Svetlana's Reads and Views

Name of Book: Night in Shanghai Author: Nicole Mones ISBN: 978-0-547-51617-2 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Type of book: China, 1936-1941, African-American male/Chinese female relationship, jazz, music, Japanese, WWII, conquer, night world, Shanghai, Chinese, Communists vs Nationalists, Jews in Shanghai, Jew question, rescuing Jews Year it was published: 2014 Summary: In 1936, classical pianist Thomas Greene is recruited to Shanghai to lead a jazz orchestra of fellow African-American expats. From being flat broke in segregated Baltimore to living in a mansion with servants of his own, he becomes the toast of a city obsessed with music, money, pleasure and power, even as it ignores the rising winds of war. Song Yuhua is refined, educated, and bonded since age eighteen to Shanghai’s most powerful crime boss in payment for her father’s gambling debts. Outwardly submissive, she burns with rage and risks her life spying on her master for the Communist Party. ...