English books from Asia
Recommended English books (1231)
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
If you speak English here are some English books from Asia for the next part of the "Read Around The World Challenge".
881.
The Garlic Ballads : A Novel by Mo Yan, Howard Goldblatt EN
ChinaDescription:
The farmers of Paradise County have been leading a hardscrabble life unchanged for generations. The Communist government has encouraged them to plant garlic, but selling the crop is not as simple as they believed. Warehouses fill up, taxes skyrocket, and government officials maltreat even those who have traveled for days to sell their harvest. A surplus on the garlic market ensues, and the farmers must watch in horror as their crops wither and rot in the fields. Families are destroyed by the random imprisonment of young and old for supposed crimes against the state. The prisoners languish in h... continue
882.
The Gene : An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee EN
IndiaDescription:
Prologue: Families -- "The missing science of heredity" 1865-1935 -- "In the sum of the parts, there are only the parts" 1930-1970 -- "The dreams of geneticists" 1970-2001 -- "The proper study of mankind is man" 1970-2005 -- Through the looking glass 2001-2015 -- Post-genome 2015- ... -- Epilogue: Bheda, Abheda
883.
The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo EN
MalaysiaDescription:
Yangsze Choo s stunning debut, The Ghost Bride, is a startlingly original novel infused with Chinese folklore, romantic intrigue, and unexpected supernatural twists. Li Lan, the daughter of a respectable Chinese family in colonial Malaysia, hopes for a favorable marriage, but her father has lost his fortune, and she has few suitors. Instead, the wealthy Lim family urges her to become a ghost bride for their son, who has recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home fo... continue
884.
The Gift of Rain : A Novel by Tan Twan Eng EN
Description:
The recipient of extraordinary acclaim from critics and the bookselling community, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell and has garnered comparisons to celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. Set during the tumult of World War II, on the lush Malayan island of Penang, The Gift of Rain tells a riveting and poignant tale about a young man caught in the tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits. In 1939, sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton-the half-Chinese, half-English youngest child of the head of one of Penang's great trading families-feels alienated from both... continue
885.
The Ginza Ghost by Keikichi Ōsaka EN
JapanDescription:
The Japanese form of Golden Age detective fiction was re-launched in the early 1980s as shin honkaku by Soji Shimada and Yukito Ayatsuji, but the original honkaku dates from the 1930s and one of its pioneers was Keikichi Osaka. The Ginza Ghost is a collection of twelve of his best stories, almost all impossible crimes. Although the solutions are strictly fair-play, there is an unreal, almost hallucinatory quality to them. Osaka, who died tragically young, was an early pioneer and master of the genre, whose work is only now starting to be re-discovered. Readers of LRI's The Decagon house Murder... continue
886.
The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf EN
Description:
Retells a Malaysian folk tale in which a lonely girl, Suraya, inherits from her grandmother a pelesit, a ghostly demon, who proves to be a good companion, bringing both danger and hope.
887.
The Girl from the Garden by Parnaz Foroutan EN
IranDescription:
An extraordinary new writer makes her literary debut with this suspenseful novel of desire, obsession, power and vulnerability, in which a crisis of inheritance leads to the downfall of a wealthy family of Persian Jews in early twentieth-century Iran. For all his wealth and success, Asher Malacouti—the head of a prosperous Jewish family living in the Iranian town of Kermanshah—cannot have the one thing he desires above all: a male son. His young wife Rakhel, trapped in an oppressive marriage at a time when a woman’s worth is measured by her fertility, is made desperate by her failure to concei... continue
888.
The Girl Who Fell to Earth : A Memoir by Sophia Al-Maria EN
QatarDescription:
Award-winning filmmaker and writer Sophia Al-Maria’s The Girl Who Fell to Earth is a funny and wry coming-of-age memoir about growing up in between American and Gulf Arab cultures. With poignancy and humor, Al-Maria shares the struggles of being raised by an American mother and Bedouin father while shuttling between homes in the Pacific Northwest and the Middle East. Part family saga and part personal quest, The Girl Who Fell to Earth traces Al-Maria’s journey to make a place for herself in two different worlds.
889.
The Girl Who Stole an Elephant by Nizrana Farook EN
Sri LankaDescription:
A thrilling, joyous adventure of friendship, flight and righting wrongs.
890.
The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee EN
Country: Asia / 
North Korea
North Korea
Description:
An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships and the story of one woman s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom. As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repressio... continue