Wa-pedia Home > Japan Forum & Europe Forum
Results 1 to 1 of 1

Thread: Best books about China

Hybrid View

Previous Post Previous Post   Next Post Next Post
  1. #1
    Twirling dragon Maciamo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 17, 2002
    Location
    ¼‹ž
    Posts
    2,434

    Post Best books about China

    I have selected for you the books I have enjoyed most about the Middle Kingdom.

    The first I read, back in 2002, was Jung Chang's autobiographic novel. Born in China at the beginning of the Maoist regime, she tells the story of 20th-century China through the tragic events of her family, from the fall of the Qing empire experienced by her grandparents to her own experience of the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. An extremely moving and eye-opening book.

    Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang


    Another biography relating to the history of China, The Man Who Loved China is about the life of Joseph Needham, a brilliant British biochemist from the University of Cambridge who fell in love with the country in his late thirties, learned to speak and write Chinese, then managed the breathtaking and herculean task of writing an 18-volume encyclopaedia compiling the complete history of Chinese science and inventions. His biographer is none else than the celebrated writer and BBC journalist Simon Winchester.

    The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom, by Simon Winchester


    Another excellent book by Simon Winchester, this time about his own travel from the estuary of the Yangtze all the way upstream to Tibet. Highly informative about this amazing and majestic river and the history of places on its banks.

    The River at the Centre of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time, by Simon Winchester


    The two other works are also by British citizens. China Road is the account of journalist Rob Gifford on a journey along road 312 between Shanghai and Xinjiang. It is not merely a travelogue but a journalistic review of modern China.

    China Road: One Man's Journey into the Heart of Modern China, by Rob Gifford


    China Cuckoo tells the story of Mark Kitto, the founder of a famous English-speaking magazine in China, whose flourishing business was taken over by the Chinese government. He decided to stay in China, restore an old colonial summer villa on top of Mt. Moganshan and turn it into a B&B with his Chinese wife. The book is more about the practicalities of buying a house in China (well actually renting from the Chinese government) and restoring it than about his previous life as a publisher. It is not dissimilar to Alex Kerr's Lost Japan, in which he purchases and renovates a traditional thatched house in Shikoku.

    China Cuckoo, by Mark Kitto


    Finally, River Town relates the experience of a young American teaches English literature at a college in Fuling, in Sichuan, for two years. The book is praiseworthy for the quality of its prose as well as for its pertinent analysis of Chinese society and very observant reporting of divergences with Western culture, manners and political ideas. It artfully combines travelogue with socio-cultural studies.

    River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, by Peter Hessler
    Last edited by Maciamo; Sep 23, 2010 at 19:58.

    Visit Japan for free with Wa-pedia
    See what's new on the forum ?
    Eupedia : Europe Guide & Genetics
    Maciamo & Eupedia on Twitter

    "What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?", Winston Churchill.

Similar Threads

  1. History books
    By Mycernius in forum History
    Replies: 12
    Last Post: Aug 26, 2006, 00:38

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •