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Author Chen Shang-Chi’s lifelong dream of landing a career in the major leagues was brought to an abrupt end because of injuries suffered while playing on his university team. The Shattered Slugger and Other Stories is thus much more than a collection of baseball-inspired short stories; it is a distillation of the author’s experiences both on and off the diamond. Most center around the life-changing power of baseball, touching on such disparate topics as the rise and fall of Taiwan’s baseball glove industry and the unfair pressures placed on the son of a failed pro-baseball hopeful. These stories not only shed light on Chen’s own life and experiences but also reflect and offer relatable lessons on life in general.

For the average person, pivotal events in history have little to no immediate effect on day-to-day existence. Declarations of war and peace take time to filter through a population, while declarations of “victory” are never accompanied by the jubilant sound of trumpets. End of Days touches on this self-evident truth. Although readers know the story opens on the final few days of the Second World War, the family at the center of this story is completely blind to what is to come. With its members scattered by wartime needs and realities, the family remains united by the will to survive and be reunited at some point again in peace. This tale of fortitude and survival is one readers are sure to find emotionally gripping and highly relatable.

While in one sense, More Than Words spins a tale of three enigmatically intertwined love triangles, in another, it is a story that explores how human interactions and relationships reflect and echo those found in the natural world. Still further, the three figures within a love triangle may be analogized as the three peaks of the mountain range described in the story. While the details of furtive relationships, rising like the layers of a distant mountain ridge, are often first voiced by others, little doubt is left regarding their origin.

Marital strife, inter-gang feuds, public corruption, drug deal infiltrations, Taiwan and Hong Kong, politics and the pandemic…all these incongruous elements come together in the novel Trivial Acts of Violence. As she familiarizes readers with the story’s many main characters, author Chan Wai weaves a complex yet naturally flowing tale that is significantly larger than the sum of its constituent parts. Each element, familiar and, at first blush, seemingly extraneous to the narrative stream, neatly capsulizes one of the countless trivial acts of violence that together help define the world in which we all live.

While sense of smell shapes how we all recognize and remember our experiences of the world around us, the nuance and subtlety of aromas are difficult to capture in words. Thus, Phantasmic Perfume achieves something rare in the literary space not only by describing a generous sprinkling of aromatic scents in incisive and lusciously vivid detail but also by weaving each as a distinct and salient thread into the storyline. The depth that author Ku Nai-Fang brings to both the protagonist, a Taipei perfumer, and the overall story, which whimsically includes an orangutan master fragrance formulator, reflects on her own lived experience as a real-life perfumer. Fragrant smells move the story forward toward an end flush with self-awareness and acceptance.

How is online social media negatively influencing our young people? In discussing this question, many point to “internet addiction” as the wellspring of related troubles and thus advocate gatekeeping the amount of time allowed online. But this author takes a different tack, arguing this issue must be reexamined from the psychological needs perspective of adolescents if we are to resolve not only the symptoms but also the root causes of this problem.

While written for a general audience, this work is well grounded in relevant theory and practice. Sifting through the varied modes of interaction used by today’s youth, the author points out that, besieged by peer pressure from both online and real-world communities, young people today are bereft of a “mental staging ground” where they can catch their breath and think. Of particular note, the author includes Asian cultural ideas about “shame” and “guilt” in the discussion. Ultimately, this book offers many practical counseling and self-help solutions.