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BOA Podcast 57: Amy & John’s Holiday Gift Book Recommendations

December 2, 2025

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Episode Summary

Looking for a great gift for a book-lover? We’ve got you covered! From coffee table books to fiction, historical fiction and expat accounts of life in Asia, Amy Chavez and John Ross weigh in on their favorites.

Episode Notes

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 by Gordon Bass (Random House Australia, 2017)

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, by Paul Martin (Tuttle, 2024)

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

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

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

An American Bum in China: Featuring the Bumblingly Brilliant Escapades of Expatriate Matthew Evans 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, by Yao-Chang Chen (Plum Rain Press, 2024)

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

Other podcast episodes mentioned:

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

Formosa Files Podcast about Ben Carlin’s ocean journey by 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.

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 56: Ted Goossen on translating Hiromi Kawakami’s “Third Love”

November 27, 2025

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Episode Summary

Super translator Ted Goossen talks about everything from first landing in Japan in 1968 to the differences between translating Haruki Murakami and Hiromi Kawakami, especially the complexities of Hiromi Kawakami’s latest book The Third Love.

Episode Notes

Amy 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 prominent people 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.

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 55: Sam Baldwin–Self-publishing Success and a New Travel Book Review Website

November 18, 2025

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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 (Translation into English by Richard Graves 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

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 54: What’s it Like to Live in China? Mark Kitto on China Running Dog

November 11, 2025

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Actor and writer Mark Kitto talks about his novel China Running Dog (Plum Rain Press, 2025) based on his experiences living in China in the 2000’s. Many of his encounters, surprisingly, parallel those of foreigners living in Japan, but certainly not all of them! Take a deep look into what it means to be an outsider in China. Particularly a foreigner who has fallen in love with the culture, is determined to make a life there, and aspires to start a business. But if that person is hoping for their enterprise to prosper, think again!

Buy on BookShop.org (US-Only) or Amazon (Int’l)

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, in a 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 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.

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

See Mark Kitto’s one-man show, Chinese Boxing.

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 53: The Wondrous Elixir of the Two Chinese Lovers

November 4, 2025

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John Ross chats with former Time magazine correspondent Tim McGirk about his historical thriller The Wondrous Elixir of the Two Chinese Lovers.

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.

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 52: Lauren Scharf on Traditional Japanese Houses and MinkaCon 2025

October 29, 2025

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Amy Chavez sits down with Lauren Scharf of The Minka Preservation Society (MINKA), an organization dedicated to preserving traditional farm houses and townhouses that retain the cultural essence of Japan’s past.

Lauren Scharf talks about minka, kominka and akiya houses in Japan and how to tell the difference.

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

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 51: A Tale of Three Tribes in Dutch Formosa, with John Ross & Eryk Smith

October 21, 2025

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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.

BOA Podcast 50: Sally Burdon Talks Asia Bookroom and Rare Books

October 14, 2025

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Today I sit down with Sally Burdon, a bookseller at Asia Bookroom in Canberra, Australia, which specializes in rare and secondhand books. From Japanese woodblock prints to Chinese classics and Taiwanese travelogues, Asia Bookroom is a treasure trove for readers and collectors alike.

Asia Bookroom exhibits their most precious items at rare and antiquarian book fairs in Melbourne, Sydney, and Hong Kong. They’ll next be 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 (with illustrations)

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 Hessler

Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry

You can visit Asia Bookroom online at https://www.asiabookroom.com/ and be sure to sign up for their E-lists while you’re there!

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 or the BOA newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 49: Jake Adelstein—The Devil Takes Bitcoin

October 7, 2025

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Jake Adelstein is the author of The Last Yakuza, and Tokyo Noir, but most listeners will know him from his book and Netflix series Tokyo Vice. Today he talks with Books on Asia about his upcoming book The Devil Takes Bitcoin: Cryptocurrency Crimes and the Japanese Connection to be released next week (Scribe, Oct. 14, 2025).

Show Notes

Adelstein introduces the colorful characters behind Mt. Gox, one of the world’s largest Bitcoin exchanges, based in Tokyo and run by Frenchman Mark Karpeles. As a reporter for The Daily Beast, Japan-based Adelstein starts researching Mt. Gox, to figure out how it got hacked, and how it collapsed in 2014 with over 650,000 Bitcoins gone missing. He covers the laws, customs and quirks of Japan’s “hostage-justice system” and how the entire investigation into Karpeles and Mt. Gox played out. And yes, it includes cats!

Be sure to pick up a copy of The Devil Takes Bitcoin: Cryptocurrency Crimes and the Japanese Connection online or at your favorite bookstore.

Jake is a self-described “book junkie” who reads across a variety of genres. He is currently reading:

The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto by Benjamin Wallace about the founder of Bitcoin.
The Sweet Spot by Paul Bloom about the meaning of suffering.
大阪府警暴力団担当刑事
Yellow Face by R.F. Kuang

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.

Podcasts

BOA Podcast 48: Stephen Mansfield—The Modern Japanese Garden

September 30, 2025

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Stephen Mansfield is a British writer, photographer and longtime Japan resident. His work has appeared in over 70 magazines, newspapers and journals worldwide and he’s a regular contributor to Nikkei Asia. Mansfield has published 20 books and is the author and photographer of four texts on Japanese gardens. BOA Podcast listeners may remember the author from episode 29, when we talked about his book Tokyo: A Biography. This time, in episode 48, Mansfield introduces his just-released book The Modern Japanese Garden (Thames & Hudson, Sept. 2025; American release Oct. 7, 2025)

Book cover — *Front cover of book: Osaka Rinshō-ji*

back cover — *Back cover: Kyushu Sangyo University*

Show Notes

Before focusing on contemporary landscape designs, Mansfield provides an introduction to traditional gardens and how these ancient designs were related to nature, geomancy, literature and the Japanese concepts of wabi-sabi, yugen, and mono no aware. As time went on, garden design shifted from symbolism and representation to a more naturalistic style as seen in Kyoto’s Murin-an. Guest essays on garden design included in the book are written by Ogawa Jihei (1860-1933), Kengo Kuma, Mira Locher, Japanese Buddhist priest & garden designer Masuno Shunmyo, and garden historian, critic, and author Tim Richardson.

Some of the many gardens we discuss are: Kagawa Prefectural Office in Takamatsu city, Kengo Kuma and Nezu Museum, Osaka Station Roof Garden, Hyakudanen on Awajishima Island in Hyogo (designed by Tadao Ando), the Carbon Fibre Garden in Tokyo, and the pop-art garden at Teshima Yokoo House (Benesse art islands).