Blog - Blacksmith Books

12 October 2025

Free talk by Les Bird: “Revisiting Hong Kong’s Vietnamese Refugee History”, October 13th

Pete @ Blacksmith2025-10-12T04:56:38+08:00October 12th, 2025|events, hong kong|0 Comments

This session of Tai Kwun Conversations accompanies the opening of a new permanent heritage exhibition at F Hall, which makes reference to the historical function of Victoria Prison as a place of detention for Vietnamese boat people and undocumented immigrants from different places. It brings together two speakers from diverse backgrounds to share personal and collective experiences of the Vietnamese refugee [...]

24 September 2025

Book extract: Riding out Typhoon Rose in Hong Kong

Pete @ Blacksmith2025-09-24T00:16:49+08:00September 24th, 2025|book excerpt, hong kong|0 Comments

Riding Out Typhoon Rose by Iain Ward Typhoon Rose was one of the worst storms to hit Hong Kong in the last fifty years. Winds gusted between 130 knots (150 mph) and 150 knots (172 mph) and some 12 inches of rain fell during the storm. Over 150 people were killed (no one knows the exact number) and nearly 6,000 [...]

26 July 2025

Book excerpt: Hong Kong footballer Derek Currie tells of playing alongside Kenny Dalglish as teenagers

Pete @ Blacksmith2025-07-26T22:56:49+08:00July 26th, 2025|book excerpt, hong kong|0 Comments

The photo is from Kowloon's Kai Tak Stadium tonight, as Liverpool FC play AC Milan: stadium CEO John Sharkey presents Liverpool legend Sir Kenny Dalglish with a copy of When ‘Jesus’ Came to Hong Kong, Derek Currie's book about being the first European football star to play in Asia. Currie came to the city in 1970 to play for [...]

28 April 2025

Video: watch Bill Lascher’s FCC talk about wartime China

Pete @ Blacksmith2025-04-28T01:39:59+08:00April 28th, 2025|authors, china, events, hong kong|0 Comments

The Foreign Correspondents' Club's wall exhibition this month has featured the photography of Melville Jacoby -- an American freelance journalist, United Press stringer, and foreign correspondent for TIME and LIFE magazines who covered WWII in China, French Indochina (present-day Vietnam) and the Philippines. This photo collection of wartime Chungking (Chongqing) was inspired by the book A Danger Shared: A Journalist's [...]

18 April 2025

Photo exhibition of wartime China: on show at the FCC this month

Pete @ Blacksmith2025-04-18T03:40:24+08:00April 18th, 2025|book excerpt, china, events, media attention|0 Comments

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) is a well-known gathering spot in Hong Kong. It has a surprisingly tumultuous history. Founded in Japanese-occupied China in 1941, the Club’s first base was in Chongqing (Chungking), a city controlled by Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. As the Chinese civil war intensified, the club moved with the action, first to Nanjing, then to Shanghai. It [...]

29 March 2025

Paul French launches “Destination Macao” in Macao… Sunday March 30th

Pete @ Blacksmith2025-03-29T15:30:21+08:00March 29th, 2025|authors, events|0 Comments

On Sunday March 30th (that's tomorrow!) at 3pm, Paul French will launch his new book Destination Macao in the city itself. The book is a collection of true stories about fascinating people who have visited or lived there — poets and pirates, rebels and writers, innkeepers and adventurers among them. Some you will have heard of, and some you won't. [...]

12 March 2025

Book launch and signing with Paul French, 13th March

Pete @ Blacksmith2025-03-12T02:17:14+08:00March 12th, 2025|authors, events, hong kong|0 Comments

In 1924, Wallis Simpson — the American future wife of Britain's king — journeyed across China, witnessing a nation in turmoil. Join prolific old China author Paul French to learn about 'Her Lotus Year', his new essays in Destination Macao, and stories from his bestsellers Midnight in Peking and City of Devils. Date: Thursday, 13 March 2025 Time: 6:30 PM [...]

5 March 2025

Ian Gill tells his multigenerational family story at FCC Club Lunch in Hong Kong: Thursday March 6

Pete @ Blacksmith2025-03-05T14:05:55+08:00March 5th, 2025|authors, events, hong kong|0 Comments

Ian Gill’s first visit to Hong Kong in 1975 takes an unexpected turn when he meets his Chinese mother Billie’s friends, colleagues and fellow ex-prisoners of war, lifting the veil on a tumultuous past in Hong Kong and Shanghai. He moves to Asia and unravels her intriguing journey: from controversial adoption by an English postmaster in Changsha to popular radio [...]

3 March 2025

Book talk in Hong Kong: Searching for Billie, Tracing Surprising Family Roots in China

Pete @ Blacksmith2025-03-03T16:57:22+08:00March 3rd, 2025|authors, events, hong kong|0 Comments

Taking place on Tuesday March 4 at the Royal Geographical Society in Hong Kong. Author Ian Gill talks about the main characters of his Anglo-Chinese family, who lived in China and Hong Kong from the mid-19th century until modern times. The story starts when his great-grandmother married Ted Newman, a Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company steward, in Hong Kong [...]

22 December 2023

Constance Gordon-Cumming’s memorable Christmas in Hong Kong, 1878

Pete @ Blacksmith2023-12-22T20:16:57+08:00December 22nd, 2023|book excerpt, hong kong|0 Comments

This is an excerpt from Wanderings in China: Hong Kong and Canton, Christmas and New Year, 1878/1879 by Constance Gordon-Cumming, a Victorian traveller and artist who arrived in Hong Kong on Christmas Day in 1878. It's introduced and annotated by Paul French as part of his China Revisited series. Merry Christmas, one and all, 145 years later! Care [...]

14 December 2023

Royal Asiatic Society journal review: The Last Tigers of Hong Kong

Pete @ Blacksmith2023-12-14T17:38:32+08:00December 14th, 2023|media attention, publishing|1 Comment

The Last Tigers of Hong Kong by John Saeki Reviewed by Thomas Gomersall in the 2023 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong ***** As a lifelong wildlife enthusiast, and a more recent history enthusiast, I find it striking how rarely we seem to examine the two side-by-side, given our long association with animals through the ages. As an [...]

30 March 2023

Book signing: Hong Kong football legend Derek Currie

Pete @ Blacksmith2023-03-30T03:25:25+08:00March 30th, 2023|authors, events, hong kong|0 Comments

When Scottish footballer Derek Currie was made an offer to travel to Hong Kong in 1970 to play against the one sportsman he had dreamed of meeting on the field, he couldn't say no. From apprentice printer in Glasgow to playing football against Pelé in the Far East, singing with Stevie Wonder and shadow-boxing with Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Currie enjoyed [...]

11 March 2023

The launch of “China Revisited”, a new series of rediscovered travelogues

Pete @ Blacksmith2023-03-11T00:59:46+08:00March 11th, 2023|events, new books|0 Comments

China Revisited is a new series of extracted reprints of mid-19th to early-20th century Western impressions of Hong Kong, Macao and southern China. The series comprises excerpts from travelogues or memoirs written by missionaries, diplomats, military personnel, journalists, tourists and temporary sojourners. They came to China from Europe or the United States, some to work or to serve the interests [...]

2 March 2023

Strange Tales of Old Macao: a Paul French book talk

Pete @ Blacksmith2023-03-02T18:37:51+08:00March 2nd, 2023|authors, events|0 Comments

Did Japan try to buy Macao in 1936? Were the men who declared Macao a republic in 1930 revolutionaries or extortionists? Paul French sails across the Pearl River on Friday evening to give a talk at the Livraria Portuguesa (Portuguese Bookshop) in the city's historic central district. The bookshop is at 16-18 Rua de Sao Domingos. No charge, all welcome. [...]

26 January 2023

Murder on the Outlying Islands of Hong Kong! A book talk on January 28th

Pete @ Blacksmith2023-01-26T22:28:42+08:00January 26th, 2023|authors, events, hong kong|0 Comments

For the next event at Vibe bookshop -- on Saturday 28th January at 2:30pm -- Patricia O'Sullivan will be discussing real-life Hong Kong murders from a century ago! Women carried out some of these crimes on Hong Kong's outlying islands like Cheung Chau and Lantau, as well as in the city. Patricia will also be signing copies of her newest [...]

26 January 2023

The Blacksmith Books story: a short film

Pete @ Blacksmith2023-01-26T21:46:42+08:00January 26th, 2023|media attention, publishing|0 Comments

Nine River Films is a Hong Kong-based production company which makes feature films and short documentaries. I was pleased to be interviewed by them about the challenges and pleasures of book publishing. I picked a few of the books we have published over the years and explained what they tell us about Hong Kong's people and history. You can watch [...]

12 October 2022

Booksigning event, October 12: The Chakrata Incident with Neville Sarony

Pete @ Blacksmith2022-10-12T00:07:08+08:00October 12th, 2022|authors, events, new books|0 Comments

You are invited to the launch of The Chakrata Incident, 6pm-7pm, Wednesday October 12. Come to Bookazine in Prince's Building, meet multi-talented author Neville Sarony and get your book signed! Neville's military thrillers draw on his own experience as an army officer. What's the new book about? Here's the blurb. Major Max Devlin, poised for a commanding post in the [...]

10 June 2022

Podcast: Mark Isaac-Williams, The Hong Kong I Knew

Pete @ Blacksmith2022-06-10T00:51:24+08:00June 10th, 2022|authors, hong kong, media attention, new books|0 Comments

Returning to Hong Kong in 1947 after the Japanese occupation, seven-year-old Mark Isaac-Williams had the whole of Kowloon as his playground. Billeted with his family in the once-grand but now dilapidated Peninsula hotel, his life was full of adventure – from the rooftop to the basement, he knew the hotel’s every inch. Roller-skating and horseback riding in Kowloon’s streets and [...]