China Books

The Lake Ching Murders is a wonderful twisty mystery. My complaint, however, is that the book notes....you know, the stuff on the inside flaps...told me more than I wanted to know before I read the book. However, since I don't think that that was the author's fault, the book still gets a five.

As I said, a wonderful twisty.
I enjoyed the protagonist. I have not read this author before, but his character is a discerning man. I liked that he knew himself quite well. The mystery itself...well, there is gory stuff, understated. If you cannot abide blood, skip this book, but, the brutality of the murders is a part of the story. I fear to say too much. Not, that I am afraid of retribution, but, that I am afraid of saying too much to the next reader.

So, again, this book is a wonderful twisty whodunnit....set in China....a great read.

I found this mystery very satisfying. It brought me into a totally different world of unusal and interesting characters and presented me with a puzzle I couldn't easily solve. Lots of plot twists kept me interested and the view of a totally different culture kept me engaged. I can't wait to read other books by Rotenberg and I guess that's the bottom line. I want more.

This a great book combining fascinating insights into politics, history and the day to day lives of people living in the borderlands as well as being a riveting account of travelling in the area combining adventure and danger at every turn.

If you have ever comtemplated travelling in contested areas, this is a book for you. Highly recommended.

When Bertil Lintner and his wife, Hseng Noung, set out to visit the Kachins in Upper Burma, little did they know that the journey would take 18 months and involve walking from India to China. But they did it and this book is the result. It's a fascinating description of a part of the world cut off from the outside for over 30 years. The Lintner's spent most of their time with various rebel groups, and this account delves deeply into both the politics and culture of this little-known land.

It only takes a brief reading of Mr. Freke's interpretation of the Tao to see that this is undoubtedly the deepest insight you'll ever find into the true/intended meaning of the original text. A book to live by, translated by someone who really got it and was able to make his vision coherent for the rest of us.

the best translation i've read. Freke does well at conveying the uncapturable. "It feels wonderful." -Ram Dass

Liberty Blue Dinnerware is compact, concise and provides everything a collector or dealer needs. Debbie and Randy Coe have done an excellent job of providing the history of Liberty Blue Dinnerware with pictures of original ads adding value to the readers experience.

The pictures are excellent and the organization of the book makes it easy for identification purposes including descriptions, measurements and current values. Although the book is a "soft cover" the glossy pages are first rate and enhance the quality of the pictures.

Buy it, use it, enjoy it. Value pricing makes it that much better!

This book is a MUST for all collectors of patriotic Liberty Blue dinnerware, a grocery store premium that celebrated the Bicentennial years of the mid-1970's. The Coes combine excellent photos, realistic values and lots of historical information in this brief book.

Despite the seriousness of the subject, the author manages, through virtuosic and deeply felt writing, to treat her characters with wit, humor, and affection. Her characters never give in to the desperation of the situation. And while this is a book that gives readers a lot to think about, the journey is as pleasurable and moving as it is thought-provoking. A wonderful read by a terrific writer.

This book is an interesting study of a two worlds, which intersect in an unforced way in this well-crafted book. It is a story of a model who tries to get out of a bad, abusive relationship, and the story of two young boys who are raised in poverty and neglect. Their worlds come together and create a believable, and very poignent look at their lives. Well worth reading.

At long last, a non-sectarian study on Rinzai roku. How refreshing! Congratulations to the author.

Judging from this fine monograph, the historically critical study of Chan and Zen Buddhism would seem to be attaining a mellow maturity. That is, while Welter avoids accepting Linji/Rinzai orthodox pronouncements at face value with the best of them, he also exhibits none of the deconstructive sarcasm and barely-disguised malice and overreaction that often somewhat poisons otherwise useful works in this field. It's perhaps inevitable to quip that Welter has hit upon the Middle Way between the two extremes, but that's what we have here.

In and of itself this is a fine textual study, carefully and meticulously analyzing the "Linji Lu"/"Rinzairoku" and its many textual layers and differing versions. Sounds dry, but it isn't. Welter writes in a finely polished scholarly voice that is clear and engaging rather than pedantic, and he sifts through the relevant details to argue far-reaching conclusions in an utterly convincing manner. The upshot more or less is that the eccentric and spontaneous monk Linji/Rinzai as found in this key text is not a historically reliable and accurate contemporary portrait of the man himself but an imaginary figure carefully contrived to exemplify emerging concepts of orthodoxy and authority within the context of early Song culture. In other words, the so-called "Record of Linji" tells us precious little about the monk Linji but a whole lot about the Chan monks who crafted his image for their own purposes centuries later.

Given the influence of this school of Chan/Zen Buddhism in China, Japan, and now America and Europe, the startling nature of this discovery is a bit understated in the book. Here we have the very prototype of the image of the dynamic, spontaneous, crazy yet profound Zen Master that's even worked its way into the common American popular consciousness (courtesy of D.T. Suzuki among others)--and it's mostly made up from scratch so as to appeal to Song literati elites. In the process we learn a lot about the development of Chinese religion and Buddhism, social history and literature, not to mention Zen's modern repackaging in the twentieth century.

If the book has one shortcoming, it's that it shows a few too many traces of having been patched together from separate conference papers and journal articles. Whole multi-paragraph chunks get repeated verbatim in different chapters (compare pages 135-136 and pages 88-89 or pages 81-82 and pages 3-4, for example), a bit ironic for a textual study of this nature, actually. This is probably less Welter's fault than it is a symptom of the increasingly demanding knee-jerk stringent "publish or perish" atmosphere of academia rushing him to get a book out as soon as possible. These are minor nitpicks, though. The book still mostly coheres well enough structurally as a single study, and the analysis it has to offer the reader about this influential key text is far too important and interesting to get distracted by such quibbles. Indeed, this is a significant book in many ways, one that should make quite an impact in the study of Chan and Zen Buddhism as well as Chinese religion and Song Dynasty history more generally. It would also obviously go well accompanying a reading of The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi, and I for one wish it had been around when I first did so.

Desmond Powers does a masterful job to draw his reader into his life story. He led a unique and interesting life and does a superb job writing about it. The "Little Foreign Devil" is a non-fiction book that is far more interesting than any fictional story!

I recommend this book to all those who love biographies, or those interested in a look at modern history.

A beautifully written, true life experience of the life and times of foreigners in China's treaty ports. A colorful life until the bombshell of Pearl Harbor when even taipans are reduced to coolies in Japanese prison camps. Richly illustrated with contemporary photos.

Eric Stone's first novel reveals the underbelly of Macau, Hong Kong, and other colorful cities as backdrop to an original suspense story: protagonist Ray Sharp tries to rescue a Russian prostitute from a deadly crime syndicate. The novel's strength is its vividly depicted settings. Even well-traveled readers will be enlightened, often surprised, and sometimes shocked as they follow Stone on a tour of some of the most exotic places on Earth.

This book was a great read. Within a few pages, protagonist Ray Sharp feels like a real person. The descriptions of HongKong and Macau never strain for effect, yet they are incredibly vivid (and accurate, based on my modest HK experience). The plot avoids the tired "then things became implausibly dangerous but the narrator miraculously prevailed in the end" cliche that infests many thrillers. It is terribly gruesome in spots, but if you read through to the author's note at the very end, the sickening parts seem well justified. While this is definitely a "man's book" - the point of view is decisively male and our hero never once bemoans his weight or gets nagged by his mother - it is accessible to a female readership as well; in fact, Ray directly addresses a few issues in a way that seems designed to interest female readers. Finally, the world as narrated by Ray is ideal for a series. The infrequent use of details about Ray's background as fuel for the book's development seems a promising method for avoiding the excessive review that can plague series books. It will be a pleasure to see what Ray encounters in future novels.

This book is by and about two guys from the UK who retraced the route of the original Long March. I had seen some stuff about the project in the news, but I really got turned on to this book when I heard one of the two give a lecture at the Bookworm. I was also a member of the studio audience when he appeared as a guest on UP CLOSE (for those of you who don't live in Beijing, UP CLOSE is a local TV show on the 24 hour English channel).

My main interest was to see if this book could help to clear up some areas of conflict and fill in some gaps in the history of this much heralded event in the history of New China. The recent book by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday has focused attention on the Long March, because they seem to feel that the Long March has been blown out of proportion for propaganda purposes.

So my primary interest is history rather than geography or sociology. But in reading this book, I did learn a fair bit about the geography of this area, and also gained some insight into current Chinese culture. For example, the writers mentioned several cases where a newspaper would call them and ask for an interview. They were not able to accommodate every request, so they had no choice but to turn down some of them. But they noticed, to their amusement, that the article appeared anyway, with completely fabricated information. Retelling this story brings to mind the story Ronald Reagan used to tell about when he was a sports announcer for an Iowa radio station during the depression, and he made up the end of a baseball game because the teletype connection had been interrupted for some reason, and he didn't want to lose his audience. So I do not imply that this problem is limited to China. But hearing the story and others like it does support the growing consensus that it would be good to see a little more openness in the Chinese media.

Regarding the march itself, there is a lot of controversy about just what took place. Jung Chang gives the impression that the Long March was an "easy ride" for Mao, and pictures him riding in a litter in a grand tour through the mountains. That picture really does not jibe with history. But her contention that the route of the march was influenced by political factors that went beyond the best way to get where they were going has given me some pause. That, I have to admit, does sound like something Mao would do. But if you want to write history with integrity, you can't just say something that you think would be typical of a given historical figure, without providing the historical evidence that it actually happened the way you would like to surmise. This is one of the main reasons I recommend this book. It was written by two guys, one of whom has a PhD in history, who actually retraced every step of the trail. And they did it at a time when several people who had either been on the march or remembered it vividly were living along the route of the march.

But there is another side benefit of this book. These guys talked to a lot of country people along the way, who gave them a colorful picture of how the laobaixing in the countryside see their country and the world. For example, they saw many large character signs proclaiming the importance of the "Three Represents (Jiang Zemin's contribution to the legacy of Mao Zedong thought)." They asked people along the way about the importance of these proclamations. Everybody they talked to insisted that the "Three Represents" were very important, but no one could tell them what the three represents actually were. Finally, one young girl said she thought she knew. She said the Three Represents were Mao Zedong, Deng Xiao-ping, and Jiang Zemin.

Andy McEwen (one of the authors) showed a bunch of slides at the bookworm one night. He asked us to guess which one was censored from the Chinese edition of their presentation. No one could guess. But when he told us, it made perfect sense. It was a picture of some coal miners, very noticeable by their black faces, and by the fact that they were quite young.

I could go on, but I think I have made the point that this is a multi-faceted book that will definitely add to your understanding of China. It is really two stories in one. It gives insight into the Long March, but it is also a very intimate story of two foreigners who hiked through the countryside of China. As such, it would have value even without the historical significance of the route they chose. Five stars for a job well done.

The "original" Long March was an epic movement of Mao's communist troops escaping from the Kuomintang in southern China to a "soviet" enclave in the north via the fringes of Tibetan highlands. It is possibly the best-known "heroic" event in the history of Chinese communism, having become almost "mythical" in its status/importance by today.

The authors are two journalists who have decided to try and compare the myth with the reality by retracing the Long March. Despite burocratic hurdles and the dearth of resources, they succeed to do so, meeting surviving eye-witnesses, and possibly even Mao's "long-lost daughter" along the way. They blend the story of their own march with the existing reports of the historic one all along, for one proving that the Long March did indeed happen in the first place.
This is fascinating enough for the history buff, but even if you aren't one, the book still holds plenty of interest.
Following a route through the rural backwaters of China no one else has done for decades, the march takes authors through extremely varied corners of this giant country, letting them provide fascinating insights into the mix of modernization and backwardness that is the China of today. From booming cities to minority villages steeped in dire poverty, from warm traditional welcome to hostile suspicion, they experience and expose it all, made all the more insightful by their excellent command of the Chinese language.

One of the very best "travelogues" I have ever read about any country, this book can only be most highly recommended.

Most of LOST LHASA documents the peaceful years that Heinrich Harrer spent in Tibet. The map of Tibet and its border with northern India is shown inside the front cover, with a line marking Harrer's route from Dehra Dun near the Ganges River in India, up into the Himalayas far northwest of Mt. Everest. After escaping from a prison camp in April, 1944, and climbing for 18 days to Tibet, then stuck in Traduen until December, 1944 while they waited for permission to travel further, they waited in Kyirong on the border of Nepal until November, 1945, when they escaped again. "To avoid large cities, we decided to move even farther north, into the Changthang region--the famous Tibetan Plateau. Here we would see only nomads and brigands; government officials avoided the area." (p. 43). Walking into Lhasa like starving beggars on January 15, 1946, "We thought of our adventures and of our comrades still in the internment camp at Dehra Dun." (p. 47).

Heinrich Harrer is famous, now, as the author of the best-selling book, SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET, which told the same story. LOST LHASA was not published until 1991, when the 2000 negatives which he had kept became the best reminder he had of the years he had enjoyed most. There is a lot of writing in this book to tell the entire story again, and in places where there aren't many pictures, the people are still fascinating. A young couple, who had given Peter Aufschnaiter and Harrer each a dried apricot on a 20,000-foot pass two months before, had much to complain about after they reached Lhasa. "They were surprised that they had to work for daily necessities, even if it was only a place to spend the night or a cup of tea. They felt that people in Lhasa were greedy, demanding things that in the Changthang you wouldn't think about. . . . We invited them to our modest home, where we had lots of barley, rice, and butter, and we supplied them for their return to the Changthang, their nomadic home, where they had plenty of meat, butter, cheese, milk, and where nature would provide for all their needs." (p. 65).

Picture captions are jumbled together. The caption under the picture on page 116 explains "Noblemen and women . . ." with everyone in winter clothes "in front of the Kumbum monument in Gyangtse [above]. The girl [right] sits behind three fancy teacups, complete with stands and cover." also explains the picture of a young child on page 117 with very short hair and a necklace of beads sitting behind a table with four teacups. My first clue that it was a picture of a girl was the covers on the teacups. The 7-inch-square picture on page 116 shows plain cups and saucers. I did not realize that four teacups with stands and covers were on the table in front of the kid until I tried to measure the height of each cup to see if they were taller than the kid's head in the picture. Allowing for perspective, it might be possible for a knob on top of the fourth teacup to be mistaken for an earring, just below one of the kid's ears, but the earring pictures are elsewhere in this book.

Several trips to Lhasa are described in this book, including "When I returned in 1982, I found that the Chinese had destroyed the medical school that perched atop Chagpori and replaced it with a radio tower." (p. 208). A Glossary on pages 218-219 explains terms like Dob-Dob (monk-police) and Tsampa (parched barley flour, the Tibetan's staple food). Notes on the pictures on page 220 identify two of the people in the picture on page 116 and explain that the picture following it is of the daughter of Surkhang Wangchuk, the governor of Gyangste. Harrer had fled Lhasa and was staying with the governor of Gyangste when the Dalai Lama with a caravan that contained more than a thousand animals came through on the flight from Tibet to the Chumbi Valley. Harrer left there in March, 1951. "Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa to find posters of Mao plastered against the walls of the Potala." (p. 207). Among the brighter aspects of the nostalgia in this book is the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Dalai Lama in 1989 because he "opposed the use of violence. He has instead advocated peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect, in order to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of his people." (pp. 216-217). This book is a monument to that tradition.

What a lovely book! Engrossing illustration of a way of life destroyed by the Chinese conquerors. I love reading Buddhist writings, but I think this would appeal even to those who are not interested in Buddhism, as Harrer seems to be not particularly religious and he concentrates on the everyday life of Tibetans in Lhasa.