OUR CURRENT BOOK LIST
OLD CHINA HAND HISTORIES
PERMANENTLY
TEMPORARY: FROM BERLIN TO SHANGHAI IN HALF A CENTURY. Tess Johnston's peripatetic half a century has
taken her through fourteen Foreign Service postings to her
retirement – and this book, written in her permanently temporary
home in Shanghai. She loves to talk, and to write and the range of
her interests is broad. Tess has filled them with life, with
anecdotes and with humor. Travel with her in her "little life" in
a wider world. The table of contents is listed below:
Berlin
– First Posting |
Frankfurt am Main – In the Foreign
Service…again |
Düsseldorf –
Voluntary Exile |
Berlin – Back to My Old Haunts |
Charlottesville –
Back Home |
New Delhi – A Tough Assignment |
Williamsburg – New
Job |
Tehran – An Unfriendly City |
Vietnam – New
Adventures |
Washington – Learning an Impossible
Language |
Bien Hoa – The Tet
Offensive |
Shanghai – My First Look at China |
Can Tho – Vann
Moves South |
Paris – A Thorn among Roses |
Laos – A Sudden
Transfer |
Shanghai II – The Last Great Adventure |
Vietnam II – A
Consulate in Can Tho |
Retirement – or Shanghai III |
Washington – Career
Decisions |
A Happy Ending ? |
MISSY’S CHINA – LETTERS FROM HANGCHOW,
1934-1937, by Doris ("Missy") Arnold. A “small town American girl” came with her
family to live in China during a troubled era. In a memorable
three years Missy wrote weekly letters home about her life in a
small expat enclave surrounded by the culture and chaos of her
host city. She is a keen observer of her little world, and her
letters are rich in minute details (and humor) that enable her
family (and the readers) to experience old China through her
perceptive eyes.
PEKING
SUN, SHANGHAI MOON, by Diana Hutchins Angulo. A rare glimpse into the private lives of
wealthy foreigners living in Peking and Shanghai. Through the eyes
of a beautiful young girl we are caught up in the lives of wealth
and privilege, of social activities and obligations, of the
foreign community in China between 1920 and 1940. Supplemented by
photographs from family albums and contemporary newspapers, she
gives us an entrée into the glamorous expatriate world in the last
frenetic days of pre-war Shanghai.
SHANGHAI
ART DECO covers in 320 pages and nearly a thousand photos
the wide range of Shanghai’s Art Deco offerings. Its five chapters
(Public Buildings, Apartments, Villas, Furniture, and Objects) are
lavishly illustrated and offer historical background information
in both English and Chinese. (SOLD OUT)

ART DECO – SHANGHAI AND MIAMI BEACH features
fifty photos of each city, chosen from the many that made up the
two Art Deco exhibitions held in Miami and Shanghai. The text is
in English with a Chinese introduction by Deke. (SOLD OUT)
A
LAST LOOK, REVISITED – WESTERN ARCHITECTURE IN OLD SHANGHAI
provides an updated, expanded and evocative overview of
Western architecture and expatriate lifestyles in one of the
world's legendary cities. It also includes 1939 listings of
Shanghai's old apartment houses, banks and clubs.

NEAR TO HEAVEN – WESTERN ARCHITECTURE IN CHINA'S OLD
SUMMER RESORTS features Western buildings in the old hill
stations, Kuling (Lushan), Kuliang, Kikungshan, Mokanshan, and the
seaside resort Peitaiho. (SOLD OUT)
GOD
AND COUNTRY – WESTERN RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE IN OLD CHINA
has contemporary photos of China's churches and synagogues plus
old black and white ones of churches and church-sponsored
hospitals and schools. There is a "Jewish Legacy" chapter plus a
77-page listing of Catholic and Protestant missions and
missionaries in China in 1934.

FAR FROM HOME – WESTERN ARCHITECTURE IN CHINA'S NORTHERN
TREATY PORTS covers Harbin, Dalny (Dalian), Tientsin,
Chefoo, Tsingtao and Hankow north of the Yangtze River, with a
supplemental listing of European and American business concerns
and representatives who were operating in China and Hong Kong in
1928.
THE
LAST COLONIES – WESTERN ARCHITECTURE IN CHINA'S SOUTHERN TREATY
PORTS covers Shanghai, Ningpo, Foochow, Amoy, Swatow,
Canton, and the former British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. Included
as an annex is a 1936 Shanghai Trade Directory.

HALLOWED HALLS – PROTESTANT COLLEGES IN OLD CHINA,
generously illustrated with both new and old photos and site
plans, covers China's thirteen top universities, all founded by
Protestant missionaries over the past 100 years.
FRENCHTOWN
SHANGHAI – WESTERN ARCHITECTURE IN SHANGHAI’S OLD FRENCH
CONCESSION, with old and new photos, is the most
comprehensive of our books, covering the best buildings – plus a
look into the lifestyle of the residents – of the most
cosmopolitan of Shanghai’s
old foreign concessions.

THE OLD VILLA HOTELS OF SHANGHAI features Deke's
contemporary photos of both the interiors and exteriors of nine of
Shanghai's old mansions, all now converted into boutique hotels.
Published for the local market, the captions and text are in both
Chinese and English. (SOLD OUT)
EMIGRANTEN
ADRESSBUCH. Originally published in Shanghai in November
1939, this small replica contains the names, local addresses,
cities of origin, and occupations of thousands of German and
Austrian Jews who fled to Shanghai. (SOLD OUT)
STRANGERS
ALWAYS - A JEWISH FAMILY IN WARTIME SHANGHAI, by Rena
Krasno. This is the story of the young daughter of stateless
Russian Jews, growing up in a tumultuous city in the 1930-1940s.
The Jewish Times called it: "An engrossing eyewitness
account...from her diary presents a unique description of daily
life of the Jewish Community, especially in the time of the
Japanese occupation of Shanghai."
And in our
edited series of first-person narratives:
THAT
LAST GLORIOUS SUMMER, SHANGHAI <-> JAPAN 1939 by Rena
Krasno. During that summer in Japan, Rena’s sympathetic
observations of the Japanese people, along with their government’s
preparations for war, yield some of the most perceptive insights
in English ever written on pre-war life in Japan.
SHANGHAI
BOY SHANGHAI GIRL – LIVES IN PARALLEL, by George Wang and
Betty Barr. In the 1920’s and 1930’s two children grew up in
Shanghai, but only in the 1970’s did their paths finally cross.
This story of George, a poor Chinese boy, and Betty, a cosseted
child of missionary parents, views life in old Shanghai from two
totally different yet parallel perspectives.
BETWEEN
TWO WORLDS – LESSONS LEARNED IN SHANGHAI, by the same
authors, the sequel follows the lives of this Shanghainese and
Shanghailander from 1949, where their first book ended, up to
their marriage here 20 years ago.
I
LOVE CHINA, edited by the same authors, is a series of 30
articles by Eleanor Margaret Wang, written from 1948-50 and
1978-83, during her tenure at the Shanghai Foreign Language
Institute (where she taught from 1947 until her death in Shanghai
in 1983). Few foreigners have written of those troubled decades so
compellingly and with such keen insight as this British-born
writer.
 LANES OF CHANGING FORTUNES – SIX SHANGHAI WALKS (2nd
edition) and PATTERNS OF THE PAST – SIX MORE SHANGHAI WALKS,
by Barbara Green, Tess Johnston, Ruth Lear, Carolyn Robertson, Jos
Snoodjik. This second walks guidebook augments last year’s popular
first volume with still more histories and anecdotes on the old
Western buildings that grace the city's major boulevards and
lesser lanes. Detailed walking itineraries, with coffee (and
comfort) stops, are supplemented by both Deke’s and the authors’
photos from their favorite walks. These books also offer great
reads for out-of-towners who cannot experience Shanghai for
themselves.
SHANGHAILANDERS
& SHANGHAINESE - WHERE THEY LIVED, WORKED AND PLAYED - STILL
MORE SHANGHAI WALKS. Tess Johnston has assembled a fine stable of fellow-authors
from the field of foreign correspondents, free-lance writers,
bloggers, amateur historians and all-round faithful fans of
Shanghai (as is she). They (and their subjects) are:
-
The Bund - Tycoons, Coolies and Communists
by Patrick Cranley
-
Tilanqiao - The Former Jewish Ghetto and
Lively Street Market by Sue Anne Tay
-
Crosswalking the Old Concession - The Many
Facets of Frenchtown by Tess Johnston
-
Culture & Cafés in the Former French
Concession by Lisa Movius
-
Xinhua Road - Merchant Princes and the
Badlands by Bill Savadove
-
The Western Suburbs -
Hongqiao Road by Duncan Hewitt
BEYOND THE CONCESSIONS - SIX WALKS EXPLORING SHANGHAI'S OTHER DISTRICTS
FINAL FIVE SHANGHAI WALKS - THE WHERE'S WHERE OF THE WHO'S WHO OF OLD SHANGHAI
These two books are the final two of our Shanghai Walks series. With Kate Baker's coverage of the suburbs and finally with our red volume on the luminaries of the city, we think we have now covered about everything worth seeing in fabulous Shanghai. We hope you enjoyed all the walks as much as we enjoyed making -- and then documenting -- them. Thus ends our Shanghai Walks series.
ORDERING
For a price list for the books on this page and an order blank,
click here. However, contact Tess at tessinshanghai@yahoo.com for actual ordering. |