title: Shanghai Grand: Forbidden Love and International Intrigue on the Eve of the Second World War
author:  Taras Grescoe 
description: Grescoe does a remarkable job of structuring his material, shifting his gaze across a broad canvas with grace. (<em>The Globe and Mail</em>)<br /><br />Grescoe uses these sources--and those of the many other writers, journalists, memoirists and diarists of the time--to capture the rollicking spirit of Shanghai on the verge of history, sorting through their biases and feuds to provide richly detailed anecdotes . . . a fascinating record of a lost time. (<em>National Post</em>)<br /><br />A love song to 1930s Shanghai. Taras Grescoe has fallen hard for the the wicked old Paris of the Orient, its barrooms thick with gangsters and newsmen . . . <em>Shanghai Grand</em> is a headlong swoon for old Shanghai. The feeling is easy to catch. (<em>New York Times</em>)<br /><br />Grescoe draws on archival sources rarely touched by other historians, and his treatment of his subjects is balanced and empathetic. . . . Time diminishes even the grandest monuments, and we are fortunate when a talented storyteller takes the trouble to reconstruct them in such meticulous and compelling detail. (<em>Literary Review of Canada</em>)<br /><br />There is a considerable escapist pleasure to be found in [Grescoes] evocations of the memorable mix of con men, capitalists, revolutionaries, ruffians and romantics encountered by [Mickey] Hahn during her Shanghai sojourn. (<em>Wall Street Journal</em>)<br /><br />Heres the Mandarin for ooh-la-la! As Taras Grescoe, a respected Canadian writer of nonfiction, shows in this marvellous, microscopically descriptive history . . . Shanghai in the 1930s was internationally notorious as the wicked old Paris of the Orient. (<em>The Spectator</em> (UK))<br /><br />Grescoes narrative is a keenly observant, sometimes soulful portrait of Emily Mickey Hahn, an American writer who lived in Shanghai from 1935 to 1943, and of Chinas political and social realities during that tumultuous period in its history. . . . This is a wonderful book. (<em>Publishers Weekly</em>)<br /><br />[A] lively biography of a city and some of its colorful inhabitants. . . . Grescoe exuberantly captures the glamour and intrigue of a lost world. (<em>Kirkus Reviews</em>)<br /><br />The fascinating historical accounts collected from archival records and old correspondence provide a feeling of biography mixed with historical fiction, although the facts are solid. Through this blended approach, Grescoes work will appeal to readers with a historical sweet tooth. (<em>Library Journal</em>)<br /><br />Grescoe interweaves a cast of intriguing international characters into this seductive biography of a time, a place, a poet, and a girl. (<em>Booklist</em>)
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  PRAISE FOR JULIET CONLIN
  
  The Lives Before Us
  
  ‘Superb storytelling! The Lives Before Us chronicles the courage and endurance
  of two women in wartime Shanghai, separated, then reunited, in a dangerous and
  desperate place. Strongly drawn characters quickly demand attention, and
  empathy, and their compelling story charts a little-known aspect of the Second
  World War, and of a persecution felt far beyond Europe. Very well written and
  well researched. Thoroughly recommended!’
  
  – SARAH MAINE, author of The House Between Tides
  
  ‘Juliet Conlin vividly recreates the lost world of wartime Shanghai’s Jewish
  ghetto – a place of hope and despair in equal measure; a city of temporary
  refuge, yet continuing daily struggle. I was absorbed.’
  
  – PAUL FRENCH, author of Midnight in Peking
  
  ‘Opens up a captivating new world in a war I thought I knew about, a raucous
  Casablanca transposed to the East, filled with the intrigues of outcasts and
  determined survivors.’
  
  – ALEX CHRISTOFI, auth