Hahn details the trials and tribulations of a conquered people as they rebel against their exploiters and fight and die for independence, eventually achieving their goal but only at the price of a bitter partition that haunts the country to this day. Hahn’s breadth of vision and acute sense of the telling detail paints the big picture while also pinpointing the small-but-important moments. Perhaps the sub-title manages to encapsulate it all: Ireland, Its Legends, Its History, Its People from St. Patrick to Bernadette Devlin.

The remarkable Emily Hahn was an irrepressible traveler who broke all the rules of her time to produce over ninety works of fiction and nonfiction.  See her author page for details.

Through inheritance or marriage the Soong sisters were among the wealthiest and most influential people in China in the 1930s as the clouds of two wars — first between China and Japan, then the Second World War — roiled over Asia. Politically, the sisters had been divided between nationalism and Communism and for many years the two supporters of nationalism – Ai-ling and Mei-ling – did not speak to their Communist sympathizer sister Ching-ling. All that changed when the Japanese brutally invaded and occupied their country. It is worth a few moments of your time to read the Wikipedia entry summarizing their story. It’s worth a few hours of your time to read the inspiring The Soong Sisters.

The Soong Sisters is one of several books about China by Emily Hahn published by E-Reads, the principal one being China to Me, about which we have written so enthusiastically elsewhere in these pages (see A Missouri Feminist Captures Shanghai). And there are more books to come by one of the most remarkable women of the Twentieth Century. See her author page for updates.

- Richard Curtis

Originally published in 1970, under the title Times and Places:A Memoir, this book is a collection of twenty-three articles from The New Yorker published between 1937 and 1970. Well-reviewed upon first publication, the book was republished under the current title in 2000 with a foreword by Sheila McGrath, a long-time colleague of hers at The New Yorker, and an introduction by Ken Cuthbertson, author of Nobody Said Not to Go: The Life, Loves and Adventures of Emily Hahn.

One of the pieces in the book starts with the line, “Though I had always wanted to be an opium addict, I can’t claim that as a reason why I went to China.” Hahn was seized by a wanderlust that led her to explore nearly every corner of the world. She traveled solo to the Belgian Congo at the age of twenty-five. She was the concubine of a Chinese poet in Shanghai in the 1930s–where she did indeed become and opium addict for two years. For many years, she spent part of every year in New York City and part of her time living with her husband, Charles Boxer, in England. Through the course of these twenty-three distinct pieces, Emily Hahn gives us a glimpse of the tremendous range of her interests, the many places in the world she visited and her extraordinary perception of the things, large and small, that are important in a life.

Several of Hahn’s books are among the most popular published by E-Reads.  You can see them on her author page, and there are more to come.

RC

Through inheritance or marriage the girls were among the wealthiest and most influential in China in the 1930s as the clouds of two wars — first between China and Japan, then the Second World War — roiled over Asia. Politically, the sisters had been divided between nationalism and Communism and for many years the two supporters of nationalism – Ai-ling and Mei-ling – did not speak to their Communist sympathizer sister Ching-ling. All that changed when the Japanese brutally invaded and occupied their country. It is worth a few moments of your time to read the Wikipedia entry summarizing their story. It’s worth a few hours of your time to read the inspiring The Soong Sisters.

The Soong Sisters is the second book by Emily Hahn published by E-Reads, the other being China to Me, about which I have written so enthusiastically elsewhere in these pages (see A Missouri Feminist Captures Shanghai). And there are more books to come by one of the most remarkable women of the Twentieth Century.

- Richard Curtis

The New Yorker called her “a Forgotten American literary treasure” and she certainly was that. But she was a treasure in so many other ways that it’s almost impossible to wrap your arms around them. If I tell you that she was a revolutionary, a radical feminist, an adroit diplomat without portfolio, a sociologist, a chemical engineer, and a lover (she was the concubine of a Shanghai poet who hooked her on opium), I will have merely grazed the surface. As a feminist she fought tooth and nail against the stereotype of female docility that characterized the Victorian Era (and didn’t do much for her in China, you may be sure). And she was an advocate for the environment until her death at the age of ninety-two.

Oh – and did I mention she was drop-dead gorgeous? That’s her picture on the cover.

China to Me takes you on a breathtaking journey through the China of the 1930s that extends from the highest courts of political power to the personal lives of Asian prostitutes.

The best way to reconstruct her life is through her fifty-two books, of which E-Reads currently has two with more on the way.

– Richard Curtis