Wang Books

My surname is Alberti (52 years old), I am a direct decendant of Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72). It was a very personal experience to read Mr. Graftons book. How often in this fast paced world do we forget our roots and our heritage. Since my father is still living there are 4 generations of Alberti's all residing in the United States. I appreciated Mr. Graftons style of brining to life the man behind the ledgend. Thank you Mr. Grafton, you have added much to the completion of the history of my family and ancestory.

LINCOLN'S SMILE AND OTHER ENIGMAS is cultural history at its best: it gathers essays from cultural historian Alan Trachtenberg from the last 40 years, considering all kinds of topics relating history to film and photo. While this could also have been featured in our 'Arts' section, it'd be a shame for any collection of American history and culture to miss this, whether it be at the college or public lending library levels. Essays are lively, insightful surveys of the images and history that captured American attention, covering a wide range of topics from architecture to cultural artifacts. This essay collection will be a hit for a wide audience and is not to be missed.

Little Wen: What is the Chinese Saying for This One? is a children's picturebook based on author Ruowen Wang's memories of growing up in China. A young girl named Wen is precious and creative, but the nation of China is a land of overwhelming traditions and stringent social rules. How is a girl to mature into herself in land of relentlessly rigid social expectations? "Boys who did not want to run to a public bathroom down the street would stand before a bucket to pee. Wen asked Mama why they could pee standing up. Mama said, 'Because they are boys. Girls cannot do that, so don't you even think about it.'" Retellings of Chinese tales pepper this adventurous tale of daily life in a different culture.

When you do more than visit, mixing into the culture is vital. "Living in China: How to Feel at Home, Make Friends, and Enjoy Everyday Life" is a complete and comprehensive manual for readers to better understand what it means to take up residency in the nation of China. With tips on dealing with currency, help from Chinese neighbors, Eating customs, manners, day to day life, embassies, and much more. If one is contemplating a move to the country, "Living in China" is as vital as a plane ticket.

This is a totally gorgeous book with high-quality color photographs of important Chinese paintings. These graphics alone are very pleasing to look. I am not an expert in Oriental art, but it was easy to see from these photographs and illustrations the magnificence of Chinese paintings. They surely are one of the most under-rated forms of art in the world, and deserves more international attention.

This book also looks into the history of this art form, including how masterpieces were deliberately copied by apprentices for them to learn the delicate brush-strokes. And best of all, this book provides many guides on how to appreciate each of these paintings. Before reading this book, I believed the stamps on the canvas and scrolls were of the artists themselves. Now I know better. I also learned the meaning of the short poems written on some of these paintings, which gave me a better understanding of the artists' intentions.

Now, I look forward to looking at the real paintings.

A decade ago no one had heard of Ottilie Assing or had a clue that she played an important role not only in shaping European perceptions of the US in the crucial years up to and including the Civil War but in her role as collaborator and lover of Douglass for almost 30 years. Then, Terence Pickett, a scholar of German literature doing research in Poland, stumbled on a folder of letters that revealed an intimate acquaintance and passionate involvement between the German immigrant journalist and the American abolitionist. Pickett cautiously called it a friendship, but when William McFeeley used this information in his 1991 Douglass biography, he strongly suspected that the relationship went beyond friendship. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., choosing his words carefully, has meanwhile also concluded that for "much of Douglass's mature career, Assing was his principal intellectual consort." Maria Diedrich's "Love Across Color Lines" finally gives a detailed and thoroughly researched account of the life of this extraordinary woman, her background, commitment to radical causes, emigration in 1852, involvement in abolitionism, passionate attachment to Douglass, and her courageous but tragic end. It is an amazing story, deeply embedded in the stormy social and political conditions on both sides of the Atlantic. One consistent theme is that Assing's commitment to social revolution, having been frustrated by the botched events of 1848-49 in Germany, plays itself out in her support of radical abolitionism, which she consistently sees in terms of a second American Revolution. Another suggestive argument develops the continuity between Assing's partly Jewish background and her attitude toward slavery and race in the US. Though Assing often expressed typical 19th-century racial attitudes, her experience of belonging to a despised minority in Germany helped her to espouse the cause of black Americans, sometimes with more radical passion than Douglass himself. Most original and interesting, moreover, is Diedrich's carefully argued idea that Assing's imagination was infused with the romanticized representation of a black African prince and a white European woman in a novel by one of her close German friends, who based it on Aphra Behn's "Oroonoko." With all of Assing's emphasis on rational social analysis, much of her relationship with Douglass must be explained in terms of the kind of romantic orientalism that shaped her imagination. As Diedrich makes clear in her narrative, the essential problem of writing this biography was the one-sidedness of the evidence. Assing destroyed all letters (hundreds of them) from Douglass; he destroyed all but 27 from her to him, and he mentions her only in passing in his third autobiography. The story that emerges is largely based on Ottilie's letters to her sister and friends, on her published journalism, and on a handful of manuscripts. But the circumstantial evidence--that Douglass and Assing corresponded more or less weekly for more than 25 years, that during those years Assing spent several months every summer with the Douglasses, and that Douglass often visited and stayed with Assing in Hoboken (seeking refuge there when he was in imminent danger of arrest after John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry)--strongly suggests that her passion was reciprocated and that theirs was an intense intellectual and a fully sexual relationship. Aside from these important and fascinating details (which include the highly probable fact that Assing actually ghost-wrote some of Douglass's journalism in "The New National Era"), one of the great strengths of this book is that it places these personal matters in the larger framework of social and political conditions: the abolitionist movement, women's emancipation, the Civil War, Washington politics, the crusades for the Civil Rights amendments in the 1870s, and much more. Diedrich offers us a profound and nuanced insight into how this complex interracial relationship between two committed social radicals could develop in an America rife with political turmoil as well as racial and sexual taboos. The fact that this compelling story has remained veiled for so long is yet another reminder that these taboos continue to exert their fearful power in our own time. Maria Diedrich deserves everyone's gratitude for lifting the veil so thoughtfully, tactfully, and definitively.

Christoph Lohmann Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies, Indiana University

This work in its Chinese original is a milestone of contemporary Chinese fiction. It uses the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution to explore timeless human emotions and sexuality. The author Wang Anyi is of the same generation and similar in style to another great Chinese woman writer, Yan Geling, whose "White Snake and Other Stories" have just appeared in English and whose film "Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl" (directed by Joan Chen) is currently playing in major U.S. cities.

this book came in very very good condition - delivery was before expected very reliable vendor

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While in San Francisco's Chinatown, I stumbledacross the delightful children's book called The Magical StarfruitTree. The virtues of sharing and respect for elders are thecornerstone of Chinese philosophy. Author Rosalind Wang conveys this message perfectly in her version of the famous Chinese folktale.

The story takes place in a small village on a very hot day. A greedy peddler refuses to share his star fruit with an elderly and thirsty beggar. Realizing the beggar is in desperate need of liquid, a young boy shares all of his money to buy a star fruit for him. ...

Following the "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" Golden Rule, the book's message transcends all racial boundaries and historical timelines. It creates a perfect opportunity for parents to discuss morals and ethics with their children.

The Magical Starfruit Tree is published by Beyond Words Publishing END

I am very fond of Mr. Fangyu Wang. And have his books Read Chinese -
I , II and III. But it took me three years to have this intelligent dictionary. Why? Because I study by the Taiwans method - Traditional - and
was not sure of how was this issue printed: traditional or simplified?
One cannot buy a dictionary based only in its cover, right? What if it was in simplified ideograms? And it did not have the helpfull "search inside" ! So - the years passed - and I did not buy it!!!
Today - june 9th 2007 - I gained as a gift from my son. And - bingo! -
there were my beloved ideograms in traditional (also called complex )form.
And I spent all my saturday readind...a dictionary! Because it is not a
common one. Because it was prepared by an expert lexicographer named
Fred Fangyu Wang! Among the 4000 entries, that the author smartly put in handwritten mode and in a fair size - so one does not need lens to read -
For example, lets pick the word Course - besides the nice ideogram, the reader has its pronouciation in pinyin and 2, 3 or 4 sentences as examples of its use. Let's say: 1) You should follow the proper course. 2)There are still two more courses. 3) What course have you chosen? 4)As a matter of course. 5)Of course! 6) In due course: don't forget to inform in due course. Now: it is easy to multiply 4000 entries for 2, 3, 4...and have in alphabetical order, an 800 pages dictionary. Congratulations to the Setton Hall University Press and, of course, Amazon !