What should I read?

[Pravit]

I want to buy up a bunch of Chinese books to read when I'm not in China, but it's hard for me to figure out what's worth reading. My reading skills are decent although I'd prefer not to read a book with a dozen chengyu on every line - I like the books written in less "bookish" language. Specifically, I'm looking for these types of books, if anyone has any suggestions:

History - I want a book that goes over Chinese history from prehistory to the Qing dynasty, but with pictures and maps (especially maps!). I've been to 西安图书大厦 recently and was unable to find any book like this. All of the comprehensive history books just seemed like college textbooks and didn't have any pictures in them. I do have a 高中 textbook that covers the same material, with pictures, but the book is very thin and doesn't go into much detail. As an example of what type of book I'd like, I saw an excellent baihua version of 史记 with lots of detailed maps, pictures of historical figures, and color photos of archaelogical findings. I also like the "tidbits from history" type books, but preferably with less prerequisite knowledge.

If there isn't any book like this with pictures, what's a good introductory Chinese history book (written in Chinese)?

Novels - the selection of novels not written by foreign authors seems very small. I'm open to pretty much anything here if you think it's worth a read. Modern authors, preferably - I don't really feel up to reading even the baihua version of 红楼梦 just yet. A collection of short stories by modern authors would be very, very nice.

Essays - seem like quite popular reading material. Any suggestions?

Travel - the Chinese independent travel books, at first glance, seem surprisingly good, and more helpful than Lonely Planet in many aspects - for instance, mentioning how to get to local destinations by bus. Unfortunately, almost all of them lack decent city maps. Anyone know of a decent one with local maps?

Translated books - it seems like half the books are translated from foreign languages into Chinese. Many seem very tempting, but I worry that from a learning perspective there's no use in reading translated things, and that I should stick to things by Chinese authors. What do you think?

Also, about how much does it cost to send packages to the US? I want more books than I'm willing to carry for my later travels in China.

Thanks for your help!

[gato]

I've searched for the same things. Here are some good ones I have found.

History:

http://www.joyo.com/detail/product.asp?prodid=bkbk202120&ref=SR&uid=168-7293128-6913032

剑桥插图中国史(黑白版)

作者：（美）伊佩霞 译者：赵世瑜/赵世玲/张宏艳

English original: Cambrige Illustrated History of China by Patricia Ebrey

http://www.joyo.com/detail/product.asp?prodid=bkbk610686&ref=SR&uid=168-7293128-6913032

知道点中国历史

作者：邱立坤

Novels/Short Stories:

http://www.joyo.com/search/search.asp?searchType=&searchWord=%E9%9B%B7%E8%BE%BE+%E5%B0%8F%E8%AF%B4&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&searchKind=keyword&bestSaleNum=3&uid=168-7293128-6913032&pageletid=headsearch

Collections of short stories and medium-length novels by the critic 雷达

http://www.joyo.com/detail/product.asp?prodid=zjbk198441&ref=SR&uid=168-7293128-6913032

Selection of stories published since the 1980s in the magazine "Beijing Literature"

现实一种(上下中篇小说卷)/北京文学55年典藏

作者：刘恒、章德宁

Essays:

http://www.joyo.com/search/search.asp?searchType=&searchWord=%E7%B2%BE%E7%B2%B9+%E6%95%A3%E6%96%87+&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&searchKind=keyword&bestSaleNum=3&uid=168-7293128-6913032&pageletid=headsearch

中华散文精粹:

http://www.joyo.com/detail/product.asp?prodid=zjbk467387&ref=SR&uid=168-7293128-6913032

影响当代中国人的名家美文欣赏

http://www.joyo.com/detail/product.asp?prodid=bkbk504138&ref=SR&uid=168-7293128-6913032

影响了我的三十二篇美文

作者：贾平凹选编

[gato]

Oh, you can order online on joyo or dangdang (they take foreign credit cards) and have them ship to your US address. The shipping charge probably will be close to the price of the books, about US$3-4 per book. Not too bad, in my opinion.

[againstwind]

but I worry that from a learning perspective there's no use in reading translated things

IMO, should you contradistinguish two versions, original and translated, it will benefit learning both mother language and target language. I tried this way and it was of use. And what we need concern is to find familiar reading stuff (you'd better have read the original version before) and a fine translation. So how to judge it's fine or not? For foreigners, it basically depends on publishing companies, I think. Commercial Press, Shanghai Translation Publishing House and SDX Joint Publishing Company are probably the best three.

[muyongshi]

Another thing to consider is perspective on the history...

I do not mean to be too derogative but the history I read of China by Chinese tends to be a bit ummm biased (I know all History is biased but hear me out) and the focus is different. Chinese tend to regard the people and names as important while we tend to focus more on the event. So in that sense I wouldn't mind have the translated one for a "better" perspective and not having to know a billion peoples names.

I'm some what of a history buff (meaning I like it not that I know everything) and Chinese history is one I am always trying to go deeper in but too often it's about this person or that person and to me I can't remember that stuff. Tell me the stories and why history progressed the way it did and I will be a happy camper.

[Pravit]

Thanks for the suggestions gato! I remember seeing 知道点中国历史 last time at the bookstore. I'll look for the others next time I'm at the bookstore if I can ever figure out how the pinyin input works on their 80's era computers...

IMO, should you contradistinguish two versions, original and translated, it will benefit learning both mother language and target language.

Emm, what do you mean by "contradistinguish"?

I'm not terribly interested in reading things in Chinese I've already read in English. But I did notice a lot of interesting books translated from foreign languages, like a book on Tibetan culture written by a Frenchman, a book on Koreans written by a Korean, etc.

Chinese tend to regard the people and names as important while we tend to focus more on the event.

The comprehensive history books I noticed seemed quite decent w/ regards to their focus on events, it just seemed like a bit dense reading material, esp. without any pictures! There did seem to be many books about famous historical figures, though.

Anyone ever read 杨绛's "我们仨“? One of my Chinese teachers recommended it.

[againstwind]

Emm, what do you mean by "contradistinguish"?

Sorry for my term. I meant to do a bilingual contrasting reading.

我们仨 is worth reading. Sincere and simple memoirists of a scholar on family.

[gougou]

On a related note, I seem to remember somebody recommending several books about cultural literacy, but can't find the thread for the life of me. Does anybody remember the thread I am talking about, or have recommendations for such books?

[gato]

I think you are talking about this book below written for Chinese learners mentioned by wushijiao. I thought about getting it, but decided to get books written for a Chinese audience, instead, as they probably pack in more material.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/showthread.php?p=102182#post102182

中国文化中的典型人物与事件　陈贤纯　-编者，北京语言大学出版社。

[gougou]

That's precisely the one I meant. I guess it will be a good start! Which were the books you decided to get instead?

[gato]

I got 《知道点中国历史》 and 《知道点中国名人》 I mentioned above. There are also others in 知道点 series about Chinese literature and philosophy.

[Pravit]

I just picked up 易中天's 《闲话中国人》 and am enjoying it, although I haven't gotten very far into it yet. There was another post on here a while back mentioning that it was very difficult, but I think it's written in pretty accessible language.

I also think 《读者》 is nice light reading material - we just picked up a bunch of old issues at the bookshop with the 5RMB we won from fapiao...

[againstwind]

I also think 《读者》 is nice light reading material

It is. My high school Chinese teacher used to recommend it. Lots of essays on it are considered as models for Chinese middle school students. Possibly the same for Chinese learners.

we just picked up a bunch of old issues at the bookshop with the 5RMB we won from fapiao

运气真不错，拣了两个便宜！

[lpascoe]

I'm not in a position to recommend books to anyone, as I'm a complete 38 about anything I read or watch in Chinese. The book I'm reading at the moment is 那小子真帥 by Guiyeoni, translated from Korean. What can I say? It's funny!

[wushijiao]

Hey Pravit, you might want to try 正说清朝十二帝, which I mentioned in the post below. It obviously focuses on the Qing, but it is fairly easy to read, and I saw that they have a new version of the book with high quality color photos of all the cool Qing court stuff. It is always easier to read about someone of something if you can see a pretty picture right next to it (especially when there are tons of weird/rare characters in proper nouns). Although, muyongshi's critique of some of the trends in Chinese history books meant for a popular audience (heavy on stories/ light on analysis of systems/ very Sino-centric) holds for that book.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/510-phoenix-tv7&highlight=%E6%AD%A3%E8%AF%B4%E6%B8%85%E6%9C%9D%E5%8D%81%E4%BA%8C%E5%B8%9D

If you are in Shanghai, you can go to the "History Book Store", which is right across from the Foreign Language Bookstore. They have an amazing range of books that are generally very academic, specialized, and analytical, which means that they aren't easy, but it also means they have more freedom to discuss sensitive isssues.

I saw that they have some of John King Fairbank's books now published here on the Mainland, including one general, comprehensive history of all of China. For one point of view, there is no reason to read anything in translation because you might as well read it in English, and you don't get the Chinese take on things. From another point of view, Fairbank was an amazing historian, who seems to be held in fairly high regard. It's also nice to know all the characters of all the names.

For novels, you might want to look at the "Book of the Month" club selections, or some of the ideas that people posted in the "Novels for laowais" post (from three years ago):

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/1626-chinese-novels-for-laowais&highlight=novels+laowais

[muyongshi]

I do not recommend 青年文摘. I find it only full of junk and sap.

[againstwind]

Probably you can also find translation of Jonathan Spence's (史景迁) works on Chinese history in some large bookstores. I think his books are very readable.

His books on Joyo:http://www.joyo.com/search/search.asp?searchword=%CA%B7%BE%B0%C7%A8+&uid=168-8555949-6905825

[39degN]

yeah, i agree with that the www.joyo.com is a good choice, check out their top 20s you'll find the best sellers, and then you can get the books majority chinese read. what a good idea.

[xiaocai]

Very curiously I clicked on the top 20 botton on Joyo, and the first name poped out on my screen was "Don't laugh! I'm an English book"...

[Pravit]

Follow up post on some of the books I bought - hopefully it can be useful to someone else.

History:

I thought Beijing University Press 《中国古代简史》 was quite easy to read and written in an academic manner. The only problem is that there are no maps or pictures, so if you're not familiar with history it can be a bit confusing where exactly each of the three kingdoms were and so on. There's also 黄仁宇(known as Ray Huang in the west)'s 《中国大历史》("China: A Macro-History") which I thought was a nice overview of Chinese history(with maps!) although the language was a bit difficult. BJUP also has a thicker 《古代史》but I figured the 简史 was enough for me. The 《知道点中国历史》is quite a decent book, but I would stay away from 《这样读史更有趣》- the language is a bit too difficult.

I bought one of the large 《中国通史》books with lots of pictures, but found it read more like a storybook of chronologically-ordered famous events and people than an actual history book. Although it's intended for kids, there are chengyus thrown in almost every sentence, and it's written in a bit "condensed" manner, so I thought it was kind of difficult to read.

For something shorter and easy to read, the 高中 textbook of 古代历史(the yellow and purple one with a terracotta warrior on front) gives you a decent basic knowledge of Chinese history and has lots of maps and some black and white pictures.

Literature:

Based on other threads and recommendations, I picked up 余华's《活着》, 巴金's《家》, and 钱钟书's《围城》. I also picked up 王小波's 《黄金时代》, since it seemed his works were very popular and the language not too difficult. For collections of short stories, it seemed all of the short story collections were only from 2004 onwards. I picked up one of the many collections of 2006 short stories,《中国小说短篇经典》and a collection of 北京文学 stories from 2005-2006 《北京文学好看小说精选》. The only collections I could find from a longer timeframe were 《百年中国小说精华》and a collection of modern Chinese literature by Beijing University Press which also had poems and plays.

Given that I'm still quite a slow reader in Chinese, you'd think this would be enough to last me for a long time, but I couldn't help but pick up 金庸's classic wuxia novel 《射雕英雄传》and 雷达's 《穆斯林的葬礼》, which seems interesting, although I probably won't finish it anytime soon.

I'm really loath to read any of the Four Great Books for now (although the kiddie versions look fun to read), but I did pick up one of the many books of 300 Tang poems, with pinyin and modern Chinese annotation and translation.

General interest:

I like 易中天's 《闲话中国人》; I also picked up his 《读城记》 which describes various Chinese cities. For fun, I couldn't resist picking up 《大国崛起》, discussing the rise of several "great nations" since the 15th century, and 《中国人性格地图》,a book describing the supposed personality characteristics of each province's people.

I'm not looking forward to paying the shipping to send all those books home, though I suppose it'll be enough to keep me entertained for a whole year away from China.

Also, I found out recently you can subscribe to 读者 in the US , though they charge $2.50 per issue(including shipping). Check the website http://www.readerstimes.com/Content/order_main.aspx