Another new(ish) book in the former native speaker's collection

I had a chance to got to Brattle Book Shop this afternoon, and after searching through their outside book racks finally came across something that interested me enough to want to buy it. 

According to several sources, The Silent Traveller in London was published in 1938, but this copy says "First published 1939." This copy wasn't in great shape, with some tears on the dust jacket that I'll have to fix, but it was only $5. The plates inside the book look good--nothing missing. (Someone else has helpfully posted scans of the plates.)

I found an interesting article about the author, Chiang Yee (蔣彞), that was published a few years back. There's another good article about Chiang here on the Victoria and Albert Museum's website.

Winter break begins

I have a few weeks off from teaching now that I've turned my grades in, and I have to make sure that I use that time wisely. (So far I've been spending a bit too much time catching up on crime movies from the 1940s that are on my DVR.) I have a small writing project--a book review--that will require me to reread a book that I finished over a year ago. I'm hoping to get that done during the vacation.

I'm looking forward to two other books that are coming out in the spring:

• Genre Networks and Empire: Rhetoric in Early Imperial China by Xiaoye You (SIUP)
• Resistance in the Era of Nationalisms: Performing Identities in Taiwan and Hong Kong edited by Hsin-I Cheng and Hsin-i Sydney Yueh (MSUP)

If you look up You's book on Amazon, you'll get an excerpt from the introduction of the book (underneath "About the author"). I'm very interested to read what he has to say about the concept of wenti jingwei (文體經緯), which he translates as "genre networks."

There isn't much information about Cheng and Yueh's book yet. Hopefully a table of contents will show up on the Michigan State UP website soon...