The result is a novel that proves he is among our most versatile and talented contemporary novelists. Tom Stewart, son of a Kentish publican, decides to try his luck in Hong Kong, and on the long voyage meets a beautiful nun who teaches him Cantonese. Privately he continued to paint, mainly with oils, and to study the works of the great masters, Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso in particular. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

First edition first print hardback of FRAGRANT HARBOUR by John Lanchester and published by Faber and Faber Limited in 2002. If any of these technologies are turned off or not supported we can not guarantee full functionality. What Vaughan saw in ballet was the groupings of people, and people in movement – aspects which would stay as preoccupations and evidence themselves in much of his later work.An accountant all his working life, Mr Phillips has lost his job and says he is "not anything now", but he is in fact really something. As I sit on the flight bound for Heathrow, I look at the strange yet familiar night sky one last time, hoping it won’t get too unrecognisable the next time I am back.

Though he is the son of a Kent publican, and had never been much east of Whitstable in early life, Stewart has inherited or acquired the emotional insufficiency of the Empire-building upper-class male. Mr Phillips established Lanchester as among the best youngish novelists around, so it seems likely that anybody who has read it will open Fragrant Harbour with high expectations. As today's Hong Kong faces yet more uncertainty and change, these films highlight a very different time on the crowded island where East met West.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Against this backdrop, Stewart's life, and particularly his relationship with Maria, a Chinese nun he first meets as he is travelling out from England in 1935, unfolds. Her boss in Hong Kong is a powerful and sinister Chinese billionaire; but he was a mere village boy in the Thirties, when he became the protégé of a hotelier, Tom Stewart. Were our ancestors really so passionless and correct, or is it a lazy half-lie, sanctified by usage? When the war breaks out, and he is beaten, tortured and interned, he acts like a hero, but expresses little more than a mild rancour towards the Japanese.

Sasek’s own three favourites were ‘This Is Venice’ (1961), ‘This Is Hong Kong’ (1965) and ‘This Is Edinburgh’ (1961) – though, as he reported to Lee Bennett Hopkins, he hated the Scottish weather in Edinburgh. The pay-off from their polite passion becomes clear in a final section, which introduces a third voice. By the end of her story we know that she’s shallow enough to ditch her journalistic principles for the offer of big bucks and power. Wir verfolgen über die Jahre hinweg diverse Einzelschicksale von Menschen die in Hong Kong ihr Glück suchen. In 1951 Trevelyan married Mary Fedden (see artists) and the couple travelled widely, in Europe, Africa, India and the USA, before settling in London, Durham Wharf, on the banks of the River Thames, where he set up his etching studio.Trevelyan was a teacher of etching at the Royal College of Art where his students included David Hockney, Norman Ackroyd and Ron Kitaj. Tom has the benefit of being a survivor, first as a hotelier in a cut-throat business and second as a prisoner of war captured by the Japanese during the Second World War. Full details of your rights under the Distance Selling Regulations are available in the UK from your local Citizens' Advice Bureau or your Local Authority's Trading Standards Office. Das interessanteste aus meiner Sicht ist die Tatsache, dass die Story nie wirklich spannend ist und trotzdem ist das Buch ein Pageturner.

I do not want to add any spoilers but a few times I found myself going back to earlier passages to reread them after revelations later in the book helped to show them in a different light.A peripheral character in John Lanchester's new novel says, of classical Chinese, that it already "feels" like a translation. Visit the genteel colonial centre, including the long-gone Hong Kong Club; explore the waterfront streets around Wan Chai and Causeway Bay, before the major land reclamations of the 60s and 70s pushed them inland. Lanchester does a good job of bringing the city to life, with rich descriptions of the junk-filled harbour, the steep streets and the skyscrapers that line them. As a student he visited Fry’s (1910) Post-Impressionist exhibition at the Grafton Galleries, and whilst he was enthralled by the use of colour, he judged the work neglectful of content.