Yangsze Choo's Blog

Oh my goodness! The Fox Wife just made the Final 4 for Jimmy Fallon’s book club on The Tonight Show! It felt surreal to watch him arrange all the books on his desk… Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the friends and readers who’ve been voting along—I really appreciate it, as do the foxes!

You can watch The Tonight Show clip here

And please do vote here, if you are paws-itively inclined towards foxes!

Image from Pinterest

With HUGE thanks to all of you, The Fox Wife has made it to the next round of Jimmy Fallon’s book club on The Tonight Show! You can watch the clip of Jimmy announcing it here:

Voting is open until Tuesday April 2, and you can vote up to 10 times (please, please vote here for the cute little foxes!)

(Image from boredpanda.com)

I am absolutely gobsmacked that THE FOX WIFE, is a finalist for Jimmy Fallon’s book club on The Tonight Show! 16 books were chosen, and each week half will be eliminated March Madness style by voting. I’m so thrilled (and can’t quite believe this is happening)!

You can see Jimmy’s intro video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaHmXaDROHU

Voting is only open for 3 days, until Thursday March 28 at 11.30pm New York time. Each person can vote up to 10 times. I don’t think I’m likely to advance beyond the first round, because there are some great books on this list, but I’m very honoured to be there at all. Please vote for THE FOX WIFE (and all the little foxes out there!) if you have a moment! And please do feel free to spread the news and tell your friends—I would sooo appreciate it! 

Here’s the link to vote: https://the-tonight-show.com/fallon-book-club-2024/

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Happy Lunar New Year! May the year of the Dragon bring you peace, luck, and a 龙 happy life! The red and pink camellias are blooming in my small garden, and it was lovely to see them after a week of storms in California.

On a separate note, my NPR interview with Scott Simon on Weekend Edition aired this morning. I am a huge NPR fan, and was a bit starstruck (and gobsmacked!) to be a guest. Thank you so much for having me, NPR! It was an honour and a pleasure.

You can hear the interview at this link: https://www.npr.org/2024/02/10/1230605053/yangsze-choo-on-her-new-novel-the-fox-wife

Thank you so much to Publisher’s Weekly and writer Hamilton Cain for this lovely interview about my upcoming third novel, The Fox Wife. I really enjoyed chatting with you! Link to full interview.

Read more: Publisher’s Weekly interview

It is now 2023 and 10 years after my first novel, The Ghost Bride, was published.

In the intervening decade, I’ve written two more books, but I still have no idea what to wear to literary type events. This is a very sad state of affairs that I can only chalk up to my own horrible fashion sense. For instance, as I’m typing this right now I’m wearing one of my favourite t-shirts. It is navy blue and has a picture of a bear brandishing a baguette over its head. I call it my “Bakery Bear” t-shirt, though my children have forbidden me to wear it out of the house. 

As in, “By the way, for Back-to-School night, you cannot wear your Bakery Bear t-shirt,” hissed as child bikes off to school. 

Or, “My friend is coming over. Do not wear that Bakery Bear t-shirt!”

Thanks to these affirmations, I understand that under no conditions can I wear it to a (heaven forbid) literary event, where unsuspecting readers, librarians, and booksellers mill around with quiet, civilised banter. Never mind that two of my books have featured animals (The Night Tiger, the upcoming The Fox Wife in Feb 2024). It is simply not appropriate, and so once again, on the eve of a trip to Portland, Oregon for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, I’m standing in front of my meagre wardrobe and wondering what on earth I should wear. 

I want to look friendly, reasonably entertaining, and most of all, sane. 

Or perhaps I’m wrong, and this is simply a hangover from my previous corporate day job where I pored over financial spreadsheets and tried to appear competent. I hated wearing high heels and must confess that I now mostly clomp around in Birkenstocks and other orthopaedic footwear. But from time to time, I get carried away and buy aspirational author clothing.

This past summer I spent time in South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore to do research for my fourth novel. While I was there, I was hit by a wave of admiration for the overall higher fashion sense in Asia. Everyone, from young to old, was walking around looking well-coiffed and nicely dressed. We took subways and buses all over the place, and I particularly enjoyed people watching, marveling at how some folks were able to put together entire outfits that were both pleasing and interesting, even as a typhoon was flooding the streets of Seoul and the following week, 40,000 boy scouts at the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea apparently collapsed from heat stroke. 

While I was in Asia, I also went shopping in my own, rather limited fashion. Too shy to ask the shop assistants for help, I ambled around, admiring the mannequins. I also decided to buy “artistic” type clothing, meaning pieces that I would never wear in real life but that I fondly imagined would fit right in at a literary gathering.

To this end, I bought three items: 

A green vertically striped dress that looked like something from the Bloomsbury Artist Group.An amazingly poofy geometric white blouse with sleeves that I still haven’t figured out.A high-necked navy blouse with an undulating, wave-like bottom

I was extremely happy with these adventurous purchases, imagining that I was now all set for the next year. Today, I took them out to pack for my trip tomorrow and was appalled. The green dress makes me look like a herbicidal zebra, the white blouse with complicated sleeves is so puffy that I could pass for a loaf of bread, and the jellyfish navy blouse is simply…unspeakable. 

So I wimped out and packed a plain black top and some jeans. Not the elastic-waisted ones that are my favourites, but the normal kind. Then I added a long skirt and a striped top as backup (I’m regrettably fond of stripes, thanks to a steady diet of Sesame Street as a child). 

As a very last afterthought, I’m looking at my Bakery Bear t-shirt and wondering if I should squeeze it in. Just in case.

(you can read part 1 of this series here)

Oh my goodness! The Night Tiger is a Big Jubilee Read selection for Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee, celebrating fiction across the Commonwealth and spearheaded by BBC Arts and The Reading Agency.

70 titles, ten books for each decade of her reign, were selected. One book for each decade will be highlighted on the BBC Two programme Between the Covers. The Night Tiger is one of them, representing the last decade of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. Others include some of the most amazing books by my literary heroes like Chinua Achebe and Margaret Atwood.

I’m so, so incredibly honored and grateful to be in such fantastic company! When I look at the full list of books, as well as the incredible authors, I’m overcome with amazement. (And actually, I can’t quite believe it and keep thinking I must be dreaming and will soon discover I’m standing in front of the fridge and sleep-eating some cheese…)

For all of you who’ve come on this journey with The Night Tiger, thank you so much! Here is the full list from the BBC!

[image error]I’ve discovered over the years that not all ideas that seemed brilliant at 10pm ought to be in one’s novel. In fact, even if they feature adorable puppies and fried noodles, they sometimes have to be resisted…

Thanks so much to Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine for featuring this article! Click to read here.

 

[image error]Sometimes there’s nothing like curling up with a good book that you already know you love. Here are some of my recommendations for favourite rereads! Thanks so much to Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine for featuring this article!

 

[image error]I’m not quite sure how I’m typing because I’m feeling pretty incoherent, but THE NIGHT TIGER has been chosen as Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine’s Book Club!

When the news broke, I was so overcome that I felt like bursting into tears. And eating large quantities of peanut butter and chocolate. It felt pretty unbelievable and overwhelmingly emotional. It’s a funny feeling wanting to turn somersaults and also wanting to have a good cry (in the best possible way). And yet, at the same time I was somehow managing to fold laundry and wash dishes like a hamster on some kind of crazy autopilot.

My thoughts careened from: 

“Wow… just wow… I must be dreaming. Yes, definitely dreaming. When I wake up I promise I’ll never eat so much cheese again.”

to “Ahhhhhhh!!!” (incoherent mind screaming)

and “Perhaps this was all a mistake? And soon somebody will call me and say oh dear, we’re terribly sorry, but we really meant to call Margaret Atwood instead.” 

The only thing that actually came out of my mouth was telling my kids:

“Pizza for dinner!”

Now that it’s had a few days to sink in, I’m still awed and so very, very grateful. Thank you so much, Reese Witherspoon (whom I got to speak to on the phone – swoon! She is just LOVELY), and the amazing team at Hello Sunshine. And a huge thank you, to all you friends and readers, old and new, for coming along with me on this long journey from my ill-fated elephant novel to now.

A wise friend of mine reached out to ask “How are you doing? Are you feeling overwhelmed?” I think I still am. The thing about writing books is that it’s a great outlet for shy people like me. There’s also the existential terror of “Uh oh, maybe I will never be able to write another book again.” 

But in the meantime, I will try my best. I’ve already stocked up on lots of dark chocolate and Trader Joe’s Giant Peruvian Corn.

I’ve been on the road for various book events, including a trip to Singapore (which I’ll tell you more about later, when I’m allowed to share some Netflix pics!), but will have more updates soon!