Best Books About China

From the author of Brothers and China in Ten Words this celebrated contemporary classic of Chinese literature was also adapted for film by Zhang Yimou.

Dai Wei lies in his bedroom, a prisoner in his body, after he was shot in the head at the Tiananmen Square protest ten years earlier and left in a coma.

An authoritative account of five thousand years of Chinese history Many nations define themselves in terms of territory or people; China defines itself in terms of history.

In Every Step a Lotus, Dorothy Ko embarks on a fascinating exploration of the practice of footbinding in China, explaining its origins, purpose, and spread before the nineteenth century.

More populous than any other country on earth, China also occupies a unique place in our modern world for the continuity of its history and culture.

Lu Xun (1881?1936) is one of the founding figures of modern Chinese literature. His celebrated short stories assemble a powerfully unsettling portrait of the superstition, poverty, and complacence that he perceived in lateimperial China, and in the revolutionary Republic that…

When a boy goes to the market to buy food and comes home with an old wok instead, his parents wonder what they'll eat for dinner. But then the wok rolls out of the poor family's house with a skippityhoppityho! and returns from the rich man's home with a feast in tow!

Set in postWorld War II Shanghai, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow follows the adventures of Wang Qiyao, a girl born of the longtong, the crowded, labyrinthine alleys of Shanghai's workingclass neighborhoods.Infatuated with the glitz and glamour of 1940s Hollywood, Wang Qiyao…

Brilliant and illuminating, this astonishing debut novel by the awardwinning writer Yiyun Li is set in China in the late 1970s, when Beijing was rocked by the Democratic Wall Movement, an antiCommunist groundswell designed to move China beyond the dark shadow of the Cultural…

In this fully revised and updated third edition of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know(R), Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Maura Elizabeth Cunningham provide cogent answers to urgent questions regarding the world's newest superpower and offer a framework for…

Who founded China Are Chinese people religious What is Chinese culture and how has it changed over time The accessible and fun Understanding China Through Comics series answers those questions and more.For all ages, Foundations of Chinese Civilization covers China's early…

Winner of the both the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the CWA NonFiction DaggerChronicling an incredible unsolved murder, Midnight in Peking captures the aftermath of the brutal killing of a British schoolgirl in January 1937.

Spanning three generations, this novel of family and myth is told through a series of flashbacks that depict events of staggering horror set against a landscape of gemlike beauty, as the Chinese battle both Japanese invaders and each other in the turbulent 1930s.

Is China a rogue donor, as some media pundits suggest Or is China helping the developing world pave a pathway out of poverty, as the Chinese claim In the last few years, China's aid program has leapt out of the shadows.

Three special relationships are set against the backdrop of a glut on the 1987 Chinese garlic market, which causes the crumbling of many Paradise County livelihoods and a rebellion against corrupt Communist officials. By the author of Red Sorghum. 12,500 first printing.

In 1983, Chinese playwright, critic, fiction writer, and painter Gao Xingjian was diagnosed with lung cancer and faced imminent death.

The book starts with a poor but talented jade craftsman surnamed Liang, who has but one regret in lifehe has no son and heir to carry on the family business.

In August 1966 a group of Red Guards ransacked the home of Nien Cheng. Her background made her an obvious target for the fanatics of the Cultural Revolution: educated in London, the widow of an official of Chiang Kaishek's regime, and an employee of Shell Oil, Nien Cheng enjoyed…

An unforgettable portrait of individuals who hope, struggle, and grow along a single street cutting through the heart of Shanghai, from one of the most acclaimed broadcast journalists reporting on China.Modern Shanghai: a global city in the midst of a renaissance, where dreamers…

Are you planning to travel to China Whether you're still weighing the decision or you've already purchased your tickets, this unique travel guide is an indispensable resource for any China traveler.As the title says, this is everything you need to know before you travel to China…

Platt delivers a cinematic, scene-by-scene narrative of the Taiping Rebellion that moves between intimate portraits and widescreen battle set pieces. What works best is the human-scale entry point into a sprawling conflict: named commanders, civilian lives, and the choreography of sieges make the carnage tangible. Limitation: readers who dislike long operational detail or repeated gruesome descriptions will feel bogged down; the book privileges narrative momentum over systematic political theory, so it’s stronger on story than on abstract explanation.

From the bestselling author of Oracle Bones and River Town comes the final book in his awardwinning trilogy, on the human side of the economic revolution in China.

The Corpse Walker introduces us to regular men and women at the bottom of Chinese society, most of whom have been battered by life but have managed to retain their dignity: a professional mourner, a human trafficker, a public toilet manager, a leper, a grave robber, and a Falung…

"The Story of the Stone" (c. 1760) is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature. The first part of the story, The Golden Days, begins the tale of Baoyu, a gentle young boy who prefers girls to Confucian studies, and his two cousins: Baochai, his parents' choice of a wife…

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for AutobiographyXiaolu Guo is one of the most acclaimed Chineseborn writers of her generation, an iconoclastic and completely contemporary voice.

Jan Wong, a Canadian of Chinese descent, went to China as a starryeyed Maoist in 1972 at the height of the Cultural Revolution.

?Destined, I think, to become a classic of travel writing.??Paul Levy, The Observer After fifteen years spent exploring China and its food, Fuchsia Dunlop finds herself in an English kitchen, deciding whether to eat a caterpillar she has accidentally cooked in some homegrown…

The epic Chinese classic and phenomenon published in the US for the first time! A fantastical generational saga and kung fu epic, A Hero Born is the classic novel of its time, stretching from the Song Empire (China 1200 AD) to the appearance of a warlord whose name will endure…

From one of China's most acclaimed writers: a unique, intimate look at the Chinese experience over the last several decades.Framed by ten phrases common in the Chinese vernacular, China in Ten Words uses personal stories and astute analysis to reveal as never before the world's…

Ever since Deng Xiaoping effectively deradicalized China in the 1980s, there have been many debates about which path China would follow.

#1 bestselling guide to China Lonely Planet China is your passport to the most relevant, uptodate advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you.

Paul Theroux, the author of the train travel classics The Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express, takes to the rails once again in this account of his epic journey through China. He hops aboard as part of a tour group in London and sets out for China's border.

Just over a thousand years ago, the Song dynasty emerged as the most advanced civilization on earth. Within two centuries, China was home to nearly half of all humankind.

A fascinating, intimate portrait of Beijing through the lens of its oldest neighborhood, facing destruction as the city, and China, relentlessly modernizes.