Must read books about China
It makes sense to read up on the country we're living in but with so many titles it's hard to know where to begin. Please, all those Sinophiles out there, help us and lend us some advice on what are the essential China reads.
Comments Add a public comment
-
-
-
-
Wild Swans-Jung Chang
(Taken from Wikipedia) -- Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China is an autobiographical family history by Chinese writer Jung Chang. First published in 1992, it is the story of her grandmother, her mother and herself, and in telling their stories gives a unique perspective on 20th century Chinese history. The book won two awards: the 1992 NCR Book Award and the 1994 British Book of the Year. The book has been translated into 30 languages and sold over 10 million copies.
It's a fascinating and emotional memoir about living in China through the Cultural Revolution, and is one of my favorites China-related books. Though it is banned in the mainland, I have a copy and I'm sure others do as well.
Have you read it? What did you think?
On an added note - for those of us who don't have copies and want one, you can go to any print shop around Beijing and have them photocopy a book for you. I've had it done for other books friends have loaned me, and though it doesn't look like the original, it's a cheap and easy way to have physical copies of things you want to take your time reading.
-
-
that one chapter out of seth faison's book on how much he used to like going to massage parlors back in the 80's. It's amazing. Faison used to be the NYT bureau chief. Or anything by Ross Terrill.
-
-
Red Dust by Ma Jian is another must read!
from the book: Book Description In 1983, at the age of thirty, dissident artist Ma Jian finds himself divorced by his wife, separated from his daughter, betrayed by his girlfriend, facing arrest for “Spiritual Pollution,” and severely disillusioned with the confines of life in Beijing. So with little more than a change of clothes and two bars of soap, Ma takes off to immerse himself in the remotest parts of China. His journey would last three years and take him through smog-choked cities and mountain villages, from scenes of barbarity to havens of tranquility. Remarkably written and subtly moving, the result is an insight into the teeming contradictions of China that only a man who was both insider and outsider in his own country could have written.
-
-
How could someone not include The Private Life of Chairman Mao in this list? Besides being a great book about Mao Ze Dong, written by his personal physician, it's just an amazing biography by itself. I highly recommend it.
Another book, for some reason I'm somewhat reluctant to mention, is Peter Hessler's River Town. It's one of the best books I've read about being an expat in China.
-
-
Sorry, two more books: Yu Hua's Chronicle of a Blood Merchant and Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth. Both leave incredible impressions on a reader. I haven't read much Chinese fiction, but the story of Xu Sanguan selling his blood to support his family is as beautiful as chilling. A must read.
-
-
Wow, Good Earth! I haven't thought about that book in ages. Do you have a copy? It was required reading when I was in high school, and fantastic to boot!
-
-
Also, I liked River Town, but it also just made me angry about living in China. He captures the frustrations of being an expat so well that when you read it when you are also frustrated, it leads to a bout of craziness that requires a short trip home. Still, there are some really great observations he makes on the river and the town and the university that he's employed at.
-
-
Oh good one emilc. Let's keep the sophmoric insults off the Book Mooch board please. As evidenced by its name, this is a SERIOUS forum. Haha
-
-
I have to agree with Jenn about adding Rivertown to the list. However, I didn't feel too frustrated over the book, in fact I really enjoyed it and it made me look at my 10+ years in Beijing and reflect on the current attitude I have about things versus my wide-eyed-take-it-all-in attitude back then. It's made my experience with taxi drivers and other unpleasantries easier to enjoy instead of just criticize.
-
-
Also, anything by Jonathan Spence is recommended. "The Gate of Heavenly Peace" is a great primer on all the crazy stuff that happened in China between the fall of the Qing and 1949.
-
-
"A Moment in Peking" by Lin Yutang is my suggestion as a must read.
-
-
Maos last revolution by Roderick MacFarquhar, 400 Million customers by carl crow (if you can get it), Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian, books authored by Su Tong or translated by Howard Goldblatt.
-
-
Five years ago, I tried to read Soul Mountain. I couldn't seem to get through the story. Doesn't it bounce back and forth between first and third person? What is that you like about it? I'd like to give it another whirl. Someone read this blog comment thread and put us in touch with Yu Hua, author of Blood Merchant. We'll be interviewing him soon! This little thread has got some muscle.
-
-
- Soul Mountain
- Wild Swans
- Search for Modern China
- Riding the Iron Rooster
-
-
Rod MacFahrquhar is one of the most interesting sinologists alive, and alive he still is, tottering around cambridge and speaking British English like they do in the House of Lords. If anyone has a copy of his two (three?) volume definitive "Origins of the Cultural Revolution" I'd love to borrow it.
-
-
MAO: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday.
Mao was one hellaciously evil, evil dude.
-
-
Don't stop with The Good Earth. She wrote more novels than Joyce Carol Oates.
-
-
Several of my friends are raving about "The Three Swans" but apart from a few blog references I cannot find it anywhere online. Maybe this is it? "WILD SWANS: Three daughters of China" ??
http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Swans-Three-Daughters-China/dp/0743246985
-
-
I suggest you ask your friends if they confused the name. :)
"Wild Swans - Three Daughters of China" is excellent.
-
-
ahhhhh "Wild Swans"! i have heard about it long ago but it is said that the book is still not easy to get in china? i have tried to find it for several times ,dissapointing! any advice?
-
-
well it seems that i should go to some print shop for one copy of the "Wild Swans"
i noticed that someone had suggested Yu Hua`s works.I like his style and here i also suggest you read his another book “To Live”.wondering if who else like the book?
-
-
the other day i saw a man reading the English edition "Shanghai Baby" by Wei Hui,it really used to be a best seller book among the westerners? how do youthink about the mordern Shanghai Women?
-
-
1)I am currently reading "Madam Chiang Kai Shek", which I think is pretty interesting considering all the Song sisters were heavily involved in Chinese politics. 2)"China Inc." and "China CEO are both good doing-business-in-China books. 3) Novels by Xin Ran - "The Good Women of China" and "Sky Burial" 4) Wild Swans (my colleague recommended it highly.)
-
-
About shanghai baby,not only the author has been accused to crib MianMian which i really suggest to anyone,but it also gives a very stereotyped vision(do we need it?) about westeners and chinese as well. I found it quite shallow and just a waste of time.
the most accurate book i've ever read about china is "one bilion customers".Is not just helpfull to understand how to do business in China but is quite accurate in describing chinese and western mentalities gaps. Extremely funny is a book which has been written by a german called:"Gebrauchsanweisung für China.
-
-
I came to China to teach english in a remote area of the country, and nothing could have prepared me better than Peter Hessler's River Town. I understood so much more that was going on around me thanks to this book. I'm reading the follow up, Oracle Bones, at the moment. It's more concentrated on the time that the author spent in Beijing, although it also follows up on some of the people in Hessler's first book.
-
-
I have been reading Foreign Babes in Beijing. I think it's a great book from a laowai lady's perspective. It's both pleasantly and painfully familiar.
-
-
I have been to Beijing Garden Books .It locates at 44 Guang Hua Road. There are many books introducing traditional chinese culture from the perspective of foreigners.I think it is worth going and reading
-
-
We have picked Pearl S Buck's "The Good Earth" for the next book club meeting (while a bigger-than-normal book, its also a classic about life in China (back in the day, ha) ;)
http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijing/articles/blogs-beijing/beijing-book-club/ps-holiday-readings/
-
-
The first book I picked up before coming to China was Peter Hessler's "River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze." As much as I've heard people say "River Town" is nothing like China today, I beg to differ — traveling to some of the more remote areas and western provinces of China, one would be surprised how much "River Town" rings true today ... especially for a foreigner.
I'm curious, would one consider Immersion Guides' "One Night in Beijing" as an essential "read" for China? I've heard all good things about this photographic work, but I've yet to make it down to a bookstore to purchase it.
-
-
admin, please erase that last comment, here it is in full.
-imperial china 900-1800 -1421:the year china discovered the world -bilingual chinese classics (100 volumes, 5000 kuai, international shipping available) at baihe veggie rest. near yonghegong
for you root-deep shuchongzi i've found "Imperial China 900-1800" by F. W. Mote to be painfully insightful as to why china was put in the mood it has been in since ghenghis khan decimated eurasia. over a hundred characters of the millenium highlighted as well as land reform trends, foreign relations with the north and west, foreign perceptions of china, chinese perceptions of foreign nations, the tribute system, why tibet and china didn't have anywhere near the relationship that we hear about in the newspaper until about when the u.s. was formed, literature and intellectual/philosophical trends, i could go on.
the reason the read is so dense, but bouncing along as it should being a 1000 page read, is that the author helped edit THE source on china, the cambridge history of china, which of course weighs in at over 15 volumes, 1000 pages each.
while not as familiarly scented as the quaint, yet powerful folk stories that yank us by the shirt into china, this book will put together unpopular truths in a way that uncovers the dusty trail that china has left behind them since the tang dynasty. it keeps you engaged in the culture long after you realize the stunning observations that this book makes...and i mean stunning.
for the real classic chinese enthusiast, i just found two days ago, a vegetarian restaraunt, called baihe, that sells a 100 volume set of trilingual(classic chinese, modern chinese, english) classics with international shipping available. i don't know the actual name of the series. from the daodejing to the journey to the west, it has dozens of recognizable standards that every chinese knows. it even sells at chinese prices. the project was sanctioned and carried out by the "party" boys themselves. i was told the modern chinese translations have no marxist mantra built into the fragile texts, so the classic chinese should be fairly well preserved in the modern chinese (not that you'd be able to tell reading the english) and you can save the mao-touting for the 20th century works noted in the posts above and below.
and by the way, "1421" is dope. who would have thought? spanish and portuguese sailors with chinese maps go to america...awesome.
-
-
And "what the chinese doesn't eat"by xinran,"joy luck club"by amy tan,"shadow of the silk road"should be in the list,i think.
© 2007 Beijing Ringier International Advertising Company. All rights reserved.
京ICP备05061149号
China Shakes the World by James Kynge Red China Blue by Jan Wong