Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The Story about Ping (Reading Railroad Books)

The Story about Ping (Reading Railroad Books)

by Marjorie Flack, Kurt Wiese

Since 1933, The Story About Ping has captivated generations of readers, but never before has it been available in a mass-market paperback format. No one can deny the appeal of the book's hero, Ping, the spirited little duck who lives on a boat on the Yangtze River. Ping's misadventures one night while exploring the world around his home form the basis of this timeless classic, which is brought to life by Kurt... (more)

Colors of the Mountain

by Da Chen

Colors of the Mountain is a classic story of triumph over adversity, a memoir of a boyhood full of spunk, mischief, and love, and a welcome introduction to an amazing young writer. Da Chen was born in 1962, in the Year of Great Starvation. Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution engulfed millions of Chinese citizens, and the Red Guard enforced Mao's brutal communist regime. Chen’s family belonged to the despised... (more)

Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present

Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present

by Peter Hessler

A century ago, outsiders saw China as a place where nothing ever changes. Today the country has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. In Oracle Bones , Peter Hessler explores the human side of China's transformation, viewing modern-day China and its growing links to the Western world through the lives of a handful of ordinary people. In a narrative that gracefully moves between the ancient and the... (more)

Liu Hulan Series: Book 3

Dragon Bones

by Lisa See

In a magnificent land where myth mixes treacherously with truth, one woman is in charge of telling them apart. Liu Hulan is the Inspector in China’s Ministry of Public Security whose tough style rousts wrongdoers and rubs her superiors the wrong way. Now her latest case finds her trapped between her country’s distant past and her own recent history. The case starts at a rally for a controversial cult that ends... (more)

Chu Ju's House

by Gloria Whelan

One girl too many . . . When a girl is born to Chu Ju's family, it is quickly determined that the baby must be sent away. After all, the law states that a family may have only two children, and tradition dictates that every family should have a boy. To make room for one, this girl will have to go. Fourteen-year-old Chu Ju knows she cannot allow this to happen to her sister. Understanding that one girl must... (more)

Dragon Moon

by Carole Wilkinson

In the time of the Han Dynasty in ancient China, a young orphan prepares for a difficult journey. Ping has grown to become a skilled Dragon Keeper, but her greatest challenge is yet to come. After rescuing the baby dragon, Kai, from the evil Emperor, she brings him to a safe haven near the border of the Empire. Now, as Kai grows into a restless young dragon, Ping faces a tough decision. She must find a way to take... (more)

To Live: A Novel

by Hua Yu

An award-winning, internationally acclaimed Chinese bestseller, originally banned in China but recently named one of the last decade’s ten most influential books there, To Live tells the epic story of one man’s transformation from the spoiled son of a rich landlord to an honorable and kindhearted peasant. After squandering his family’s fortune in gambling dens and brothels, the young, deeply penitent Fugui... (more)

A Free Life

by Ha Jin

From Ha Jin, the widely-acclaimed, award-winning author of Waiting and War Trash , comes a novel that takes his fiction to a new setting: 1990s America. We follow the Wu family--father Nan, mother Pingping, and son Taotao--as they fully sever their ties with China in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and begin a new, free life in the United States. At first, their future seems... (more)

Foreign Babes in Beijing: Behind the Scenes of a New China

Foreign Babes in Beijing: Behind the Scenes of a New China

by Rachel DeWoskin

“For a real insider’s look at life in modern China, readers should turn to Rachel DeWoskin.”—Sophie Beach, The Economist Determined to broaden her cultural horizons and live a “fiery” life, twenty-one-year-old Rachel DeWoskin hops on a plane to Beijing to work for an American PR firm based in the busy capital. Before she knows it, she is not just exploring Chinese culture but also creating it as the sexy,... (more)

Katherine

by Anchee Min

This novel, described by the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review as "nothing short of miraculous," is the story of Zebra Wong, a Chinese girl whose pragmatic mind conflicts with her passionate heart; Lion Head, her classmate, whose penchant for romantic intrigue belies his political ambitions, and Katherine, the seductive American with the red lipstick and the wild laugh who teaches them English and other... (more)

A Loyal Character Dancer

by Xiaolong Qiu

Praise for Qiu Xiaolong: "A sequel <to Death of a Red Heroine > that in many ways is even more impressive. . . . <Qiu> has moved from the poetic, exotic milieu of his first book (although plenty of elements remain) into a tougher, wider, probably more commercial and modern version of China as seen by America."— Chicago Tribune "Another wonderful novel featuring Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police... (more)

The River at the Center of the World

A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time

by Simon Winchester

Rising in the mountains of the Tibetan border, the symbolic heart of China pierces 3,900 miles of rugged country before debouching into the oily swells of the East China Sea. Connecting China's heartland cities with the volatile coastal giant, Shanghai, it has also historically connected China to the outside world through its nearly one thousand miles of navigable waters. To travel those waters is to travel back... (more)

The Samurai's Garden

by Gail Tsukiyama

The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Tsukiyama uses the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for her unusual story about a 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen who is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the... (more)

War Trash (Vintage International)

by Ha Jin

Ha Jin’s masterful new novel casts a searchlight into a forgotten corner of modern history, the experience of Chinese soldiers held in U.S. POW camps during the Korean War. In 1951 Yu Yuan, a scholarly and self-effacing clerical officer in Mao’s “volunteer” army, is taken prisoner south of the 38th Parallel. Because he speaks English, he soon becomes an intermediary between his compatriots and their American... (more)

Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China

Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China

by John Pomfret

“A highly personal, honest, funny and well-informed account of China’s hyperactive effort to forget its past and reinvent its future.”— The New York Times Book Review As one the first American students admitted to China after the communist revolution, John Pomfret was exposed to a country still emerging from the twin tragedies of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Crammed into a dorm... (more)

Eon - Dragoneye Reborn: Dragoneye Reborn (Playaway Young Adult)

Eon - Dragoneye Reborn: Dragoneye Reborn (Playaway Young Adult)

by Alison Goodman

Eon has been studying the ancient art of Dragon Magic for four years, hoping he'll be able to apprentice to one of the twelve energy dragons of good fortune. But he also has a dark secret. He is actually Eona, a sixteen-year-old girl who has been living a dangerous lie for the chance to become a Dragon-eye, the human link to an energy dragon's power. It is forbidden for females to practice the Dragon Magic and,... (more)

Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China

Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China

by Jen Lin-Liu

As a freelance journalist and food writer living in Beijing, Jen Lin-Liu already had a ringside seat for China’s exploding food scene. When she decided to enroll in a local cooking school—held in an unheated classroom with nary a measuring cup in sight—she jumped into the ring herself. In Serve the People, Lin-Liu gives a memorable and mouthwatering cook’s tour of today’s China as she progresses from cooking... (more)

North of Beautiful

by Justina Chen Headley

As he continued to stare, I wanted to point to my cheek and remind him, But you were the one who wanted this, remember? You're the one who asked-and I repeat- Why not fix your face? It's hard not to notice Terra Cooper. She's tall, blond, and has an enviable body. But with one turn of her cheek, all people notice is her unmistakably "flawed" face. Terra secretly plans to leave her stifling small town in... (more)

Once Upon a Time

Wild Orchid

A Retelling of The Ballad of Mulan

by Cameron Dokey

"Once upon a Time" Is Timeless Wielding a sword as deftly as an embroidery needle, Mulan is unlike any other girl in China. When the emperor summons a great army, each family must send a male to fight. Tomboyish Mulan is determined to spare her aging father and bring her family honor, so she disguises herself and answers the call. But Mulan never expects to find a friend, let alone a soul mate, in the commander... (more)

From Heaven Lake : Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet (Vintage Departures)

From Heaven Lake : Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet (Vintage Departures)

by Vikram Seth

About the author's travels from Tibet to New Delhi, with nomadic Muslims, Chinese officials, Buddhists and others.

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Browse Subjects: china

Top Books

by Marjorie Flack, Kurt Wiese

by Da Chen

by Peter Hessler

by Lisa See

by Gloria Whelan

by Carole Wilkinson

by Hua Yu

by Ha Jin

by Rachel DeWoskin

by Anchee Min

by Xiaolong Qiu

A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time

by Simon Winchester

by Gail Tsukiyama

by Ha Jin

by John Pomfret

by Alison Goodman

by Jen Lin-Liu

by Justina Chen Headley

A Retelling of The Ballad of Mulan

by Cameron Dokey

by Vikram Seth