Books from China
136 popular chinese books
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
The target of the Read Around The World Challenge is to read at least one book written by an author from each and every country in the world.
All books that are listed here as part of the "Read Around Asia Challenge" were written by authors from China.
Find a great book for the next part of your reading journey around the world from this book list. The following popular books have been recommended so far.
71.
Once Upon a Time in the East : A Chronicle of Growing Up by Xiaolu Guo EN
Description:
'This generation's Wild Swans' Daily Telegraph 'One of the most startling and fascinating memoirs I've read in recent years...a story of China' Libby Purves 'Impressive...moving...exhilarating' Financial Times 'Guo is rebellious, flamboyant and fundamentally optimistic...fascinating' Scotland on Sunday 'This stunning memoir picks up where Jung Chang's 1991 bestseller Wild Swans left off...This book will make your jaw drop, then clench in anger' Five stars, Sunday Telegraph 'Riveting...Guo is a bolder, angrier and more ambitious figure than her forebears' The Times Xiaolu Guo meets her parents ... continue
72.
Owlish by Dorothy Tse EN
Description:
With your face covered, sneaking into a city you thought you knew, are you still yourself? Or have you crossed to another world, where the streets are unpredictable and the people strangers, where you might at any moment run into some unknown dream version of yourself? In a city called Nevers, there lives a professor of literature called Q. He has a dull marriage and a lacklustre career, but also a scrumptious collection of antique dolls locked away in his cupboard. And soon Q lands his crowning acquisition- a music box ballerina named Aliss who has tantalisingly sprung to life. Guided by his ... continue
73.
Description:
A wealthy Chinese teen is sent to America on her own to attend private school. Claire is a rich 11th grader in Shanghai; Dani is a scholarship student at a private school in Southern California who helps her mother clean houses. When Claire is parachuted into America to finish high school and Dani's mother needs the income from a boarder, they become unlikely housemates.
74.
Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu EN
Description:
A moving debut novel about war, migration, and the power of telling stories, Peach Blossom Spring follows three generations of a Chinese family on their search for a place to call home. With every misfortune there is a blessing and within every blessing, the seeds of misfortune, and so it goes, until the end of time. It is 1938 in China and, as a young wife, Meilin's future is bright. But with the Japanese army approaching, Meilin and her four year old son, Renshu, are forced to flee their home. Relying on little but their wits and a beautifully illustrated hand scroll, filled with ancient fab... continue
75.
Private Revolutions by Yuan Yang EN
Description:
“As powerfully intimate as it is politically incendiary.” —Vogue Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by the BBC A sweeping yet intimate portrait of modern China told through the lives of four ordinary women striving for a better future in a highly unequal society While serving as the deputy Beijing bureau chief of the Financial Times, Chinese-British journalist Yuan Yang began to notice common threads in the lives of her Chinese peers—women born during China’s turn toward capitalism in the 1980s and 1990s, who, despite the country's enormous economic gains during their lifetimes, were coming... continue
76.
Records of the Historian; Chapters from the Shih Chi by Sima Qian EN
Description:
"To 18 chapters and a brief excerpt dealing with the Han dynasty and published earlier in Records of the Grand Historian of China (2 vols., 1961) are here added five chapters pertaining to the preceding Chou and Ch'in dynasties. The purpose of the selection is to suggest to the reader something of the form and content of the first great Chinese historical work, to indicate the type of material Ssu-ma Ch'ien presents and his methods of presentation, and to allow the reader to enjoy some of the more famous and highly praised passages in a book dear to many generations of Chinese readers."--Publi... continue
77.
Description:
A revelatory and disturbing portrait of China, this is Anchee Min’s celebrated memoir of growing up in the last years of Mao’s China. As a child, Min was asked to publicly humiliate a teacher; at seventeen, she was sent to work at a labor collective. Forbidden to speak, dress, read, write, or love as she pleased, she found a lifeline in a secret love affair with another woman. Miraculously selected for the film version of one of Madame Mao’s political operas, Min’s life changed overnight. Then Chairman Mao suddenly died, taking with him an entire world. This national bestseller and New York Ti... continue
78.
Red Rose, White Rose by Ailing Zhang, Eileen Chang EN
Description:
There were two women in Zhenbao�s life: one he called his white rose, the other his red rose. One was a spotless wife, the other a passionate mistress. Isn�t that just how the average man describe a chaste widow�s devotion to her husband�s memory � as spotless, and passionate too? Maybe every man has had two such women � at least two. Marry a red rose and eventually she�ll be a mosquito-blood streak smeared on the wall, while the white one is �moonlight in front of my bed.� Marry a white rose, and before long she�ll be a grain of sticky rice that�s gotten stuck to your clothes; the red one, by... continue
79.
Red Roulette: An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption and Vengeance in Today's China by Shum, Desmond EN
Description:
"THE BOOK CHINA DOESN'T WANT YOU TO READ."--CNN A riveting insider's story of how the Party and big money work in China today, by a man who, with his wife, Whitney Duan, rose to the zenith of power and wealth--and then fell out of favor. She was disappeared four years ago. News of this book led to a phone call from Whitney, proof that she's alive. As Desmond Shum was growing up impoverished in China, he vowed his life would be different. Through hard work and sheer tenacity he earned an American college degree and returned to his native country to establish himself in business. There, he met ... continue
80.
Red Scarf Girl : A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang EN
Description:
In 1966 Ji-li Jiang turned twelve. An outstanding student and leader, she had everything: brains, the admiration of her peers, and a bright future in China′s Communist Party. But that year China′s leader, Mao Ze-dong, launched the Cultural Revolution, and everything changed. Over the next few years Ji-li and her family were humiliated and scorned by former friends, neighbors, and co-workers. They lived in constant terror of arrest. Finally, with the detention of her father, Ji-li faced the most difficult choice of her life. Told with simplicity and grace, this is the true story of one family′s... continue