Movie-goers, we are suspending Bookworm Film Fridays due to conflicting events these next two weeks. But we’ll be back next month, either May 1 or May 8. Please keep your eye on this space for details, or follow us on Twitter @BeijingBookworm or WeChat (add us on @BeijingBookworm). As always, you can sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on all our events — just enter your email address in the bar above.

Whisky lovers, rejoice: Bookworm is bringing back Whisky Wednesday! For a limited time, choose between 14 different three-flight whiskies, available by reservation. Tastings will be conducted Wednesdays only, and must be booked at least one day in advance by emailing [email protected]. All whiskies are single malts, with 41 in all. See this page for more details. (more…)

Friends, readers, passengers, climb aboard Rawi Hage’s surreal taxi this month as the Bookworm Book Club tackles Carnival, a volume “beautiful, brave and engrossing” (according to The Guardian). Join us to enthuse or gripe at 7.30pm on Wednesday May 13th.

 Buy your copy at the Bookworm to enjoy a free drink at the event.

Eileen Chang’s romantic classic Half a Lifelong Romance is finally getting a US release – and it only took half a lifetime! After 47 years without an English translation, Penguin translated the book late last year, with the US edition being published by Vintage Books next month.

The book has in the past been adapted for film – Ann Hui’s Eighteen Springs – when her work resurged in popularity in Hong Kong and Taiwan during the 80s and 90s. There is a rising awareness of Chang’s literature in the West partly thanks to that surge, which resulted in Ang Lee’s award-winning film adaptation of her novel Lust, Caution. Many Western universities now teach her short stories as part of their Chinese Literature programs.

Chang is the first Chinese woman published by Penguin Classics.

Please join us for our third book club meeting tomorrow (Wednesday, April 8) at 7:30 pm, where we’ll be discussing Bookworm Literary Festival author Chang-rae Lee’s highly acclaimed latest novel, On Such a Full Sea (featuring Chinese villagers in dystopic Baltimore). Lee is the Pulitzer-nominated author of five novels, and is currently the director of Princeton’s Program in Creative Writing. FREE