#hardcover #china #shanghai #debut #brilliant #family #generational #westtoeast

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Minnesota

Named one of "60 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018"by Huffington Post Set in modern Shanghai, a debut by a Chinese-American writer about a prodigal son whose unexpected return forces his newly wealthy family to confront painful secrets and unfulfilled promises. After years of chasing the American dream, the Zhen family has moved back to China. Settling into a luxurious serviced apartment in Shanghai, Wei, Lina and their daughter, Karen, join an elite community of Chinese-born, Western-educated professionals who have returned to a radically transformed city. One morning, in the eighth tower of Lanson Suites, Lina discovers that a childhood keepsake, an ivory bracelet, has gone missing. The incident contributes to a wave of unease that has begun to settle throughout the Zhen household. Wei, a marketing strategist, bows under the guilt of not having engaged in nobler work. Meanwhile, Lina, lonely in her new life of leisure, assumes the modern moniker tai tai-a housewife who does no housework at all. She spends her days haunted by the circumstances surrounding her arranged marriage to Wei and her lingering feelings for his brother, Qiang. Lina and Wei take pains to hide their anxieties, but their housekeeper, Sunny, a hardworking woman with secrets of her own, bears witness to their struggles. When Qiang reappears in Shanghai after decades on the run with a local gang, the family must finally come to terms with the past. From a silk-producing village in rural China, up the corporate ladder in suburban America, and back again to the post-Maoist nouveau riche of modern Shanghai, WHAT WE WERE PROMISED explores the question of what we owe to our country, our families and ourselves.

What We Were Promised

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Ha Jin

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Pennsylvania

A Novel

An ambitious and dedicated Chinese doctor, Lin Kong finds himself torn between two very different women--the educated and dynamic nurse with whom he has fallen in love and the traditional, meek, and humble woman to whom his family married him when they were both very young. National Book Award & Pen/Faulkner Award Winner. Reprint. 125,000 first printing.

Waiting

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Lisa See

Maryland

Lily is haunted by memories–of who she once was, and of a person, long gone, who defined her existence. She has nothing but time now, as she recounts the tale of Snow Flower, and asks the gods for forgiveness. In nineteenth-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu (“women’s writing”). Some girls were paired with laotongs, “old sames,” in emotional matches that lasted throughout their lives. They painted letters on fans, embroidered messages on handkerchiefs, and composed stories, thereby reaching out of their isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed for Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed and they become “old sames” at the tender age of seven. As the years pass, through famine and rebellion, they reflect upon their arranged marriages, loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their lifelong friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as it is sorrowful. With the period detail and deep resonance of Memoirs of a Geisha, this lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves into one of the most mysterious of human relationships: female friendship.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

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Amy Tan

Louisiana

A MAGICAL NIGHT WHEN SECRET WISHES CAN COME TRUE On a rainy afternoon, three sisters wish for the rain to stoop, wish they could play in the puddles, wish for something, anything, to do. So Ying-Ying, their grandmother, tells them a tale from long ago. On the night of the Moon Festival, when Ying-ying was a little girl, she encountered the Moon Lady, who grants the secret wishes of those who ask, and learned from her that the best wishes are those you can make come true yourself. This haunting tale, adapted from Amy Tan's best-seller The Joy Luck Club and enhanced by Gretchen Schields's rich, meticulously detailed art, is a book for all to treasure.

The Moon Lady

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Rhode Island

Nai-nai tells her granddaughters the story of her outing, as a seven-year-old girl in China, to see the Moon Lady and be granted a secret wish.

Florida

The Living Reed

#paperback #china #1421 #gavinmenzies #nytimesbestseller 

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Virginia

The Year China Discovered America

On March 8, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China to "proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas." When the fleet returned home in October 1423, the emperor had fallen, leaving China in political and economic chaos. The great ships were left to rot at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost in the long, self-imposed isolation that followed was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America seventy years before Columbus and had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. And they colonized America before the Europeans, transplanting the principal economic crops that have since fed and clothed the world.

1421

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#hardcover #history #China #Chinese-history 

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Tennessee

The Reign by Reign Record of the Rulers of Imperial China

Spanning more than two thousand years, from the first emperor, buried with his terra-cotta army in the third century B.C., to the last emperor, enthroned in the Forbidden City as a boy of four in 1911, Chronicle of the Chinese Emperors presents the entire history of this vast and still mysterious region through the stories of its all-powerful rulers. The Chinese imperial system combined a highly centralized administration with a Confucian philosophy of moral-political beliefs. The emperor was the Son of Heaven and enjoyed semi-divine powers, but he was not infallible: should he fail his subjects, rebellion was justified. The emperors therefore weathered centuries of violent change and, despite brutal revolts and civil wars, remained at the center of the largest political unit in the world, the Middle Kingdom. The emperors were an extraordinary group of men--and one woman, Wu Zetian--whose virtues and faults were magnified by their exalted position. Many were literary scholars and painters (the Song emperor, Huizong, founded an imperial academy of painting). Some were mentally retarded; and some left the control of the empire to their eunuchs, concubines, or dowager empresses. Under able rulers, China's frontiers expanded, dominating Central and Southeast Asia; under weak rulers the frontiers shrank, and for centuries the country was occupied by alien Mongols. It took the arrival of a civilization from the West with superior firepower finally to shake the Middle Kingdom's foundations. The detailed coverage includes: data files for every emperor, listing important information such as name at birth and details of wives and concubines; special features ranging from the Great Wall of China to the Ming Tombs; portraits of the major emperors and maps detailing, for example, the arrival of Buddhism and the Silk Road routes; time lines with at-a-glance visual guides to the length and key events of each emperor's reign.

Chronicle of the Chinese Emperors

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Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

New York

The last decades of the nineteenth century were a violent period in China's history marked by humiliating foreign incursions and domestic rebellion, ultimately ending in the demise of the Ch'ing dynasty. The only constant during this tumultuous time was the power wielded by one person, the resilient, ever-resourceful Tzu Hsi, Lady Yehonala -- or Empress Orchid, as readers came to know her in Anchee Min's critically acclaimed novel covering the first part of her life.

The Last Empress is the story of Orchid's dramatic transition from a strong-willed, instinctive young woman to a wise and politically savvy leader who ruled China for more than four decades. Moving from the intimacy of the concubine quarters into the spotlight of the world stage, Orchid must face not only the perilous condition of her empire but also a series of devastating personal losses, as first her son and then her adopted son succumb to early death. Yearning only to step aside, and yet growing constantly into her role, only she--allied with the progressives, but loyal to the conservative Manchu clan of her dynasty--can hold the nation's rival factions together.

Anchee Min offers a powerful revisionist portrait based on extensive research of one of the most important figures in Chinese history. Viciously maligned by the western press of the time as the "Dragon Lady," a manipulative, blood-thirsty woman who held onto power at all costs, the woman Min gives us is a compelling, very human leader who assumed power reluctantly, and who sacrificed all she had to protect those she loved and an empire that was doomed to die.

The Last Empress

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New York Times bestseller The Valley of Amazement is an evocative epic of two women's intertwined fates and their search for identity—from the lavish parlors of Shanghai courtesans to the fog-shrouded mountains of a remote Chinese village Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Spanning more than forty years and two continents, Amy Tan's newest novel maps the lives of three generations of women—and the mystery of an evocative painting known as "The Valley of Amazement." Moving from the collapse of China's last imperial dynasty to the growth of anti-foreign sentiment and the inner workings of courtesan houses, The Valley of Amazement interweaves the story of Violet, a celebrated Shanghai courtesan on a quest for both love and identity, and her mother, Lucia, an American woman whose search for penance leads them to an unexpected reunion. The Valley of Amazement is a deeply moving narrative of family secrets, legacies, and the profound connections between mothers and daughters, reminiscent of the compelling territory Tan so expertly mapped in The Joy Luck Club. With her characteristic wisdom, grace, and humor, Tan conjures up a story of inherited trauma, desire, deception, and the power and stubbornness of love.

The Valley of Amazement

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#paperback #fiction #historical #historicalfiction #china #bestseller 

New Jersey

Kentucky

A Chinese peasant overcomes the forces of nature and the frailties of human nature to become a wealthy landowner.

The Good Earth

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Katherine Paterson

Old library marks. Some shelf wear. Otherwise, mint.

Texas

A pair of mandarin ducks, separated by a cruel lord who wishes to possess the drake for his colorful beauty, reward a compassionate couple who risk their lives to reunite the ducks.

The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks

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#paperback #fiction #amytan #bestsellingauthor #asianlit #china #historicalfiction #historical #literaryfiction #identity ~larger than mass market paperback

Oregon

Kwan, a seventeen-year-old half-sister from China, turns young Olivia's world upside-down with her stories of ghosts of another time, tales that have a profound impact on Olivia's life and imagination, until she discovers a way to reconcile the ghosts ofthe past with her dreams of the future

The Hundred Secret Senses

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Library Edition - This is one of the books that I have read for the RNL. This volume comes with some personal thoughts on this text. 

Illinois

The Peach Blossom Fan

Melissa Fu

New Hampshire

A moving debut novel about war, migration, and the power of telling stories, Peach Blossom Spring follows three generations of a Chinese family on their search for a place to call home. With every misfortune there is a blessing and within every blessing, the seeds of misfortune, and so it goes, until the end of time. It is 1938 in China and, as a young wife, Meilin's future is bright. But with the Japanese army approaching, Meilin and her four year old son, Renshu, are forced to flee their home. Relying on little but their wits and a beautifully illustrated hand scroll, filled with ancient fables that offer solace and wisdom, they must travel through a ravaged country, seeking refuge. Years later, Renshu has settled in America as Henry Dao. Though his daughter is desperate to understand her heritage, he refuses to talk about his childhood. How can he keep his family safe in this new land when the weight of his history threatens to drag them down? Yet how can Lily learn who she is if she can never know her family's story? Spanning continents and generations, Peach Blossom Spring is a bold and moving look at the history of modern China, told through the story of one family. It's about the power of our past, the hope for a better future, and the haunting question: What would it mean to finally be home?

Peach Blossom Spring

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Lisa Ko

FINALIST FOR THE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION Named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed, Bustle, and Electric Literature “There was a time I would have called Lisa Ko’s novel beautifully written, ambitious, and moving, and all of that is true, but it’s more than that now: if you want to understand a forgotten and essential part of the world we live in, The Leavers is required reading.” —Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth Lisa Ko’s powerful debut, The Leavers, is the winner of the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Fiction, awarded by Barbara Kingsolver for a novel that addresses issues of social justice. One morning, Deming Guo’s mother, Polly, an undocumented Chinese immigrant, goes to her job at a nail salon—and never comes home. No one can find any trace of her. With his mother gone, eleven-year-old Deming is left mystified and bereft. Eventually adopted by a pair of well-meaning white professors, Deming is moved from the Bronx to a small town upstate and renamed Daniel Wilkinson. But far from all he’s ever known, Daniel struggles to reconcile his adoptive parents’ desire that he assimilate with his memories of his mother and the community he left behind. Told from the perspective of both Daniel—as he grows into a directionless young man—and Polly, Ko’s novel gives us one of fiction’s most singular mothers. Loving and selfish, determined and frightened, Polly is forced to make one heartwrenching choice after another. Set in New York and China, The Leavers is a vivid examination of borders and belonging. It’s a moving story of how a boy comes into his own when everything he loves is taken away, and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of the past.

The Leavers (National Book Award Finalist)

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Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

Brent Ford

HC no dust jacket. Light rubbing to edges. Tight binding. Pages in like new condition.

California

When China is invaded by the Huns, Mulan decides that she must disguise herself as a soldier -- a man -- to fight in place of her ill father, who has been called up for war.

Disney's Mulan

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The Tiger and the Tortoise 

Tikki Tikki Tembo

#hardcover #fiction #cultural #bookofthemonth #china #engaging #literaryfiction 

Kenneth H. Lo

Pat Rand Rose

Book itself is a bit bent, warped at top right corner. Scribbles on half title page. 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

From a career spanning several decades, Ken Lo's international reputation brings people from all over the world to his restaurant and classes, and this book includes his 100 favorite recipes, drawn from every major region of China as well as Singapore and Hong Kong. Superbly illustrated in full color.

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Lucy Tan

What We Were Promised

Ha Jin

Waiting

Lisa See

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Amy Tan

The Moon Lady

Amy Tan

The Moon Lady

Pearl S. Buck

The Living Reed

Gavin Menzies

1421

Ann Paludan

Chronicle of the Chinese Emperors

Anchee Min

The Last Empress

Amy Tan

The Valley of Amazement

Lisa See

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Pearl S. Buck

The Good Earth

Katherine Paterson

The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks

Amy Tan

The Hundred Secret Senses

K’ung Shang-jen

The Peach Blossom Fan

Melissa Fu

Peach Blossom Spring

Lisa Ko

The Leavers (National Book Award Finalist)

Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld; Brent Ford

Disney's Mulan

Wang Yanrong

The Tiger and the Tortoise

Arlene Mosel, Blair Lent

Tikki Tikki Tembo

Lisa Ko

The Leavers (National Book Award Finalist)

Kenneth H. Lo; Pat Rand Rose

The Top One Hundred Chinese Dishes

Nien Cheng

Massacre in Beijing

Ha Jin

Waiting