Read Around Asia Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Asia.
Best books from Asia (1438)
111.
When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge by Chanrithy Him EN
CambodiaDescription:
A survivor of the Cambodian genocide recounts a childhood in Cambodia, where rudimentary labor camps filled with death and illness were the norm and modern technology, such as cars and electricity, no longer existed. Reprint.
112.
The Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna EN
Description:
One family's quest to survive the devastation of the Khmer Rouge Year of the Rabbit tells the true story of one family’s desperate struggle to survive the murderous reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized power in the capital city of Phnom Penh. Immediately after declaring victory in the war, they set about evacuating the country’s major cities with the brutal ruthlessness and disregard for humanity that characterized the regime ultimately responsible for the deaths of one million citizens. Cartoonist Tian Veasna was born just three days after the Khmer Rouge take... continue
113.
Survival in the Killing Fields by Haing Ngor EN
Description:
Nothing has shaped my life as much as surviving the Pol Pot regime. I am a survivor of the Cambodian holocaust. That's who I am," says Haing Ngor. And in his memoir, Survival in the Killing Fields, he tells the gripping and frequently terrifying story of his term in the hell created by the communist Khmer Rouge. Like Dith Pran, the Cambodian doctor and interpreter whom Ngor played in an Oscar-winning performance in The Killing Fields, Ngor lived through the atrocities that the 1984 film portrayed. Like Pran, too, Ngor was a doctor by profession, and he experienced firsthand his country's wretc... continue
114.
À l'ombre des arbres millénaires by Vaddey Ratner FR
Description:
Descendante du roi Sisowath qui a régné sur le Cambodge de 1904 à 1927, Vaddey Ratner a enduré le terrible régime khmer rouge avant de s'enfuir aux États-Unis. À l'ombre des arbres millénaires est un best-seller du New York Times et est en cours de traduction dans dix-neuf pays.
115.
Slow Noodles : A Recipe for Rebuilding a Lost Civilization by Chantha Nguon EN
Description:
A haunting and beautiful memoir from a Cambodian refugee who lost her country and her family during Pol Pot's genocide in the 1970s but who finds hope by reclaiming the recipes she tasted in her mother's kitchen. With over 20 Khmer recipes included, Slow Noodles will resonate with readers who loved the food and emotional truth of Michelle Zauner's Crying in H Mart, and it has the staying power of Loung Ung's First They Killed My Father. "I've never read a book that made me weep, wince, laugh out loud, and rejoice like Slow Noodles. In Chantha Nguon's harrowing, wise, and fiercely feminist memo... continue
116.
Monkey: The Journey To The West by Wu Cheng-en EN
ChinaDescription:
Immensely popular in the Far East, combines elements of the of picaresque novel with folk epic in a mix of satire, allegory, and history in which Monkey encounters major and minor spirits, gods, demigods, demons, ogres, monsters, and fairies.
117.
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu EN
Description:
"Wildly imaginative, really interesting." —President Barack Obama on The Three-Body Problem trilogy The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome t... continue
118.
My Mother’s Secret by J.L. Witterick EN
Description:
Inspired by a true story, My Mother’s Secret is a captivating and ultimately uplifting tale intertwining the lives of two Jewish families in hiding from the Nazis, a fleeing German soldier, and the mother and daughter who save them all. Franciszka and her daughter, Helena, are simple, ordinary people...until 1939, when the Nazis invade their homeland. Providing shelter to Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland is a death sentence, but Franciszka and Helena do exactly that. In their tiny home in Sokal, they hide a Jewish family in a loft above their pigsty, a Jewish doctor with his wife and son in a make... continue
119.
China Dream by Ma Jian EN
Description:
‘One of China’s greatest living novelists’ Guardian Blending fact with fiction, China Dream is an unflinching satire of totalitarianism. After decades of loyal service, Ma Daode, a corrupt and lecherous party official, has been appointed director of the China Dream Bureau, charged with promoting President Xi Jinping’s China Dream of national rejuvenation. But just as he is about to present his plan for a microchip that will be implanted into the brain of every citizen to replace all painful recollections with a collective dream of national supremacy, his sanity begins to unravel. Plagued by fl... continue
120.
Wild Swans : Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang EN
Description:
The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author. An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mother’s struggles as a young ideal... continue