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 (1246)
141.

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
Communication is proving tricky for Ziao, a young woman fresh off the plane from China. When she finds herself pitched headlong into an affair, and living with her English boyfriend, she decides to write her very own dictionary, a Chinese-English dictionary for lovers. But will her new love survive the cultural chasms between East and West?

142.

Farewell My Concubine by Lilian Lee EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
Beginning amid the decadent glamour of China in the 1930s and ending in the 1980s in Hong Kong, this brilliant novel, which formed the basis for the award-winning movie, is the passionate story of an opera student who falls in love with his best friend, and the beautiful woman who comes between them.
Genre

143.

Severance : A Novel by Ling Ma EN

Rating: 4 (6 votes)
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
Maybe it’s the end of the world, but not for Candace Chen, a millennial, first-generation American and office drone meandering her way into adulthood in Ling Ma’s offbeat, wryly funny, apocalyptic satire, Severance. "A stunning, audacious book with a fresh take on both office politics and what the apocalypse might bring." —Michael Schaub, NPR.org “A satirical spin on the end times-- kind of like The Office meets The Leftovers.” --Estelle Tang, Elle NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: NPR * The New Yorker ("Books We Loved") * Elle * Marie Claire * Amazon Editors * The Paris Review (Staff Favorite... continue

144.

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
Emigrating with her mother from Hong Kong to Brooklyn, Kimberly Chang begins a secret double life as an exceptional schoolgirl during the day and sweatshop worker at night, an existence also marked by a first crush and the pressure to save her family from poverty. A first novel.

145.

Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo EN

Rating: 4 (2 votes)
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
Seeking her fortune in Beijing, Fenfang Wang leaves her rural farm to pursue her dreams in the city, lands a job as a film extra, falls for two unsuitable young men, and finally finds her true calling.

146.

Heart Sutra by Yan Lianke EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
From "China's foremost literary satirist" (Financial Times) comes a captivating new novel set at a religious training center in Beijing, focusing on the unlikely love story of a Buddhist nun and a Daoist priest At the Religious Training Center on the campus of Beijing's National Politics University, disciples of China's five main religions--Buddhism, Daoism, Protestantism, Catholicism, and Islam--gather for a year of intensive study and training. They live in dormitories, eat at shared tables in the cafeteria, and attend lectures to learn about their own religion while also sharing in the less... continue

147.

Ash by Malinda Lo EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
Forced into becoming an indentured servant when her family dies, Ash lives a lonely and desperate life with no hopes for the future, until she meets Kaisa, the King's royal Huntress, who teaches her to love, live, and dream once again.

148.

Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER The extraordinary memoir of a peasant boy raised in rural Maoist China who was plucked from his village to study ballet and went on to become one of the greatest dancers of his generation. From a desperately poor village in northeast China, at age eleven, Li Cunxin was chosen by Madame Mao's cultural delegates to be taken from his rural home and brought to Beijing, where he would study ballet. In 1979, the young dancer arrived in Texas as part of a cultural exchange, only to fall in love with America-and with an American woman. Two years later, through a series of ... continue


150.

Golden Age : A Novel by Wang Xiaobo EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
"At the time Wang was writing, novels about the Cultural Revolution tended to be fairly conventional tales of how good people suffered nobly during this decade of madness. The system itself was rarely called into question. Wang’s book was radically different . . . The idea of how to stand up to power underlies Golden Age." —Ian Johnson, The New York Times Book Review Like Gary Shteyngart or Michel Houellebecq, Wang Xiaobo is a Chinese literary icon whose satire forces us to reconsider the ironies of history. “Apparently, there was a rumour that Chen Qingyang and I were having an affair. She wa... continue