HKU Libraries : Book Talks. Vodcast artwork

HKU Libraries : Book Talks. Vodcast

68 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 15 years ago -

University of Hong Kong Libraries Book Talks

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Episodes

Hong Kong 24-7: The City that Invades our Art

December 10, 2008 00:00 - 45 minutes - 95 MB Video

Evanescent Isles: From My City-village / Hong Kong x 24 x 365: A Year in the Life of a City

能說「不」的秘密 -- 世界是一本書?

October 08, 2008 00:00 - 1 hour - 201 MB Video

世界是一本書 林沛理的文化評論是一種智力探索。在他的筆下,上至互聯網下至iPhone,偉大如母愛,庸俗如高清電視;都包含著隱藏的訊息等待著我們去解碼和發掘。問題是這個世界可供「閱讀」的程度究竟有多少?用閱讀的視角看世界可以看得更深、更遠、更清楚,抑或只是庸人自擾?

China Witness: Voices from A Silent Generation

October 08, 2008 00:00 - 59 minutes - 198 MB Video

While the West has commonly viewed the last one hundred years in China through the single narrative lens of Mao’s rise and rule, the experience of this same period for the Chinese themselves has been infinitely more complex, and little understood. And perhaps no one is more capable of tapping into the true narrative of this time than Xinran, a national celebrity and beloved figure in China by virtue of her hugely popular radio show, which aired in the 1990s.

Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense

July 17, 2008 00:00 - 34 minutes - 109 MB Video

Johnston, a New York Times investigative reporter, has spent his 40-year career exposing collusion between government officials and private sector entities as they enrich the rich and ignore consequences for middle-class laborers and the poor. In Perfectly Legal , he focused on hidden inequities in the tax system. This volume is a broader examination of collusion and unfairness, ranging from subsidies for professional sports stadiums to secret payouts to multinational corporate chief executiv...

我在輪椅上挑戰命運

May 14, 2008 00:00 - 29 minutes - 95.8 MB Video

本書乃作者胡慕嫻女士根據自身經歷改篇而成。作者以細膩的筆觸、真切的感受,將她的經歷與1941至1989年香港所發生的重要事件糅合在一起。

The Chinese Canadian Immigration Project

April 14, 2008 00:00 - 49 minutes - 156 MB Video

The Chinese Canadian immigration project explores the dynamics of migration flows between China and Canada from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century. It is based on the Canadian Register of Chinese Immigrants, a list of almost 100,000 Chinese who entered Canada between 1851 and 1949, most of whom were required to pay a discriminatory and restrictive entry fee – the so-called Head Tax. Using this core document, the project will examine migration between China and Canada, its relationships to p...

A Prisoner of Birth

April 14, 2008 00:00 - 25 minutes - 85.4 MB Video

Danny Cartwright and Spencer Craig never should have met. One evening, Danny, an East End cockney who works as a garage mechanic, takes his fiance up to the West End to celebrate their engagement. He crosses the path of Spencer Craig, a West End barrister posed to be the youngest Queen's Counsel of his generation.

四代香港人

April 14, 2008 00:00 - 52 minutes - 172 MB Video

香港有四代人,生長於戰前的是第一代,依次直推至1990年誕生的第四代。呂大樂以精闢的透析力和高度的概括力,道出四代人的精神面貌,並令人不無警惕地指出,在安分寬容的第一代陸續退下舞台之際,「戰後嬰兒」卻未能為下一代提供更開放、更公平的環境,以致第三代人深感出頭無期,而第四代人打從開始便是輸家。

On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft

March 19, 2008 00:00 - 54 minutes - 179 MB Video

香港大學圖書館邀請CEO蔡東豪先生 (筆名原復生) 擔任《城西書話》嘉賓,為大家解答以上問題。蔡先生將會與主持人梁文道先生天南地北,分享他閱讀史提芬‧京 (Stephen King) "On Writing : a Memoir of the Craft"的讀後感和閱讀寫作的心得。

親愛的安德烈 下卷

January 11, 2008 00:00 - 1 hour - 227 MB Video

On 17 November 2007, Professor Lung Ying-tai and her son Andreas will come and talk about their book "Dear Andreas". It is a collection of emails between Professor Lung and Andreas. Medium of the talk will be Putonghua.

親愛的安德烈 上卷

January 11, 2008 00:00 - 1 hour - 197 MB Video

On 17 November 2007, Professor Lung Ying-tai and her son Andreas will come and talk about their book "Dear Andreas". It is a collection of emails between Professor Lung and Andreas. Medium of the talk will be Putonghua.

The Great Difference: Hong Kong’s New Territories and Its People 1898–2004

November 28, 2007 00:00 - 1 hour - 226 MB Video

James Stewart Lockhart called it “the great difference”. Returned from an inspection tour of the newly leased extension to Hong Kong territory in August 1898, Lockhart, a senior Hong Kong colonial official, had used this phrase to describe the gulf between the New Territories and its people and the existing British colony of Hong Kong and its inhabitants.

閱讀張愛玲 --- 三十事、物、情

November 28, 2007 00:00 - 1 hour - 191 MB Video

張愛玲遺產監管人宋以朗先生主講:「閱讀張愛玲--三十事、物、情」,細道有關張愛玲的三十項事、物、情,包括她的生活軼事、文學、電影、親屬情誼等,並輔以珍貴圖片、書信及手稿資料。

蔣震博士談閱讀

November 09, 2007 00:00 - 59 minutes - 200 MB Video

蔣震博士與大家分享他的閱讀心得。

Love and revolution : a novel about Song Qingling and Sun Yat-sen

November 02, 2007 00:00 - 36 minutes - 117 MB Video

In this novel, one of Taiwan's most celebrated authors reimagines the lives of a legendary couple: Sun Yat-sen, known as the "Father of the Chinese Revolution," and his wife, Song Qingling.

韜韜食經 - 圍村特色菜

September 07, 2007 00:00 - 56 minutes - 192 MB Video

梁文韜公開他賴以致富的圍村菜菜譜,表列每一道菜的用料,調味方法,以及各道菜的蒸、炒、爆竅門。

An apple a week

June 22, 2007 00:00 - 52 minutes - 178 MB Video

An apple a week is a collection of articles published in Apple Daily between 2004 and 2006.

Strange tales from a Chinese studio / Songling Pu .

May 23, 2007 00:00 - 46 minutes - 153 MB Video

Eminent Chinese scholar John Minford’s superb translation captures the consummate skill and understated humor of Pu Songling’s classic Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. With elegant prose, witty wordplay, and subtle charm, the 104 stories in this collection reveal a world in which nothing is as it seems. In his tales of shape-shifting spirits, bizarre phenomena, haunted buildings, and enchanted objects, Pu Songling pushes the boundaries of human experience and enlightens as he entertains.

Ten Eternal Questions

May 23, 2007 00:00 - 19 minutes - 65.2 MB Video

Ten Eternal Questions asks leading political, artistic, and religious figures the timeless spiritual questions. "What is your concept of God?" "Do you think this life is all there is?" are just two of the ten questions author Zo Sallis puts to such diverse figures as Nelson Mandela and U2's Bono, Shimon Peres and Jack Nicholson, Paulo Coelho and the Dalai Lama. Chapters are organized by question with extracts drawn from Sallis's interviews with almost 40 personalities, among them Bob Geldof, ...

關錦鵬的光影記憶 In Critical Proximity: The Visual Memories of Stanley Kwan

May 23, 2007 00:00 - 1 hour - 222 MB Video

著名影評人雷恩 (Tony Rayns) 稱關錦鵬為「落入凡間的天使」,一語道破關錦鵬這位擁有天使心靈的導演,如何在電影工業的頹垣敗瓦中存活的夾縫處境。關錦鵬恆常言道:「當導演就要做到『既近且遠、既遠且近』的境界。」他的作品正是以這種美學原則,塑造了許多不朽和豐富的文化影像。我們無法忘懷《胭脂扣》中如花與十二少的頹廢、《阮玲玉》中一代女星的孤寂、《藍宇》中兩個男人於午夜街頭的擁抱、《愈快樂愈墮落》中那風起雲湧的青馬大橋……這種夾縫處境及遠近美學,讓他在商業主流與文人風範之間、在女性電影與酷兒論述之間、於家國以外,造就另一片風景,並以說書人的身份,繼續為這個城市空間編織傳奇。

The Possible 30 stories = 無窮的可能 : 扶貧路上30個故事.

May 23, 2007 00:00 - 1 hour - 238 MB Video

A girl in Zambia who defies her mother and goes to school, Dalits in India who win an international prize, migrant workers in Cambodia and Hong Kong who become labour activists. Over the past 30 years, Oxfam Hong Kong has worked with some of the world's poorest people, people who work so hard to make changes in their lives. This book shows how well they've done.

The Search for a Vanishing Beijing: A Guide to China's Capital Through the Ages

March 14, 2007 00:00 - 44 minutes - 44.9 MB Video

'An indefatigable explorer and raconteur, Aldrich has peeked into and poked around every nook and cranny of contemporary Beijing to reveal the city's rich and fascinating past. His book is a treasure box of curios lovingly recovered from a world now out of reach. It is an indispensable companion for all thoughtful visitors to China's capital. A brilliant achievement.' - Dr. Michael J. Moser, author of Foreigners Within the Gates: The Legations at Peking

Book Talk 1-Feb-2007

February 21, 2007 00:00 - 1 hour - 82.8 MB Video

1. Paul Kua: The Old and New Testaments in Chinese, translated by Joannes Lassar and Joshua Marshman, issued in 5 volumes, Serampore, 1815-1822. 2. Kenneth Fung and Daniel Fung: Theme: Old Maps - The Foot-prints of Human Civilization. 3. Dr Anthony Ferguson: Book: The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. 1776 Edition.

Blindness

December 20, 2006 00:00 - 26 minutes - 51.5 MB Video

A city is struck by an epidemic of "white blindness." The first man to succumb sits in his car, waiting for the light to change. He is taken to an eye doctor, who does not know what to make of the phenomenon - and soon goes blind himself." "The blindness spreads, sparing no one. Authorities confine the blind to a vacant mental hospital secured by armed guards under instructions to shoot anyone trying to escape. Inside, the criminal element among the blind holds the rest captive: food rations ...

Carl Crow - A Tough Old China Hand: The Life, Times, and Adventures of an American in Shanghai

December 13, 2006 00:00 - 44 minutes - 85.5 MB Video

Carl Crow arrived in Shanghai in 1911 and made the city his home for the next quarter of a century, working there as a journalist, newspaper proprietor, and groundbreaking adman. He also did stints as a hostage negotiator, emergency police sergeant, gentleman farmer, go-between for the American government, and propagandist. As his career progressed, so did the fortunes of Shanghai. The city transformed itself from a dull colonial backwater when Crow arrived, to the thriving and ruthless cosmo...

Book Talk 20-Oct-2006

December 13, 2006 00:00 - 1 hour - 159 MB Video

Readings by: Jam Ismail, Agnes Lam, David McKirdy, Madeleine Marie Slavick, Nicole Wong, Hark Yeung Wai Man, Xu Xi, Ya Se

Lenin : a biography

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 36 minutes - 203 MB Video

Lenin: His politics still reverberate around the world even after the end of the USSR. His name elicits revulsion and reverence. And yet Lenin the man remains largely a mystery. This biography shows us Lenin as we have never seen him, in his full complexity as revolutionary, political leader, thinker, and private person. Born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov in 1870, the son of a schools inspector and a doctor's daughter, Lenin was to become the greatest single force in the Soviet revolution-and perha...

Living Islam : from Samarkand to Stornoway

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 1 hour - 215 MB Video

Popular anthropologist Ahmed provides a comprehensive account of Islamic life and religion as manifested today by the widely divergent communities throughout the world. He emphasizes the conflicting ideologies between Islam and the West, and the experience of minorities in Asia and Europe. Includes 31 excellent color plates, but the text is the focus. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or. -- From Book News, Inc.

Mao: The Unknown Story

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 1 hour - 226 MB Video

Based on a decade of research and on interviews with many of Mao's close circle in China who have never talked before--and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him--this is the most authoritative life of Mao ever written. It is full of startling revelations, exploding the myth of the Long March, and showing a completely unknown Mao: he was not driven by idealism or ideology; his intimate and intricate relationship with Stalin went back to the 1920s, ultimate...

Modern History of Hong Kong, 1841-1997

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 52 minutes - 208 MB Video

This major new history of Hong Kong tells the remarkable story of how a cluster of remote fishing villages grew into an icon of capitalism. The story began in 1842 with founding of the Crown Colony after the First Anglo-Chinese war V the original Opium War. As premier power in Europe and an expansionist empire, Britain first created in Hong Kong a major naval station and the principal base to open the Celestial Chinese Empire to trade. Working in parallel with the locals, the British built it...

Narcotic culture : a history of drugs in China

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 54 minutes - 177 MB Video

"To this day, the perception persists that China was a civilization defeated by imperialist Britain's most desirable trade commodity, opium - a drug that turned the Chinese into cadaverous addicts in the iron grip of dependence. Britain, in an effort to reverse the damage caused by opium addiction, launched its own version of the "war on drugs," which lasted roughly sixty years, from 1880 to World War II and the beginning of communism.

One Couple Two Cultures: 81 Western-Chinese Couples Talk About Love and Marriage

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 48 minutes - 174 MB Video

One Couple Two Cultures highlights information provided by eighty-one Western-Chinese couples whose views on codes of conduct and lifestyles vary considerably. Whilst some believe that a successful marriage can depend as much on smelly gorgonzola cheese or fermented Shanghainese bean curd as on the actual compatibility of the spouses themselves, others believe a Western-Chinese marriage is no different, say, to a blond marrying a redhead. Still others hold that two sometimes antagonistic cult...

Pride and Prejudice

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 41 minutes - 182 MB Video

One of the most popular novels of all time, this sparkling comedy of manners features splendidly civilized sparring between Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet, as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of 18th-century drawing-room intrigues.

Tales from No. 9 Ice House Street

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 58 minutes - 231 MB Video

In Tales from No. 9 Ice House Street, Patrick Yu takes up his story as he returns to Hong Kong to become the first Chinese Crown Counsel. Thereafter he tells of the years in which he established himself as a most successful advocate in private practice. His story is enriched with anecdotes of his legal life and reminiscences of the many people with whom he came into contact.

The Art of Xu Bing: words without meaning, meaning without words

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 53 minutes - 130 MB Video

At the culmination of his art career in China, Xu Bing (who now lives in the West) spent months inventing more than 1200 characters that mimic Chinese characters but have no known meaning. At once familiar and strange, they evoke confusion, wonderment, and even hostility in viewers. Xu Bing printed them in books with traditional formats, on wall posters, and on giant billowing sheets, which he installed in exhibition galleries to form a ceiling or sky. He cagily argues that any explanation of...

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 1 hour - 1.32 GB Video

Based on the author's seminal article "The Clash of Civilizations?" in Foreign Affairs, Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is a provocative and prescient analysis of the state of world politics after the fall of communism.

The Communist Manifesto

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 25 minutes - 179 MB Video

"L.M. Findlay's elegant new translation is a work of textual and historical scholarship. Few books have had as much of an impact on modern history as The Communist Manifesto. Since it was first published in 1848, it has become the rallying cry for revolutionary movements around the world. This new Broadview edition draws on the 1888 Samuel Moore translation supervised by Engels - the standard English version in Marxist discourse - and on the original Helen Macfarlane translation into English ...

The Picture of Dorian Gray

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 58 minutes - 244 MB Video

Oscar Wilde's story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is one of his most popular works. Written in Wilde's characteristically dazzling manner, full of stinging epigrams and shrewd observations, the tale of Dorian Gray's moral disintegration caused something of a scandal when it first appeared in 1890.

The Vagina Monologues

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 53 minutes - 204 MB Video

"I say Vagina because I want people to respond," says playwright Eve Ensler, creator of the hilarious, disturbing soliloquies in The Vagina Monologues, a book based on her one-woman play. And respond they do--with horror, anger, censure, and sparks of wonder and pleasure. Ensler is on a fervent mission to elevate and celebrate this much mumbled-about body part. She asked hundreds of women of all ages a series of questions about their vaginas (What do you call it? How would you dress it?) that...

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 46 minutes - 183 MB Video

In this book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments a...

Uneasy Partners: The Conflict Between Public Interest and Private Profit in Hong Kong

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 46 minutes - 201 MB Video

In Uneasy Partners, Leo Goodstadt draws on his vast experience of government and business in Hong Kong to put forward a provocative and challenging account, part praise, part indictment, of how government and business in Hong Kong transformed a poor refugee community into one of the worlds great cities and created a hugely successful economy.

Voices from the past: Hong Kong 1842 - 1918

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 1 hour - 205 MB Video

Through excerpts from the earliest English language newspapers in Hong Kong, accompanied by Solomon Bard's insightful comments, Voices From the Past provides unique glimpses into Hong Kong's history. Richly illustrated with interesting photographs, chiefly from the Hong Kong Museum of History's photographic library, the pages bring Hong Kong's colonial past vividly to life.

Wild Grass: China's Revolution From Below

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 40 minutes - 208 MB Video

In Wild Grass Pulitzer Prize-winning Ian Johnson describes a China caught between the desire for change percolating up from below and the ossified political structure above. He recounts the stories of three ordinary people who find themselves finding oppression and government corruption, risking imprisonment and even death. A young architecture student, a bereaved daughter, and a peasant legal clerk are the unlikely heroes of these stories, private citizens cast by unexpected circumstances in...

《新時代的歷史觀》

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 52 minutes - 209 MB Video

《新時代的歷史觀》是黃仁宇教授晚年的重要著作. 提綱擷領綜論近代中國, 指點中國的未來, 也是黃教授"通古今之變"的大視野歷史觀的代表作.

「龍應台的香港筆記」新書發佈暨演講會

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 1 hour - 142 MB Video

龍應台所有著作都有臺、港、大陸、新馬不同地區不同版本,但是「香港筆記」在香港首發,而且是全球唯一版本,創下龍應台個人出版史的第一次,「這是一本為香港而寫,為香港而出版,為香港而存在的一本書」,龍應台說,「也紀念一個外來作家與香港的緣分,對香港的感情。」來港三年,龍應台不以外人自居,卻以熱烈的關懷,直接涉入香港語境。

《老子註譯及評介》/

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 58 minutes - 20.5 MB Video

本書吸收了歷代研究《老子》的成果,對《老子》作了詳細的注釋與分析,並加以今譯,對前人的《老子》注疏也給予了評介,書後附錄長沙馬王堆漢墓帛書《老子》甲、乙本的釋文和《老子》校定文以及參考書目等有關資料,是閱讀和研究《老子》的重要參考書。

《天使走過人間》

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 48 minutes - 222 MB Video

《天使走過人間》是《論死亡與臨終》作者伊莉莎白。庫伯勒 ﹣羅斯醫生在晚年中風後,於生命餘燼中回顧自己一生的真情告白。本書敘述了許多她生命中經歷的甜蜜,痛苦,挫折與苦難。然而隨著歲月經過,對於生命與死亡不斷的思考,這一切有了不同的意義與面貌。在閱讀的過程中,我每每掩卷,被庫伯勒 ﹣羅斯醫生無私的奉獻,無法摧折的生命力與持續散發的光與熱撼動 ,無法自己。《天使走過人間》提醒了我們思考死亡之必要,因為那是關懷與愛的力量來源。

行道天涯 : 孫中山宋慶齡的革命愛情故事

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 51 minutes - 203 MB Video

孫中山,這位改變國族氣運的革命領袖,宋慶齡,這位理想崇高又際遇不凡的女性,命運教他們相會,情愛讓他們咀嚼,牽掛,而不可替代的死亡就像海浪拍打著礁岸......   把情愛還給人物,讓血肉溶入歷史,便是以顛覆傳統小說體例為己志的小說家平路在她長篇作品《行道天涯》中的大膽嘗試,藉由看似自由放任,其實跌宕有致的敘事觀點轉換,作者帶領 讀者跨越了時空與生死的阻隔,進入角色最豐沛的內在生命,也透視了孫中山與宋慶齡作為真實人物最赤祼的情慾。

An Impossible Dream: Hong Kong University from Foundation to Re-establishment, 1910-1950

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 1 hour - 178 MB Video

This is a collection of twelve scholarly yet accessible essays that examine the history of the University of Hong Kong, from the laying of its foundation stone in 1910 to its reestablishment after World War II.

Book Talk 11-May-2006

December 06, 2006 00:00 - 51 minutes - 177 MB Video

For the record, and other poems of Hong Kong; Moving house and other poems from Hong Kong: with an essay on new Hong Kong English language poetry; The development of education in Hong Kong 1841-1897: as revealed by the early education reports of the Hong Kong government 1848-1896; A magistrate's court in 19th century Hong Kong: court in time