Books about China
Without fully intending, I’ve ended up reading quite a bit about China. Beside the policy and economic development angles, which I like, China seems to attract some of the best narrative nonfiction writers.
A History of Future Cities by Daniel Brook
Pitched as a conceptual history of Mumbai, St. Petersburg, Shanghai, and Dubai, which holds together alright. Definitely made me wish I’d been around for nineteenth-century Shanghai.
The Fat Years by Koonchung Chan
The novel opens with all of China waking up, ostensibly after a night’s sleep, to a month that’s gone missing from public record and private consciousness. It seems something terrible happened, but everyone’s happy, and no one really dives into the past. (This book was — surprise! — banned in China.)
Factory Girls by Leslie Chang
Creative nonfiction about the migration of young, unmarried Chinese women to east-coast factories. Chang uses two women’s stories to anchor a larger narrative about “the largest migration in human history.” (130mm people!)
Shenzhen by Guy Delise
Guy Delise’s graphic novels are lovely, and in this one, he makes the most of a city that nearly everyone seems to hate.
The Emperor Far Away by David Eimer
I so wanted to like this book, about borderland China, but didn’t; it wasn’t very insightful, and it wasn’t particularly well-written beside.
Dreaming in Chinese by Deborah Fallows
A short book on the Chinese language and one linguist’s efforts to learn it. This book doesn’t try to be anything but fun facts and small anecdotes, which is probably why I enjoyed it so much.
China Airborne James Fallows
Ostensibly about China’s burgeoning aviation industry but actually about China’s modernization more generally. The leaps between airplanes and national ambition feel only a bit forced, and it’s probably worth reading for the fun plane facts alone.
The Bo Xilai Scandal by the Financial Times staff
A collection of the FT’s reporting on Bo Xilai’s downfall, up to his wife’s trial. It’s still interesting for all the gossipy intrigue — European villas! Ivy League educations! Excess excess excess!
Tibet, Tibet by Patrick French
Alright for a view on the Western, free-Tibet lobby, though I’d recommend reading Peter Hessler’s 1999 essay on Tibet instead.
Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World by Allison Graham, Robert D. Blankwill, and Ali Wyne
A collection of interview and public-speaking excerpts from Lee Kuan Yew. Worth it if most of your China news comes from American or European sources (as mine does.)
Country Driving by Peter Hessler
Hessler on cars and driving in China, sortof, but mostly on mobility in China in the early 2000s on many fronts: economic, social, cultural. Who would’ve thought a reasonable way to think about the country’s imperial past was to go to driving school?
Oracle Bones by Peter Hessler
Not Hessler’s best, but his not-best is better than most everyone else’s best. Alternate title: “dispatches from a young journalist in China in the early-to-mid 2000s.”
River Town by Peter Hessler
One of my favorite books. This is the two-years-in-the-peace-corps bildungsroman that everyone tries to write and no one pulls off. Hessler’s versions is empathetic toward the people around him than most.
Strange Stones by Peter Hessler
Peter Hessler’s latest essay collection, mostly from his New Yorker work. Buying this is easier than getting through the New Yorker paywall if you’re not a subscriber.
Six Chapters from my Life Downunder by Yang Jiang
A memory of the two years a professor and her husband spent “downunder,” a rural nowhere, during China’s Cultural Revolution. I knew the stats and figures of the Cultural Revolution, but this is its human side. Not published in mainland China.
Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish
Kinda hard to get into, but once I was in, I was hooked. It’s the story of a young Chinese (Uyghur) illegal immigrant and a kid back from two tours in Iraq. They’re running around Queens, and everything is the saddest. (Seriously: don’t read this if you’re not in the mood for Everything Being the Worst.)
The Party by Richard McGregor
An FT journalist on the Chinese Communist Party circa 2009–2010. Pretty dense, but if you can wade through it, it’s a good prelude to Bo Xilai’s world.
Age of Ambition by Evan Osnos
Expanded versions of writing Osnos has done for the New Yorker. I especially like it as a complement to Peter Hessler’s stuff; to generalize too broadly, Hessler profiles China’s everyman, and Osnos its shiny movers-and-shakers.
The Street of Eternal Happiness by Rob Schmitz
Shanghai stories from a not-New Yorker writer. It was .. okay. If you haven’t read Peter Hessler or Evan Osnos, read them instead.
How Asia Works by Joe Studwell
Basic premise: North East Asia developed because of 1) land-reform policies; 2) industrialization policies that supported infant industries and required them to compete globally; and 3) finance policies that supported all this. South East Asian countries messed up one, two, or all three of these things and were “left behind.” I’m not sure the argument holds up globally (the East African story, as I know it at least, is pretty different .. ) but I did learn quite a bit from this book.
The Cowshed by Ji Xianlin
Another memoir of the Cultural Revolution, this one written by a Peking professor under house arrest. Still published in mainland China.
The Corpse Walker by Liao Yiwu
Profiles of people who are not often profiled in China or elsewhere: a leper, a twice-imprisoned composer, a professional funeral wailer, a human trafficker, a grave robber. The profiles are structured as interviews, so Yiwu becomes the book’s central character. He comes off as empathetic, curious, and optimistic.
Tide Players by Jianying Zha
Profiles of people who are more often profiled: real-estate moguls, electronics czar, a publishing tycoon, a rock star professor. A good counterbalance to The Corpse Walker.
