Sima Qian – China’s Grand Historian (with Tim McGirk)

John Ross chats with repeat guest Tim McGirk about Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BC), the Father of Chinese History. He earned this accolade for his monumental work, the Shiji (usually translated as Records of the Grand Historian). It covers more than two thousand years, from the legendary early emperors up to Emperor Wu, under whom Sima Qian lived and fell afoul. Sima Qian would use his history writing to criticize cruel leaders, most notably Qin Shi Huang, the despotic first emperor of China, who burned books and attacked the humanistic legacy of Confucius. The backstory of the Records is one of the great bibliographic tales of all time. And as McGirk explains, the man and his work were inspiration for his historical novel, The Wondrous Elixir of the Two Chinese Lovers.

Books discussed:

Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian (English translation by Burton Watson, Columbia University Press, 1961, 1993, 1996).

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

Related episodes:

In episode 53, John chatted with Tim about his Plum Rain Press novel The Wondrous Elixir of the Two Chinese Lovers. It weaves the story of archeological discoveries in modern-day Mexico with that of Xu Fu, a Taoist alchemist/priest sent to bring back the secret of immortality.

And in episode 65, John and Tim talked about Simon Winchester’s biography of Sinologist Joseph Needham, The Man Who Loved China.

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.

M. G. Sheftall has lived in Japan since 1987. He has a PhD in international relations and modern Japanese history from Waseda University in Tokyo. Since 2001, he has been a professor of modern Japanese cultural history and communication at the Faculty of Informatics of Shizuoka University. He lives in Hamamatsu, Japan.

Amy Chavez talks about Sheftall's books on the Asia Pacific War, in particular Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses and Nagasaki: The Last Witnesses both oral histories featuring interviews with survivors of the atomic bombs.

Has Japan's 80 years of peace education been all for naught? The book serves as a prescient warning given the current political climate and Japan's complex relationships with the US, Taiwan, China, and the broader world. Recent developments—including Nihon Hidankyo's 2024 Nobel Peace Prize and the ongoing protests against revising Article 9—bring this subject into sharp focus. Against this backdrop, the author offers his own perspective on Japan's nuclear future.

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.

Sightseeing Japan

John Ross is joined by Jason Nieling and Paul Bresin of the Sightseeing Japan Podcast, which started back in 2019 and now has over 160 detailed but fun episodes. The two Japanophiles discuss how their show explores Japan through episodes on culture, food, and travel. Jason and Paul share a range of fiction and non-fiction book recommendations.

Book Recommendations

You Gotta Have Wa (1977) by Robert Whiting. (Amy spoke with Robert about his Tokyo Junkie memoir back in 2021.)

Battle Royale (1999, Eng. 2003) by Koushun Takami

Tearmoon Empire (2019) by Nozomu Mochitsuki

Samurai Rising: The Epic Life of Minamoto Yoshitsune (2016) by Pamela S. Turner

Massacre at Shirakawa (2023) by I. J. Parker

Earthlings (2018 / Eng. 2020) by Sayaka Murata

Convenience Store Woman (2016, Eng. 2018) by Sayaka Murata. (Amy spoke with translator Ginny Tapley Takemori in an episode last September)

Be sure to check out the Sightseeing Japan Podcast.

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.

Simon Elegant’s City on Fire: A Novel of Hong Kong
John chats with writer and journalist Simon Elegant about his third novel, a crime thriller set during the Hong Kong protests of 2019. City on Fire is published by Pegasus Crime, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. The novel follows Inspector Killian Tong’s investigation of a brutal murder against a backdrop of political chaos, police tensions, and also personal conflict – Killian’s half-sister is a radical protester. John and Simon also discuss the background to the 2019 protests, including the National Security Law and the earlier 2014 Umbrella Movement.

Among the books mentioned were:

Manchu (1980) by Robert Elegant (a swashbuckling novel by Simon’s father).

Gorky Park (1981) by Martin Cruz Smith

Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy (2023) by Shibani Mahtani & Timothy McLaughlin

Simon’s recommendations

The Immobile Empire (French 1989, English 1992) by Alain Peyrefitte. This is on the 1973 Macartney mission to Peking.

Apple in China (2025) by Patrick McGee, which explores Apple’s deep entanglement with China’s manufacturing system.

Ginkgo Season (2025) by Naomi Xu Elegant, a coming-of-age novel set in Philadelphia.

To learn more about Simon Elegant and his novel, visit the publisher’s website at www.pegasusbooks.com

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.

Amy Chavez talks with Jane Lawson about her book Secret Japan: An Insider's Guide to Deeper Travel in the World's Most Fascinating Country (Simon & Schuster, 2026).

Jane encourages people to get off the beaten track to discover the most amazing people, places, and foods. This gives travelers a chance to see and experience Japanese life and culture from the inside by spending time in smaller places. It's the difference between tourism being forced on locals and those locals being granted the choice to reach out and connect. Use Jane's prescription for travel to let the Japanese introduce you to their culture, in their way. Find a more relaxing way of travel by discovering the smaller events and more local foods.

Three of Jane Lawson's favorite books on Japanese food:

Oishinbo manga series on food and food culture, by Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki (English)

The Japanese Kitchen by Hiroko Shinbo and Rodica Prato (English)

Japanese Cooking as a Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji (English)

(Note: If you're wondering about the sound at 27 minutes into the cast, that's the ferry coming into Shiraishi Island (where I'm recording) from the mainland of Okayama. At 29:15 there's another ferry toot, a different ferry, coming in from the further islands and stopping in at Shiraishi before going back to the mainland).

Jane Lawson Food, Zenbu Tours on FB, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest

www.zenbutravel.com

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.

Amy Chavez talks with Alex Kerr about his book Finding the Heart Sutra: Guided by a Magician, an Art Collector and Buddhist Sages from Tibet to Japan (Penguin U.K., 2020).

Kerr is the author of several books, including Lost Japan, Dogs and Demons, Another Kyoto (w/Kathy Arlyn Sokol), Another Bangkok and Hidden Japan.

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.

John talks to Anna Beth Keim about her acclaimed biography, Heaven Does Not Block All Roads: A History of Taiwan Through the Life of Huang Chin-tao. Huang Chin-tao (1926–2019) lived through every twist and turn of Taiwan’s turbulent twentieth century. He served as a Japanese soldier in China during World War II, joined an armed uprising against Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist post-war government (the 2-28 Incident of 1947), then went into hiding. He served with the Republic of China Navy before being captured and spending 23 years in prison. Once more a free man, he became a driving force in the pro-democracy movement. It was an amazing life, and this biography does a wonderful job of telling it.

Heaven Does Not Block All Roads was published by UK indie press Hurst in 2025.

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.

Show Notes

Mike Freiling was born in San Francisco. His interest in poetry was first kindled in the mid-‘60’s, when he attended high school near the Haight Ashbury district, and attended readings by American Beat poets Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and Lenore Kandel.

Freiling attended University of San Francisco and MIT and helped co-found MIT’s literary magazine Rune. He studied poetry under David Ferry at Wellesley. After receiving his PhD, he was named a Luce Scholar with an appointment to Kyoto University,

In 2014, Freiling returned to Kyoto where he and his wife Satsuki Takikawa co-translated They Never Asked, an anthology of senryu poetry written by Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II.

Today we’re going to talk about his translation of the 100 Poems From Old Japan published by Tuttle in 2025, some 46 years after Freiling's first draft.

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.