RECOMMENDED BOOKS ON CHINA

Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer & travel writer specializing in The People’s Republic of China.  For this book, Tom backpacked more than 35,000 miles over a period of two years.

Despite increased tourism and rampant foreign investment, the cultural distance between China and the West remains as vast as the oceans that separate them. The Middle Kingdom is still relatively unknown by Westerners. 

China is in fact made up of 33 distinct regions populated by 56 ethnic groups–and photojournalist Tom Carter has visited them all. This little book is a visual tribute to

The People’s Republic of China, with an ardent emphasis on the People.

Listen to an interview with the author, Tom Carter, attBlog Talk Radio

Watch the promotional video at 'YouTube' for China: Portrait of a People

Empress Orchid by Anchee Min

From Booklist
In her second powerful and brilliantly conceived fictionalized portrait of a strong and controversial woman intrinsic to Chinese culture, Min continues to fulfill her mission to tell the truth about her homeland, particularly China's long tradition of demonizing women. In Becoming Madame Mao (2000), Min portrays a vilified twentieth-century figure. Here she steps back to the nineteenth century to illuminate the extraordinary life of the Last Empress of China, Tzu Hsi, or Orchid. The official version castigates the empress as a conniving concubine responsible for the collapse of the Ch'ing Dynasty as China came under assault by European powers, but Min considers her a shrewd and courageous survivor, political tactician, and leader worthy of deep respect. Writing with vigor, clarity, and lavish detail, Min tells Orchid's consuming story through the empress' sharp eyes as she rose, through great sacrifice, from abject poverty to the lonely position of fourth concubine to become the besieged emperor's most trusted advisor and mother of his only son and heir. Steeped in the Forbidden City's elaborate mythology, etiquette, and ritual, Min evokes a doomed realm so opulent, complex, and bizarre that it seems as fantastic as an alternative world in science fiction, but Orchid is 100 percent human, and her earthy story is true and significant. This bewitching novel ends with the empress' struggle to secure power after the emperor's death; Min plans to dramatize Orchid's ensuing 46-year rule in the second installment of her insightful, magnetic, and quietly revolutionary resurrection of a remarkable woman. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover Hardcover edition.

The Last Empress by Anchee Min

From Booklist
Min completes her stupendous two-volume historical novel about China's Empress Tzu Hsi, or Orchid, an indomitable and forward-thinking leader who was demonized, conspired against, feared, and worshipped. In Empress Orchid (2004), Min has concubine Orchid tell the story of her unlikely rise to power as she rules on her infant son's behalf after the emperor's death in 1862. As the second novel begins, the debauched heir ascends to the throne only to die, wretchedly, at 19. Her valiant attempt to bring her deranged sister's son to the throne also fails, forcing Orchid to remain at the helm of a starving and fractious nation under siege by Japan, Russia, France, and England. The Forbidden City is a snake pit, and viciously sexist traditions and wily enemies impede Orchid at every turn. Yet she rules courageously and strategically for nearly 50 years as territory is lost to foreigners, insurgencies rise, assassins lurk, and she is forced to deny her love for the heroic general Yung Lu. Min distills and transcends a vast amount of long hidden, highly significant historical fact to create a brilliantly imagined and pellucid novel possessing all the drama and angst of a Greek tragedy in its portrayal of an unjustly maligned, truly extraordinary woman leader. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

From Booklist
Mystery writer Lisa See, author of The Interior (1999) and Dragon Bones (2003), takes readers to nineteenth-century China to explore a complex friendship between two women. Lily is the daughter of a farmer in Puwei Village, and Snow Flower is the daughter of a respectable family from Tongkou, and though the two girls have very different backgrounds, Madame Wang pairs the two as laotong, or "old sames," a bond that will last them a lifetime. The two begin to exchange messages in nu shu, a secret language known only to women. Their friendship is cemented during their youth and then put to the test when the girls prepare for marriage and Lily discovers a startling secret about Snow Flower's family. As Lily solidifies her place in her new family, Snow Flower suffers in her marriage, and the two grow apart as Lily's pride in her position swells. See's writing is intricate and graceful, and her attention to detail never wavers, making for a lush, involving reading experience. This beautiful tale should have wide appeal. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (both a novel and a movie)

 Amazon.com

From Booklist
Stories set in China during the Cultural Revolution usually follow a trail of human struggle and tragedy, but this little gem of a book spins magic thread out of broken dreams. Already a best-seller in France and slated for release in 19 countries, this novel is the story of two whimsical young men ordered to the countryside for reeducation as a result of their parents' political designation as "class enemies." Assigned the revolting task of carrying buckets of excrement up a hillside for the peasant farmers, the boys design a venue of storytelling sessions and quickly earn the headman's leniency in return. When they meet the local tailor's beautiful daughter, the luminescent Little Seamstress, and discover a wealth of forbidden Western books, life on the hillside takes a brighter turn. His book is truly enchanting, written with the rhythm of a fable. Dai Sijie is himself a survivor of that fateful time in China's history, yet he incorporates delightful humor into sketching his innovative cast of characters. Elsa Gaztambide
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China by Sterling Seagrave

Booknews

A complete reappraisal of the Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi (1835-1908), exposing earlier biographer Sir Edmund Backhouse's writings about her as a hoax and forgery, and showing that far from being all-powerful, Tzu Hsi was actually a hostage of vengeful Manchu princes who were using her in a power struggle against both Chinese reformers and foreign interference. With five maps and 16 pages of illustrations. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

God's Chinese Son, The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan by Jonathan D. Spence

 Amazon.com

Here is a great historian's powerful account of the largest uprising in human history. At the center of this history of China's Taiping Rebellion (1845-1864) stands Hong Xiuquan, a failed student of Confucian doctrine who ascends to heaven in a dream, meets his heavenly family--God, Mary, and his older brother, Jesus--and returns to earth charged to eradicate the "demon-devils," the alien Manchu rulers of China. By the time his terrible reign comes to and end, twenty million Chinese lie dead.