Taoist sexual technology supercharged by the world’s most powerful entheogen.
Datura and the psychedelic Tao
Isham Cook’s China book picks by Book Shepherd
15 China books recommended by Isham Cook plus a few of his own.
Sexual surveillance in the Covid-19 era
Sex in the time of coronavirus in China and the U.S.
Confucius and Opium: China Book Reviews
Book review essays tell China’s history over the past two centuries.
Writing China in English: Recent novels
Difficult novels — and that’s a good thing — by Chinese and foreign expat authors.
The adorable expatriate eccentric
The term “expatriate” is a misnomer and misrepresents the life lived abroad.
Midnight in Peking and true crime fiction
A few maps put Paul French’s “true crime” story in perspective.
Chungking: China’s heart of darkness
A brief history of travel in China and the challenges of inhospitality.
Out of the squalor and into the light: When the Shanghai wall came down
Glimmers of Shanghai’s modernity in a 19th-century courtesan novel.
Confucius and opium
An investigation of intoxicants in the time of Confucius.
The expat and the prostitute: Four classic novels, 1956–62
Reviews of McKenna’s The Sand Pebbles, Mason’s The World of Suzie Wong, Arsan’s Emmanuelle, and Reynolds’ A Woman from Bangkok.
Isham Cook on Twitter
Literary disruptions of an American in China.
Updating the great Chinese socialist realist novel
Satirical review of the latest addition to Chinese socialist realist fiction.
Living the Taiping
Historical novel set during Taiping Rebellion cultivates a richly textured English, while another captures Sir Robert Hart’s love for a Chinese woman.
The literature of paralysis: The China PC scene and the expat mag crowd
What happens to writing when it’s fed through the political correctness machine.
ISHAM COOK 