Friday, April 15, 2016

Three new books in the former native speaker's library

The University of Hawai'i Press had an online book sale (in fact, it ends at midnight tonight, so get over there!), so I bought three books:
You can probably tell from the last two books that I'm planning to work on learning Japanese. I'm more interested in learning to read it than in learning to speak it, but I suppose I'll try to pick up on some spoken Japanese as well, if it helps me with my primary purpose. I'll start with the Remembering the Kana book and see where it takes me.

The first book, Islands of Protest, caught my attention because there's a story in there called "Taiwan Women," by Medoruma Shun, from 1983. But I think the other stories, poems, and drama in the book will also be interesting. Most of it is postwar literature, though there are a few earlier pieces.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Another new book in the former native speaker's library

Lin, Hsiao-ting. Accidental State: Chiang Kai-shek, the United States, and the Making of Taiwan. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2016.

I asked my brother about this because he was going to AAS in Seattle. He ended up sending me a copy as a gift! What a great brother! Guess I'll be digging into it after the semester is over.