Read Around Asia Challenge

Read at least one book by an author from each country in Asia.

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Best books from Asia (1404)
211.

Death of a Red Heroine by Xiaolong Qiu EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
In this Anthony Award-winning debut, Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police must find the murderer of a National Model worker, and then risk his own life and career to see that justice is done. "A Loyal Character Dancer "is the latest in Qiu's Shanghai series featuring Inspector Chen. "A marvelously assured debut. . . . Engrossing, immensely readable."-"The Wall Street Journal"

212.

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu EN

Rating: 5 (3 votes)
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
Ken Liu is one of the most original, thought-provoking and award-winning short-story writers of his generation. This is the first collection of his work – sixteen stories that invoke the magical within the mundane, by turns profound, beguiling and heartbreaking. Included here are: The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary (Finalist for Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon Awards), Mono No Aware (Hugo Award winner), The Waves (Nebula Award finalist), The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species (Nebula and Sturgeon award finalists), All the Flavors (Nebula Award finalist), The Litigation Master and the Monkey ... continue

213.

Hard Like Water by Yan Lianke EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
“Yan is one of those rare geniuses who finds in the peculiar absurdities of his own culture the absurdities that infect all cultures.” —The Washington Post From the Kafka Prize winner and two-time Booker Prize finalist, this is a gripping and bitingly satirical story of ambition and betrayal, following two young communist revolutionaries whose forbidden love sets them apart from their traditionally minded village as the Cultural Revolution sweeps China. Gao Aijun is a son of the soil of Henan’s Balou Mountains, and after his Army service, he is on his way back to his ancestral village, feeling... continue

214.

Tiananmen Square by Lai Wen EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
An epic, deeply moving coming-of-age novel about young love and lasting friendships forged in the years leading up to the Tiananmen Square student protests, for readers of The Beekeeper of Aleppo and The Night Tiger. As a child in Beijing in the 1970s, Lai lives with her family in a lively, working-class neighborhood near the heart of the city. Thoughtful yet unassuming, she spends her days with her friends beyond the attention of her parents: Her father is a reclusive figure who lingers in the background, while her mother, an aging beauty and fervent patriot, is quick-tempered and preoccupied... continue

215.

The Garlic Ballads : A Novel by Mo Yan, Howard Goldblatt EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
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

216.

Must I Go by Yiyun Li EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
Lilia Liska is eighty-one. She has shrewdly outlived three husbands, raised five children and seen the birth of seventeen grandchildren. Now she has turned her keen attention to a strange little book published by a vanity press- the diary of a long-forgotten man named Roland Bouley, with whom she once had a fleeting affair. Drawn into an obsession over this fragment of intimate history, Lilia begins to annotate the diary with her own, rather different version of events. Gradually she undercuts Roland's charming but arrogant voice with her sharply incisive and deeply moving commentary. She reve... continue

217.

Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah EN

Rating: 4.5 (29 votes)
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
Adeline Yen Mah returns to her roots to tell the story of her painful childhood and her ultimate triumph and courage in the face of despair.

218.

The Art of Happiness : A Handbook for Living by Dalai Lama XIV Bstan-ʼdzin-rgya-mtsho, Howard C. Cutler EN

Rating: 4 (2 votes)
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
Drawing on more that 2,500 years of Buddhist tradition and teaching, the spiritual leader demonstrates how to confront the negative emotions, stresses, and obstacles of everyday life in order to find the source of inner peace.

219.

Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
An NYRB Classics Original When the pioneering Taiwanese novelist Qiu Miaojin committed suicide in 1995 at age twenty-six, she left behind her unpublished masterpiece, Last Words from Montmartre. Unfolding through a series of letters written by an unnamed narrator, Last Words tells the story of a passionate relationship between two young women—their sexual awakening, their gradual breakup, and the devastating aftermath of their broken love. In a style that veers between extremes, from self-deprecation to pathos, compulsive repetition to rhapsodic musings, reticence to vulnerability, Qiu’s genre... continue

220.

Die drei Sonnen by Cixin Liu DE

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
China, Ende der 1960er-Jahre: Während im ganzen Land die Kulturrevolution tobt, beginnt eine kleine Gruppe von Astrophysikern, Politkommissaren und Ingenieuren ein streng geheimes Forschungsprojekt. Ihre Aufgabe: Signale ins All zu senden und noch vor allen anderen Nationen Kontakt mit Außerirdischen aufzunehmen. Fünfzig Jahre später wird diese Vision Wirklichkeit – auf eine so erschreckende, umwälzende und globale Weise, dass dieser Kontakt das Schicksal der Menschheit für immer verändern wird.