself as well as Japanese culture.

Secret Japan is divided by prefecture and lists all the things you can do in each prefecture to strip out the noise, take off the layers and learn the things most people don’t know, and the experiences that aren’t in guides or on travel websites.

In this episode, for example, Jane talks about Hokkaido: workshops in embroidery, wood carving, learning to play local instruments, and an event featuring folk singing competition for old sea-faring melodies. She talks about assorted guided cooking classes or experiential foraging for mountain vegetables and herbs, plus farm to table experiences.

She also gives recommendations on learning about Japanese crafts: Kumihimo braided chords used in samurai armor, sumi ink and calligraphy brushes in the backstreets of Nara, places to see fan-makers, incense-creators, cutters and etchers of glass wind chimes, and learn about nail free carpentry.

In addition, Secret Japan covers lesser known areas of Tokyo, such as Jimbocho’s guitar street, specialty shopping arcades, sumo stables, the Hokusai museum, Sengakuji Temple of The 47 Ronin, the Parasite Museum, and Tokyo’s outlying islands.

She gives tips on preparing your trip, traveling, enjoying Japanese gardens, and eating at restaurants.

Lastly, this ex-professional chef and current tour guide gives three of her favorite books on Japanese food:

Oishinbo manga series on food and food culture, by Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki (English)

The Japanese Kitchen by Hiroko Shinbo and Rodica Prato (English)

Japanese Cooking as a Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji (English)

(Note: If you’re wondering about the sound at 27 minutes into the cast, that’s the ferry coming into Shiraishi Island (where I’m recording) from mainland Honshu. At 29:15 there’s another ferry toot, a different ferry, returning from the further islands and stopping in at Shiraishi before going back to the mainland).

Find Jane at either Jane Lawson Food or Zenbu Tours on FB, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest

Visit her website at www.zenbutravel.com

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 77: Replay—Alex Kerr on Finding the Heart Sutra

April 21, 2026

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Episode Notes

Amy Chavez talks with Alex Kerr about his book Finding the Heart Sutra: Guided by a Magician, an Art Collector and Buddhist Sages from Tibet to Japan (Penguin U.K., 2020).

book cover

Kerr is the author of several best-selling books, including Lost Japan, Dogs and Demons, Another Kyoto (w/Kathy Arlyn Sokol), Another Bangkok and Hidden Japan.

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.

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Podcasts

BOA Podcast 76 Anna Beth Keim: A History of Taiwan Through the Life of Huang Chin-tao

April 14, 2026

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John talks to Anna Beth Keim about her acclaimed biography, Heaven Does Not Block All Roads: A History of Taiwan Through the Life of Huang Chin-tao. Huang Chin-tao (1926–2019) lived through every twist and turn of Taiwan’s turbulent twentieth century. He served as a Japanese soldier in China during World War II, joined an armed uprising against Taiwan’s Chinese Nationalist post-war government (the 2-28 Incident of 1947), then went into hiding. He served with the Republic of China Navy before being captured and spending 23 years in prison. Once more a free man, he became a driving force in the pro-democracy movement. It was an amazing life, and this biography does a wonderful job of telling it.

Heaven Does Not Block All Roads was published by UK indie press Hurst in 2025.

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 75: Michael Freiling—100 Poems from Old Japan

April 7, 2026

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Mike Freiling was born in San Francisco. His interest in poetry was first kindled in the mid-‘60’s, when he attended high school near the Haight Ashbury district, and attended readings by American Beat poets Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and Lenore Kandel.

Freiling attended University of San Francisco and MIT and helped co-found MIT’s literary magazine Rune. He studied poetry under David Ferry at Wellesley. After receiving his PhD, he was named a Luce Scholar with an appointment to Kyoto University,

In 2014, Freiling returned to Kyoto where he and his wife Satsuki Takikawa co-translated They Never Asked, an anthology of senryu poetry written by Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II.

Today we’re going to talk about his translation of the 100 Poems From Old Japan published by Tuttle in 2025, some 46 years after Freiling’s first draft

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 74: Bruce Rutledge and Chin Music Press

March 31, 2026

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John talks to Bruce Rutledge, founder of Chin Music Press, about running an independent Asia-focused press, the origins of the company in Tokyo, and the move to Seattle, where Chin Music now has a bookstore in Pike Place Market. They talk about Chin Music’s highly successful graphic novel trilogy on the Japanese American incarceration experience during World War II. The wide-ranging conversation is an honest celebration of the challenges and pleasures of independent publishing.

Chin Music Press books mentioned in the episode include:

Their very first book, an anthology called Kuhaku, published in 2005.

Goodbye Madame Butterfly: Sex, Marriage and the Modern Japanese Woman by Sumie Kawakami (2007/2010)

Japan’s Urushi Craftsmen: Can Old World Artistry Survive in the 21st Century? by Bruce Rutledge (2020)

When the Waves Came by Michael Larson (2020)

WE HEREBY REFUSE: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration by authors Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura and illustrators Ross Ishikawa and Matt Sasaki (2021).

Fighting for America: Nisei Soldiers by Lawrence Matsuda (Author) and Matt Sasaki (Artist)

Those Who Helped Us: Assisting Japanese Americans During the War by Ken Mochizuki (Author) and Kiku Hughes (Illustrator)

Seattle Samurai: A Cartoonist’s Perspective of the Japanese American Experience by Kelly Goto (Author) and Sam Goto (Drawings)

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 73: Steven Herman—Behind the White House Curtain

March 24, 2026

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Episode Notes

Steven Herman spent 1990-2006 in Japan, most of those years with Voice of America. He served as South East Asia Bureau Chief as well as North East Asia Bureau Chief for the Korean Penninsula & Japan. Over his 16 years living in Japan he covered the Kobe Earthquake as well as the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disaster, which he said was “covering three disasters at the same time.”

He also recounts his more recent days as a White House Foreign Correspondent, especially his time as a traveling pool reporter. You’ll learn what it’s like to fly on Air Force One, why he got banned (twice) from X by Elon Musk, that “Presidential M&M’s” are a thing, and his best advice for those wanting to write a book about their experiences in a foreign country.

Finally, he gives a concise account of what happened to VOA in the Trump Administration, his role as a whistle-blower, and tells us why DOGE shut them down. Herman retired from VOA in mid 2025 and now teaches journalism. In this latter discussion, he reveals how he blew the biggest scoop ever in his journalism career.

Herman is currently the executive director of the Jordan Center for Journalism Advocacy & Innovation in the School of Journalism & New Media at the University of Mississippi.

Some of Herman’s favorite books on Japan are:

Notes in Japan, by Alfred Parsons (1896)

No Surrender: My 30-year War the autobiography of Noda Hiro (1974, transl. Charles S. Terry)

The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa (Princeton Univ. Press, 1991)

Links

You can find Steve Herman on social media at:

Mastadon, Blue Sky, Threads, Substack, LinkedIn and Instagram

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 72: David Leffman—A Murder in Yunnan

March 17, 2026

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Episode Notes

John Ross speaks with English travel writer and photographer David Leffman about his new book, A Murder in Yunnan: The Unsolved Killing of a British Diplomat on China’s Southwestern Frontier. The conversation begins with David’s own long engagement with China, which started with a difficult first trip in 1985, and then continued a decade later with work on The Rough Guide to China.

In the 1860s, the British dreamed of opening a profitable overland trade route into China from British India via Burma. The 1868 Sladen Expedition scouted a route from Bhamo in Burma to Tengyue/Tengchong in Yunnan, China. The going was difficult because the southwestern frontier area had been devastated by prolonged Muslim uprisings and banditry. The Browne Expedition tried again in 1875. Augustus Raymond Margary, a young British diplomat and gifted Chinese speaker, joined this second expedition after making a remarkable overland journey from Shanghai across the breadth of China. But tragedy soon struck.

Margary’s murder near the border – what became known as the Margary Affair – turned into a diplomatic crisis, nearly provoking a third Anglo-Chinese war. This BOA episode contains no spoilers; David doesn’t reveal who he thinks killed the young Englishman, but we do run through some of the many suspects and look at the fallout from this true crime case. And, as icing on the cake, we even hear about a Burmese mission to Peking with elephants as tribute.

A Murder in Yunnan is published by the Hong Kong-based Blacksmith Books. It’s due out April 7, 2026 but can be preordered now.

To learn more about David Leffman’s writing, visit his website.

John has written reviews for Bookish Asia of David’s earlier China books.

The Mercenary Mandarin: How a British adventurer became a general in Qing-dynasty China. John also did a related author interview with David for this book.

Paper Horses: Woodblock Prints of Gods from Northern China

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 71: Anti-Foreign Sentiment, Overtourism and Tourist Behavior

March 10, 2026

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Episode Notes

Amy discusses the relationship between anti-foreign sentiment, overtourism, and tourist manners in Japan. Protests in Kyoto, Kamakura, and Tokyo claim that overtourism negatively impacts the daily lives of locals. Right-wing populist groups like the Sanseito party further use overtourism to fuel anti-foreign sentiment. With Japan’s aging population, and only 59% of the Japanese people in the working age range, foreign workers are being brought to Japan to fill jobs, creating a perceived burden to locals, who are already battling overtourism. Amy also shares examples of poor tourist behavior that exacerbates anti-foreign sentiment. She emphasizes the importance of understanding and respecting Japanese culture to improve the tourist experience. Lastly, she offers tips from her book on the Japanese art of being polite.

A guide to Japanese manners

“Walk while eating Kobe beef”: No wonder tourists are confused. Are manners in Japan changing?

Lost items should be put in in a prominent place, so when the owner comes back to look for it, he or she can easily find it.

Japanese ski areas often have brushes on the ski racks to clean off excess snow from your skis or snowboard before putting them in your car, or getting on the bus. Do as the locals!

Links:

Record 4.5 billion yen in lost cash turned in to Tokyo police in 2025 (The Mainichi News)

In BOA Episode 68, Amy discusses Washington Post Tokyo bureau chief T.R. Reid’s book Ski Japan! (Kodansha, 1993) and the current inbound ski/snowboarding boom. In resorts such as Niseko United, 80 percent of the skiers and snowboarders are now non-Japanese.

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 70: Replay—Angus Waycott Walks Sado Island

March 3, 2026

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Episode Notes

On March 1, ferries from Japan’s main Island of Honshu to Sado Island (Niigata Prefecture), started running again after their long winter slumber waiting for the frothy Sea of Japan to settle and for calmer winds to set in for reliable crossings. Let’s celebrate Spring in Japan with this previous Books on Asia episode with author and travel-writer Angus Waycott who talks about his 8-day walk around Sado Island.

Waycott gives us in-depth accounts of: a mujina (tanuki-worshipping) cult, funa-ema (literally “ship horse pictures”), exile (including those of Zeami and Buddhist priest Nichiren), and the controversy behind the Kinzan gold mine and its “slave labor,” all topics that he recorded in his book Sado: Japan’s Island in Exile, originally published by Stone Bridge Press in 1996 and re-issued as an e-book by the author 2012 and 2023.

Book Description: “Given the choice, no-one ever went to Sado. For more than a thousand years, this island in the Sea of Japan was a place of exile for the deposed, disgraced or just plain distrusted — ex-emperors, aristocrats, poets, priests and convicted criminals alike. This book rediscovers the exiles’ island, explores the truth about its notorious gold mine, tracks down a vanishing badger cult, and drops in on the home of super-drummer band Kodo. Along the way, it paints a vivid picture of one of Japan’s most intriguing backwaters, now emerging from a long exile of its own.”

About the Author

Angus Waycott is an author and travel writer whose books have been published in the UK, USA, Japan and the Netherlands. He has been the voice of TV news broadcasts, commercials, and award-winning documentaries, voiced “character” parts in game software and anime productions, and worked as a copywriter, publisher, teacher, translator, lighting designer, and staircase builder. His books are Sado: Japan’s Isand in Exile, Paper Doors: Japan from Scratch (2012), The Winterborne Journey: along a small crack in the planet (2023), and National Parks of Western Europe (2012). Check out his short video on Sado Island.

The Books on Asia Podcast is sponsored by Stone Bridge Press. Check out their books on Japan at the publisher’s website. Amy Chavez, podcast host, is author of Amy’s Guide to Best Behavior in Japan and The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island.

Subscribe to the Books on Asia podcast.

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.