Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper (Vintage)

Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper (Vintage)

by Nicholson Baker

The ostensible purpose of a library is to preserve the printed word. But for fifty years our country’s libraries–including the Library of Congress–have been doing just the opposite, destroying hundreds of thousands of historic newspapers and replacing them with microfilm copies that are difficult to read, lack all the color and quality of the original paper and illustrations, and deteriorate with age. With... (more)

Shanghai Baby: A Novel

by Wei Hui

Coco is a Shanghai cafe waitress, full of enthusiasm for life. She falls in love with a young man, Tian Tian, for whom she feels tenderness and love but who is reclusive and impotent. Despite her parents' objections, she moves in with him. But then she meets Mark, a dashing businessman.

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)

My Nine Lives: Chapters of a Possible Past

My Nine Lives: Chapters of a Possible Past

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

In this, her first novel in more than nine years, in a career studded with distinctive and unique accomplishments, award-winning Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has written her most unusual book. My Nine Lives, "Chapters of a Possible Past," as the subtitle declares, is comprised of nine vignettes that lead from London to Delhi, from Hollywood to New York—all linked to portray a rich life, filled with spiritual searching. ... (more)

Journey Through Britain: Landscape, People and Books

Journey Through Britain: Landscape, People and Books

by David St. John Thomas

In his thinking traveler's tour, David St John Thomas journeys by rail and Little Car around Britian, exploring the diverse character of Britian today. St John gives a new perspective on Britian through the people and places he visits on his journey.

Long MarchEd Jocelyn

Long March

by Ed Jocelyn

This is a living history of the legendary journey that made Mao's China. In October 1934, the First Front Army of the Chinese Communist Party fled annihilation by Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists. Some 80,000 men, women and children left their homes to walk with Mao into the unknown. One year, 4,000 miles and countless battles later, fewer than 4,000 were left. From these survivors would grow the army that conquered... (more)

Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man

Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man

by Jonathan D. Spence

A renowned historian captures a critical moment in Chinese history Zhang Dai is recognized as one of the finest historians and essayists of China’s Ming dynasty. When he was born into a wealthy family in 1597, the Ming dynasty had been in place for 229 years. Zhang’s early life was marked by the expansive sense of progress that permeated Ming culture: the flourishing of reformist schools of Buddhism;... (more)

Experiences of China

by Percy Cradock

Since its first publication in 1994, Experiences of China has established itself as a classic firsthand account of China's development, and Sino-British relations, since the 1960s. In this expanded edition, the author updates the story to cover the last five years, including the end of British rule in Hong Kong, the continuing rise of China, and the problems raised by the economic crisis in East Asia. He also... (more)

My Life with Stephen

by Jane Hawking

Professor Stephen Hawking is one of the most famous and remarkable scientists of our age and author of the scientific bestseller A Brief History of Time, which sold more than 25 million. In this compelling memoir, his first wife, Jane Hawking, relates the inside story of their extraordinary marriage. As Stephen’s academic renown soared, his body was collapsing under the assaults of motor neurone disease. Jane’s... (more)

Extremes along the Silk Road: Adventures off the World's Oldest Superhighway

Extremes along the Silk Road: Adventures off the World's Oldest Superhighway

by Nick Middleton

Nick Middleton—geographer, travel writer, and Oxford don—pits himself against the punishing extremes of the fabled route that links East and West. The Silk Road cuts through one of the most extraordinary landscapes on the planet. A vast region separating China from the Mediterranean, it is one of the most inhospitable places on earth—a forbidding terrain of hostile deserts, treacherous mountain ranges, howling... (more)

Many Paths: Searching for old Tibet in new China

Many Paths: Searching for old Tibet in new China

by Mark J. Stevenson

Australian anthropologist, Dr Mark Stevenson, shares his intimate knowledge and personal, spiritual journeys during his time living in a traditional Tibetan valley. He reflects on the changes taking place in the region of Amdo, its characters and unique culture, and how Tibetan life in China is being shaped anew.

The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class

The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class

by Michael Collins

Once they were portrayed as the salt of the earth. Nowadays, they expose their lives in TV documentaries, they love Gucci and hate the Euro—the broadsheets cast them as xenophobes and exhibitionists and mock their tastes and attitudes. Who are the white working class and what have they done to deserve this portrayal? In this controversial book, South East-London born Michael Collins defends the white working class... (more)

Green Dragon, Sombre Warrior: Travels to China's Extremes

Green Dragon, Sombre Warrior: Travels to China's Extremes

by Liam D'Arcy Brown

The ancient Chinese divided the zodiac into four quadrants, each with its own ruler - the Green Dragon of the East, the Scarlet Phoenix of the South, the White Tiger of the West and the Sombre Warrior of the North. They believed that these governed human affairs and that together they demonstrated a harmony in divergence. Taking the same frame of reference, Liam d'Arcy Brown undertook a 10,000-mile journey across... (more)

Sounds & Sins of Singlish & Other NonsenseRex Shelley

Sounds & Sins of Singlish & Other Nonsense

by Rex Shelley

Kathmandu Valley (Odyssey Guides)

by John Sanday

The Watseka wonder;: A narrative of startling phenomena occurring in the case of Mary Lurancy Vennum,

The Watseka wonder;: A narrative of startling phenomena occurring in the case of Mary Lurancy Vennum,

by Gordon Thomas

Is it Just Me or is Everything Shit?

The Encyclopedia of Modern Life

by Alan McArthur, Steve Lowe

If you hate: loft living; bar-clubs; Tony Blair; chick lit; global warming sceptics; Keane; loyalty cards; IKEA; Kabbalah; bling and Richard Curtis...then you need IS IT JUST ME OR IS EVERYTHING SHIT? - an encylopedic attack on modern culture and the standard reference work for everyone who believes everything is shit. Which it is. This book is for the large percentage of the population interested in saying NO to... (more)

Wessex tales : that is to say, The three strangers, A tradition of eighteen hundred and four, The melancholy hussar, The withered arm, Fellow-townsmen, Interlopers at the Knap, The distracted preacher

Wessex tales : that is to say, The three strangers, A tradition of eighteen hundred and four, The melancholy hussar, The withered arm, Fellow-townsmen, Interlopers at the Knap, The distracted preacher

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