A book signing “marathon” will be held during the annual Taipei International Book Exhibition for the first time this year to give readers more opportunities to interact with their favorite authors.
The event is scheduled to have more than 40 writers from Taiwan and abroad signing books at the exhibition’s pavilion of book prize winners, which showcases award-winning books and books recommended by the media, from Feb. 7 to Feb. 9.
Among the participants are US author Hugh Howey, who penned the science fiction series WOOL, Japanese novelist and Naoki Prize winner Ira Ishida, who wrote the urban mystery series Ikebukuro West Gate Park, and Japanese writer Mizuki Tsujimura, whose short story collection Dreaming a Dream Without a Key also won the prestigious Naoki Prize.
Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale director Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖), who cowrote the screenplay for the upcoming baseball movie Kano, is also to meet with fans at the event, said the Taipei Book Fair Foundation, the organizer of the event.
Other prominent writers scheduled to attend the event include Spanish author Maria Duenas, author of the international bestseller The Time In Between, and French author Gilles Legardinier.
Japanese voice actors Nobunaga Shimazaki and Tsubasa Yonaga, who voiced the anime series Free! — Iwatobi Swim Club, are to attend a separate signing session on Feb. 9.
On Feb. 6, road running Web site xoo.com.tw founder Hu Chieh (胡杰) is to run into the exhibition venue with 50 other people to promote his new book on running.
Ultramarathon runner Tommy Chen (陳彥博) will also share his experiences on Feb. 9, the foundation said.
The annual exhibition is to take place from Feb. 5 to Feb. 10 at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Halls 1 and 3.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods