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Author Jiang Wan-Ci’s “thick description” approach to this work captures brilliantly the authentic lives of migrant workers in a narrative that explores migrant worker culture as well as these workers’ various and sundry Taiwanese employers. Interactions between migrant workers and their employers generate authentic stories that bear only a passing resemblance to traditional employee-employer relationships.

The narrative follows the everyday lives of migrant workers, from neighborhood clean-up activities and weekend get-togethers at Taipei Main Station to shared celebrations of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, motorbike outings, experiences caring for their disabled clients, and participation in local festivals. The unique experience of each migrant worker is part of a shared tapestry of life, with their work in Taiwan projecting clarity and singular brilliance into their own lives.

In Taiwan, “indie bookstore” is generally used as a catch-all term for non-chain-affiliated booksellers that focus primarily on book sales. The name “indie” emerged in the domestic publishing industry around fifteen years ago. While some ended up being the proverbial “flash in the pan”, others found their business footing and have stood the test of time. Their individual airs, experiences, and proclivities give each a unique story to tell and values to share.

Published in 2014, Beyond Bookstores includes original essays on forty-three indie bookstores around Taiwan. Although far from comprehensive, the stores covered are largely representative of the industry overall. Although ten years now separate today from these writings, there remains significant value in the time, effort, and insights invested in this work. The COVID-19 pandemic in fact led to nearly one in five of the shops covered either going out of business or changing their business model. For those with a curiosity and/or passion for indie bookstores, this work is an invaluable window onto the development and recent history of these bookstores in Taiwan.

Taiwan’s culinary ethnographers are familiar with older cities and districts such as Wanhua and Dadaocheng in Taipei as well as Tainan City, with its sweet sauces and fresh seafood. Taichung City, situated in central Taiwan and neither particularly old nor remarkably new, presents more of a culinary enigma. What flavors and foods does this city have to offer?

Folk culture enthusiast Yang Shuang-Zi begins this work by imagining the everyday culinary cravings of schoolgirls during the prewar Japanese colonial period before veering off into her own foodie adventures and memories spanning Taichung’s diverse neighborhoods. Eschewing appeals to age, reputation or authenticity, the narrative is inspired instead by the author’s own memories and experiences, imbuing this book with engaging stories and memorable insights.

Since the 1990s, a distinctive literary style that blends the real and imagined in intricately intertwined settings earned for Roan Ching-Yueh his reputation as one of Taiwan’s most outstanding contemporary writers and novelists. A Boat on Silvery Waves, with its artful amalgamation of distinct genres and writing styles, is a stand-out work in Roan’s catalogue.

The temporal flow in this work is reminiscent of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, and the text unfurls in the rambling fashion of dreams during sleep. Roan transcends the emptiness and randomness of time to take readers back to an imagined childhood, carrying his and other writers’ memories with him as he fords time’s silver stream.

This book also pays heartfelt homage to the author’s most cherished people. Reaching the other bank of that stream, Roan summons departed loved ones and once more pays homage to Chi Ten-Shung, his most beloved author. So many lives lost but not forgotten are resurrected in these pages, which blend together what once was and the imagined into something akin to a photo painting.

This book engages readers on two levels. On one, the novel, set in Austronesian Taiwan, plumbs the geopolitical complexities of the Age of Exploration, narrating the experience from the perspective of those “discovered” by European adventurers.

The work, presented through the eyes of the Siraya people living in what is now Tainan City, is written from their perspective, with finely detailed descriptions of Siraya ways, their worship of nature, lifestyle and attitudes toward life juxtaposed against the covetousness of the foreign invaders.

Although set in Taiwan, this historical novel weaves a tale familiar to native peoples worldwide. More than decrying the powerful, the author shows his clear respect and honor to the oppressed. The theme and core messages here, while set in the past, seem equally resonant to our shared present and future.

Silent thrush is used in this work to describe metaphorically both the decline of Taiwan’s once flourishing Taiwanese opera from the 1980s onward and the women responsible for keeping opera troupes up and running. These women, facing the demands of the stage and uncouth audiences, are by necessity masters of compromise and a stalwart presence in the opera scene.

Despite contemporary taboos regarding homosexuality, women in this traveling opera troupe give one another the love and support needed to endure their nomadic existence. As members of an all-female clique, these women, proudly self-sufficient, handle life on their own terms, with drama and emotions on stage regularly bleeding into life off stage. Different from the upper-crust, urban settings of most gay literature, this novel stands out for its rural setting and focus on homosexuality in a traditionally marginalized working-class community.