Music

Wanting to sing

Singer-songwriter Qu Wanting released her latest single, Moon and Back (Jordan XL Remix), the first track of her upcoming album to be released later this year. The Vancouver-based musician was born in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, and moved to Canada at 16. She was signed by Nettwerk Records in Vancouver in 2009 as the label's first Chinese-Canadian artist who composes in both Mandarin and English. She has released two bilingual albums so far, Everything in the World and Say the Words, achieving multiplatinum status.

Book

The Idiot

The Idiot, Elif Batuman's well-written first novel, is a wry, funny, coming-of-age story set at the dawn of email among a group of Harvard brainiacs too nerdy and self-involved to even think about common pastimes of college students. Heroine Selin Karadag, wise daughter of Turkish immigrants, is shopping for classes and getting to know her overachieving roommates. She then falls in love with a guy named Ivan in her Russian-language class. The novel brims with provocative ideas about language, literature and culture. The title itself pays homage to Fyodor Dostoyevsky's namesake novel, whose main character, like Selin, is so good and noble he might be mistaken for an idiot.

APP

People Sport

An app integrating sport news, live streaming and marathon registration has recently been developed. Named People Sport, the app was developed by People.cn and aims to encourage users to take exercise and share relevant sport information. It marks another publicity platform for China's sport development, says Zhao Yong, deputy director of the General Administration of Sport. Chinese Olympic diving gold medalist Wu Minxia (above) was named ambassador of the app. Wu says that she wanted to use her influence to help more people to pursue an active, healthy lifestyle. A series of marathons are also planned soon. Users can keep track of the running events and sign up through the app.

China Daily - Agencies