A China Reading List

I find that reading about my destination is one of the best ways to get psyched for an upcoming trip. Once I’m on the road, the right reading material helps give me perspective on the sometimes overwhelming experience of traveling. These are just a few of the innumerable books out there about Chinese history and culture, but any of them would be a good starting point for China-bound travelers. (Or armchair travelers with an interest in China, of course.)

Your most important China-related book purchase will probably be your guidebook(s), and I’ve reviewed a few of them here as well.

Nonfiction | Fiction | Guidebooks

Nonfiction

Current Events

  • Out of Mao’s Shadow, Philip Pan: Former Washington Post correspondent Philip Pan writes about modern Chinese politics, with a focus on individuals battling the government on a variety of fronts. Pan doesn’t pull any punches, but the book is overall a fair look at the problems facing China’s political system — and the danger facing those who challenge the CCP. Read my full review.
  • China Road, Rob Gifford: Gifford was NPR’s Beijing correspondent from 1999 to 2005, but this book focuses on two long journeys along Route 312, which runs from Shanghai to Kazakhstan. As he hitchhikes and rides buses westward, he sees evidence of the many changes wrought by the past 30 years of “reform and opening up.” The book is an excellent primer on the major issues facing China today, including internal migration, the growing gap between rich and poor, and AIDS.
  • Oracle Bones, Peter Hessler: After two years in the Peace Corps, Peter Hessler stayed in China after the Peace Corps to try to break into journalism. He succeeded, eventually becoming the New Yorker’s China correspondent, and writing two more books about the country. Oracle Bones, his second book, weaves tales of historical artifacts, such as the eponymous oracle bones, with stories of the country’s sometimes-uncomfortable transition to modernity.
  • The Last Days of Old Beijing, Michael Meyer: Meyer’s book, published in 2008, documents the urban development of Beijing in 2008, with a particular focus on the recent demolition of many traditional hutong neighborhoods. Meyer witnessed this demolition while he was renting rooms in one of these courtyard homes just a couple of years ago. It depicts China’s complicated relationship with its past, and how that relationship is shaping its future. Especially recommend for those visiting Beijing.

History

  • The Search for Modern China, Jonathan Spence: Spence’s tome — the textbook for his course at Yale — begins with the Ming dynasty and goes almost up to the present day. It is a well-written and comprehensive account of the past 400 years in China, but some of his shorter works might be of greater interest to the casual reader.
  • Wild Swans, Jung Chang: This moving memoir describes three generations of women: Chang, her mother, and her grandmother. Chang’s family suffered greatly during the Cultural Revolution, and her memoir sheds light on the experiences of relatively ordinary people during that troubled period.
  • Red-Color News Soldier, Li Zhensheng: This is not a book to pack in your suitcase, but it is one of the most absorbing and moving books about China that I have read in the past year. Li was a news photographer in northeast China during the Cultural Revolution. As a part of his job, he attended and photographed “struggle sessions” and other Cultural Revolution political events. But he was taking photos for himself as well as for the newspaper. He preserved hundreds of negatives and hid them for decades before they were published in this book. The result is astonishing.

Memoirs: Living in China

  • River Town
    , Peter Hessler:     Hessler was a Peace Corps volunteer in Sichuan Province in the 1990s. He writes about the joys and difficulties of immersion in a different culture, and of studying Chinese. Future ESL teachers take note: Some people say this book “ruins the surprises” of life in China if you read it before you leave.
  • Chinese Lessons, John Pomfret: Pomfret studied in China in the first wave of foreign students let in after the “reform and opening up.” The book merges his memories of his student days with reporting on what happened to his classmates before and after they were in university together.
  • Iron and Silk
    , Mark Salzman    : Salzman taught in Changsha, China — my home base in China — in the 1980s. Iron and Silk describes his experiences teaching English and studying Chinese martial arts.
  • Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, Fuschia Dunlop: Dunlop has written cookbooks on Sichuan and Hunan cuisine and covers Chinese food for, among others, Gourmet magazine. In this memoir, she documents the growth of her interest in China, its language and its food. Foodies, take notice.

Memoirs: Traveling to China

  • Shadow of the Silk Road, Colin Thubron: Thematically linked to both China Road and Riding the Iron Rooster, this falls into the genre we might call “traveling very far and then writing a book about it.” Thubron traveled along the Silk Road through Western China and into Central Asia. I’ll cop to finding this somewhat slow, but the subject matter — the mingling of cultures that occurred when the Silk Road was buzzing with activity, and the lingering effects of that cultural exchange — is interesting. Thubron meets many locals in his travels, and deftly weaves his historical themes into their stories.
  • Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China, Paul Theroux: Theroux spent a year riding the rails across China in the 1980s, when foreigners traveling independently in China were extremely rare. I don’t find Theroux a very sympathetic narrator, and his focus on dirt, grime and bad manners is somewhat one-sided. But he gives us a snapshot of a China that is just beginning to open its doors to the world.
  • Lost on Planet China, J. Maarten Troost: Troost’s irritating memoir is a greatest-hits list of the problems and quirks of modern China. The redeeming feature is the humor, which is sharp and even laugh-out-loud-funny in places. Visit the blog for my full review.
  • Cook’s Tour: A Haphazard Journey from Guangzhou to Dublin and Back Again, Paul Cullen>: This book may account for as much as 90 percent of my decision to move to China for two years. Now out of print, I read it for the first time when I was 9 or 10. Cullen, an Australian chef, and his wife took their daughters out of school for six months in the early 1990s, and the family embarked on an overland journey from Hong Kong to Ireland and back. More than half of the memoir describes their time in China — especially the food they ate there. If you can get your hands on a copy, it is fascinating (and appetite-inducing) road map to Chinese cuisine.

Other nonfiction

  • The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman: Not about China per se, this book did the most to prepare me for dealing with the cultural shock of moving to China. Fadiman describes a Hmong family living in California and their turbulent relationship with the American medical system. (Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Hunan provinces all have substantial Hmong populations, who are also sometimes referred to as Miao.)

Fiction

This list is abysmally short, especially since I read much, much more fiction than nonfiction. Recommendations would be welcomed.

  • Mr. Muo’s Travelling Couch, Dai Sijie: Mr. Muo’s quixotic search to win his old love’s freedom is an amusing, if not especially memorable, piece of light reading. Freud skeptics may delight in the novel’s skewering of psychoanalysis, the hero’s specialty.
  • Beijing Coma, Ma Jian: A victim of the 1989 Tiananmen Square lies trapped in a coma, able to hear what is going on around him but unable to respond. Ma Jian weaves Dai Wei’s memories of the Tiananmen protests with his observations — from his sickbed — of China in the 1990s. It’s an insightful fictional exploration of a fascinating period of China’s recent development. Read my full review.

Guidebooks

  • Lonely Planet China Guide: This is the go-to choice for a guidebook covering all of China. It is generally quite reliable on logistical matters, which makes it the best choice for day-to-day use while you are traveling. I wouldn’t recommend hewing too closely to their restaurant recommendations, though — you’re better off stumbling into a place you find on your own. The current 11th edition, from May 2009, has a much less negative tone about China and the Chinese — a big improvement over its predecessor.
  • Blue Guide China: This is a good antidote to Lonely Planet’s negativity. The author, Frances Wood, is a very experienced traveler to China, and it shows in her detailed historical and cultural notes. The guide is in its second edition, published in 2001. You will definitely need a separate resource for maps, hotels, restaurants and transportation information. But the Blue Guide is worth keeping in your backpack to illuminate your travels, especially since many Chinese museums will have little in the way of English captions.
  • China Eyewitness Guide: I’ll admit to an inordinate fondness for the Eyewitness series of travel guides. Their copious (color!) photos and cut-away drawings of major sites always inspire my wanderlust. That said, they are a bit lacking in practical information, especially for those of us with less-than-stratospheric budgets. Use it to plan your itinerary, but leave it at home.

If you buy something through one of the Amazon links on this page, I will receive a small commission through the Amazon Associates Program.