Last Updated: 21/07/08
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HOLO Books
Womens History Press - Catalogue
About the series 'OF ISLANDS AND WOMEN'
The author's proposition is this: the most
rewarding way for a woman to visit an island is to read books by women who have
travelled there, or by or about women who have been part of its history, and to
visit the places they describe or where they had their being. Each livret will
give hints about which books to read, as well as a flavour of them, and where to
go. Itineraries are included, as well as historical background. Most of the
information comes from women's writing or the experiences of the author and her husband.
| Title | WATCHING THE FLAG COME DOWN: AN ENGLISHWOMAN IN HONG KONG 1987-1997 | | Author | Susanna Hoe | | Abstract | At midnight on 30 June 1997 Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty after 150 years of British rule. The moment when the British flag came down was dramatic enough but the ten years leading up to it were full of surprising incident and change. These ‘Letters from Hong Kong’, written by an Englishwoman who was involved in those events from 1987, are both an unusual historical record and a heartwarming account of women’s domestic, intellectual and political activity. An epilogue brings Hong Kong up to date ten years after the Handover. | | ISBN | 9780954405670 | | Notes | Paperback 256 Pages, 1 Map | | Publication Date | 2007 | | Price | £12 |
| Title | Series 'Of Islands And Women' Livret 2 - CRETE: WOMEN, HISTORY, BOOKS AND PLACES | | Author | Susanna Hoe | | Abstract | Once upon a time, Europa emerged from the waves at Matala on the back of a bull – the god Zeus in disguise. There, too, the author broke her ankle as she followed Europa to nearby Gortyn – whose famous law code has much to say about women. Europa was the mother of Minos, of the Minoans, (and of the concept of ‘Europe’). Millennia later, Harriet Boyd was the first woman archaeologist to discover and direct her own dig, at Gournia – a perfect Minoan town. This livret links legend and archaeology by writing and place, but does not neglect the island’s other women. Over the centuries they were subject to numerous violent changes of overlord – Mycenean, Roman, Byzantine (twice), Saracen, Venetian, Ottoman, German – but somehow have emerged as Cretans. | | ISBN | 0953773078 | | Notes | Paperback, 400 Pages, Maps and Illustrations | | Publication Date | 2005 | | Price | £9.99 |
| Title | Series 'Of Islands And Women' Livret 1 - MADEIRA: WOMEN, HISTORY, BOOKS AND PLACES | | Author | Susanna Hoe | | Abstract | In the 19th century, many people visited Madeira in the hopes that the dry, warm winter might help them recover from illness – usually consumption (tuberculosis). Today, travellers still go for the winter sun and for the magnificent walking, tropical and temperate gardens a hundred or more years old, glorious wild flowers and trees and distinctive mountain views. Less well known are the history of Madeira’s women - from slaves and lepers to privileged British expatriates and Portuguese noblewomen - and the writing of women travellers. This livret combines a flavour of all these elements for the visitor or the armchair traveller. | | ISBN | 0953773086 | | Notes | Paperback, 200 Pages, Maps and Ilustrations | | Publication Date | 2004 | | Price | £7.99 |
| Title | Series 'Of Islands And Women' Livret 3 - TASMANIA: WOMEN, HISTORY, BOOKS AND PLACES | | Author | Susanna Hoe | | Abstract | In 1792 Louise Girardin – disguised as a French sailor – was the first white woman in the waters of Van Diemens Land (Tasmania). She was followed by Martha Hayes who stepped ashore in 1803 among the first British settlers and convicts; she was the pregnant 16 year-old mistress of their leader. But Aboriginal women had already lived there for perhaps 40,000 years. The first to be named in exploration literature is Ouray-Ouray; the best known is Truganini, erroneously called the last Tasmanian when she died in 1876. In the 1960s, Aboriginal rights became a live issue, often with women in the forefront, as they were, too, in conservation. This book gathers together these strands, and that of a vibrant women’s literature, linking them to place – an island of still unspoilt beauty and unique flora and fauna. | | ISBN | 0954405668 | | Notes | 250 Pages | | Publication Date | 2008 | | Price | £8.99 |
| Title | AT HOME IN PARADISE: A HOUSE AND GARDEN IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA | | Author | Susanna Hoe | | Abstract | How would Margaret have written her story if she had been able to? I tried to help her to learn to read and write but I could never see into her mind – there was too much that divided us, in spite of all that drew us together. But sometimes, and once in particular, I felt that she knew I was recording everything she told me.
This is how the author introduces us to the family’s cleaner in her diary of a stay in Papua New Guinea – home of the bird of paradise. Through the gradual accumulation of detail, the reader gets to know Margaret, her extended family, her unreliable husbands and her independent spirit. Then there is Kaman, the outrageous gardener, who has to be prised away from his creation so that his employers can enjoy planting and tending, as well as admiring and eating its produce. There is endless scope for misunderstanding and enlightenment as the tropical seasons come and go and relationships develop. | | ISBN | 0953773094 | | Notes | Paperback, 208 Pages, 1 Map | | Publication Date | 2003 | | Price | £10 |
| Title | WOMEN AT THE SIEGE, PEKING 1900 | | Author | Susanna Hoe | | Abstract | The Boxer uprising; the siege of the legations; 55 days in Peking; foreign troops looting China’s capital; these are images from books and films over the past 100 years. Now the story is told from the women’s point of view, using their previously neglected writings and giving a new dimension. | | ISBN | 095377306X | | Notes | Paperback, 430 Pages, 4 Maps, 44 Illustrations | | Publication Date | 2000 | | Price | £15 |
| Title | CHINESE FOOTPRINTS: EXPLORING WOMEN’S HISTORY IN CHINA, HONG KONG AND MACAU | | Author | Susanna Hoe | | Abstract | This book is as much about the author’s task of historical re-creation as it is about the lives, loves and struggles of women such as the 1930s civil rights campaigners Shi Liang, Agnes Smedley and Stella Benson; autobiographical writer Xiao Hong; Olympic sportswoman, traveller and writer Ella Maillart; icon of revolutionary China Soong Ching Ling; philanthropist Clara Ho Tung; and Clara Elliot, who lived in Macau at the time of Hong Kong’s cession to Britain. | | ISBN | 9627992038 | | Notes | Published By Roundhouse Publications (Asia), Distributed By HOLO Books, Paperback, 351 Pages, 41 Illustrations | | Publication Date | 1996 | | Price | £10 |
| Title | LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF A MACAO LIFE: THE JOURNAL OF HARRIETT LOW, TRAVELLING SPINSTER | | Author | Nan Hodges & Arthur W. Hummel (eds) | | Abstract | Lights and Shadows of a Macao Life, the title chosen by Harriett Low for her journal, aptly describes the conflicting emotions of the first American woman to live in China. Making a rude transition from the tranquillity of Salem, Massachusetts into a world of sampans and sedan chairs, women with bound feet and men with queues, the lively young American records a detailed portrait of her life in Macao from 1829-1834. In these diaries, published for the first time as a complete edition, Harriett Low displays wit and courage as she metamorphoses from a socially naive girl into a mature, independent woman. This is an important addition to the historiography of the China Coast. | | ISBN | 0938106295 | | Notes | Published By Bear Creek Books, Distributed By HOLO Books, 2 Vols, Paperback, 833 Pages, 10 Illustrations | | Publication Date | 2002 | | Price | £27 |
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