Joyce Lau has been writing professionally since she walked into the Montreal Mirror offices as a 19-year-old college sophomore, and followed the editors around until they finally acquiesced to letting her compile the band listings for a small fee. Her days at McGill University were spent typing away in the basement newsroom of the Tribune, the campus paper. She soon graduated to publishing in magazines like Canadian Business, NOW and Toronto Life. In Hong Kong, she worked as the managing editor of HK Magazine, and as the arts editor of The South China Morning Post, where she still writes freelance book reviews. Most of her journalism career has been at The New York Times, where she specialised in penning long-form features on art and culture. Joyce now works for Civic Exchange, an environmental policy think-tank. She lives in Hong Kong with her husband, two young daughters and an elderly cat. [Book Review]