Star Wars affair just a way to make some money

"I've spent so many years not telling the story of Harrison and me having an affair on the first Star Wars movie that it's difficult to know exactly how to tell it now," Carrie Fisher announces on page 49 of her brisk but vague new memoir, The Princess Diarist.

Police thriller interweaves Scottish dramas

Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie has always been a workaholic. But now immersion in her work doesn't just give her life structure - it also has become a kind of comfort that allows her to deal with grief in Out of Bounds, Val McDermid's latest exciting novel about this Scottish police detective.

Preserving the past for posterity

For the past 29 years, Qiu Jinxian, who works at the British Museum, has been handling top-tier artworks from China.

Artists re-create gongbi spirit with a contemporary approach

The highly realistic style of gongbi painting (meticulous brushwork) began to form some 2,000 years ago and created brilliance in Chinese art. Even though it is in decline today, contemporary artists are trying to enliven it with experimental approaches.

A Taste For China

One spring afternoon on a lake in Zhejiang province,

Shanghai red-braised pork with eggs

Totem Of The Plateau

On China's online social networks, Wu Yuchu called himself Yagebo, which means old yak in Tibetan.

Artworks capture struggles of Red Army in Long March

The high-altitude Ruoergai Grassland in northern Sichuan province attracts tourists today for picturesque wetlands and diverse wildlife. More than 80 years ago, however, the scene was less tranquil - the Red Army fighting against harsh terrain and weather during the Long March, a military retreat the Communist Party of China conducted from 1934-36.

Scans unveil the secrets of the oldest mummies

The world's oldest mummies have just had an unusual checkup.

Giving the bard a common touch

One of William Shakespeare's tragedies, King Lear, is being translated into Mandarin for a stage production, which will open in Beijing on Jan 20. The play is a production by the National Center for the Performing Arts and is part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's 10-year cultural exchange project, entitled Shakespeare's Folio Translation Project.

Hamilton composer Manuel Miranda still on a roll

Winning a Pulitzer Prize and a clutch of Tony Awards in a single year would be enough for almost anyone. Not Lin-Manuel Miranda. Not in 2016.

Pudgy pop stars aim at obesity prejudice

Competition is cutthroat among Japan's thousands of pop-idol wannabes, but a unique concept is winning fame for a band of "chubby" girls deploying their cheeky cuteness to combat prejudices against obesity.