China Books

This book is a treasure. It delights the eyes with its beautiful photographs of rural China; it delights the spirit with its thoughtful exploration of Chinese culinary tradition; it delights the mind with careful teachings on the important ingredients and methods of Chinese cookery, and finally it delights the tongue with foods that are healthy, nourishing and fantastically pleasing to the palate. In short, I love this book.

Steamed chicken with ginger scallion sauce, red cooked tofu, stir fried corn, gaozi dumpling soup, farmhouse chive and egg omelets, and many more I have now made so many times, over the course of a decade (or more) that I know them by heart, yet still I pull this book down off my shelf to revisit it like and old friend.

Track down a copy of this beautiful book and explore it slowly. You will never regret your decision, a cookbook cannot be any better. Aloha!

Wonderful. This book is just great! Ken Hom has not only shown how you could cook good traditional Chinese Food but also taught us a great deal in Chinese history, culture and traditions.

Very easy to follow. I have learned a lot from the book.

Thanks Ken.

A very fascinating and practical guide to the real authentic chinese cooking. Very well researched and easy to follow. Being an overseas chinese, I only use to hear about these authentic dishes from my grandfather, today I am keeping the tradition alive by cooking them! Two Thumbs up!

This account of the Vietnam War is a good. I really think it was important for me to find out more about how Americans conducted this war and how people felt about it It is especially interesting now that the Iraq War is happening and Americans are being accused of holding people without trial and torturing people.

Should be read in small segments, so overwhelmong is the inhumanity recounted here. The South Korean "allies" were worse torturers than the Americans.. several My Lais every day, and torture was ongoing for years for many of the civilians imprisoned in camps, too sickening to recount here. Brave book by a brave American woman.

The people of Vietnam tell what it was like when the Americans came to their country and destroyed it. Things you would not believe the Americans would do to a population. Publisher's Weekly said " It is difficult to imagine a more powerful indictment of American military conduct in Vietnam than these testimonies." With Photos by the author.

This is the very first Tintin book I have been exposed to. I read it for a University course in Children's Literature, and found the story to be fascinating and entertaining. The illustrations are detailed and marvelous -- grasping the attention of young and older readers alike. I am anticipating my next order of Tintin books!

Tintin, of course, is the intrepid reporter created by Georges Remi (1907-1983), better known as Hergé, who appeared in a series of adventures set around the world. The character first appeared in a serial newspaper strip with an adventure in the Soviet Union, then going to the Belgian Congo, America, and over a dozen other places (including a memorable two-part trip to the Moon). Tintin is usually accompanied by his dog, a white fox terrier named Snowy, an old seaman, Captain Haddock, an eccentric professor, Cuthbert Calculus, the look-alike bumbling detectives Thomson and Thompson, and a cast of other colorful characters. "The Adventures of Tintin" appeared in newspaper and books all over the world and reflected Hergé's own interest in and knowledge of places around the world.

Consequently, "Tintin's Travel Diaries" are inspired by Hergé's characters and based on notebooks Tintin may have kept as he traveled on his adventures. Each book in the series take young readers (or even us older ones) to a different country visited by Tintin, exploring its geography, and the customs, the culture, and the heritage of the people living there. The books combine Hergé's original artwork from the appropriate Tintin adventure, which is usually juxtaposed with photographs showing the country as it is today, thereby combining education with a bit of fun. Other volumes in the series look at Africa, the Amazon, China, Egypt, India, Peru, Russia, Scotland, and the United States.

"Tintin's Travel Diaries: Tibet" is organized around thirty key questions designed for young readers, from "Why is Tibet called the 'Roof of the World'" to "Where is the Dalai Lama?" Each question is dealt with in a two-page spread, the left side containing artwork from Hergé's "Tintin in Tibet" and the right with corresponding photographs showing his fidelity to the actual geography, costumes, and traditions of the land. The text, by Daniel De Bruycker and Marine Noblet (translated by Maureen Walker).

Of course, it is hoped that anyone who picks up this volume has already enjoyed "Tintin in Tibet," in which our hero has a dream that his friend Chang is calling to him for help. When it turns out Chang was on an airplane that crashed in Tibet, Tintin takes Snowy and Captain Haddock with him to rescue his friend. With the original Tintin adventure serving as an introduction to the land of Tibet, this travel diary will answer the many questions young readers will have about the far off land. The back of the volume includes a glossary of key terms, both a chronology and a map of the region, along with an index and bibliography "for readers from 7 to 77."

This is the very first Tintin book I have been exposed to. I read it for a University course in Children's Literature, and found the story to be fascinating and entertaining. The illustrations are detailed and marvelous -- grasping the attention of young and older readers alike. I am anticipating my next order of Tintin books!

This is the second book in the Tibetan series from W.Y.Evans-Wentz. If you really want to begin at the start then you should first of all read - The Tibetan Book of the Dead by the same author. Milarepa is essentially the 800 year old story of Tibets greatist yogi told through the eyes of his students Jetsun and Rechung. The story is about a poor wicked boy who eventually turns into a wise old yogi to be held in the highest esteem. It is a wonderful story that can be read as a standalone book or as part of the series.

The most important aspect of this book is that it Milarepa, as a student of Buddhism, needs to practice and cover much of the topics that are explained in The Tibetan Book of the Dead. This is really what is at the heart of the book. So those of you who may want to learn more about The Tibetan Book of the Dead (and you should because it is one of the most important works ever obtained by occident man), can see it put into practice in the story of Milarepa.

There are many footnotes and references for you to read through. Again the story is a wonderful, uplifting one with lots of joy and sorrow to experience. You will certainly gain much metaphysical insight and the morals in this story when put into practice will certainly make you a better person. It is a wonderful journey and I have read the story many times and will read it many more. It really is that spiritually enlightening and certainly a very important text to be translated in English for the occident. This book is a treasure-house of spiritual information.

The other two works in the series are - Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines and The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation in that order.

I have read few books, believing it to be more important to incorporate the ideas into daily living than be widely read. This book is one of those few. I always found it to be inspirational. Though Milarepa exhibits superhuman strength in his Sadhana, spiritual practice, it is nevertheless a lofty ideal to sustain spiritual aspirants. It is a truism, often neglected at great peril, that one is happiest when trying to live according to one's ideals. Ignoring the negative opinions and hidebound thoughts of the worldly environment one must forge ahead to manifest the ideals presented by the Great Yogis! It may be a terrific struggle, full of many setbacks, but Victory awaits those who never give up. For me Milarepa has been a beacon of a true example. may all who seek liberation from the dualities of this world find brotherhood with the Great Yogi Milarepa!

This book is translated from the original Tibetan biography of Milarepa. It is easy to read, and contains some wonderful explanatory notes. These go a long way in clearing up some of the more difficult statements found in the book, especially for those unfamiliar with Tibetan Buddhism. All round a wonderful book, one which you can read time and time again and every time get more out of it. And don't forget, the story itself is also pretty good!

Tibet-O-Rama is a journey into the unfurling and weaving of the intricate vine of personality and character a person is. Each revelation a window into the puzzle components that mold an ever-evolving dynamic human being. I see Eric as a never stagnant, always changing-morphing person. There is never really an end to growing, for new information affects perspective. Eric's quest is revealed through a quilt of lived experiences, deep and honest, but never crass, and Eric sustains humor, integrating and learning about life. Eric's experiences touched me, made me laugh, feel the sadness and frustrations, and joy. His honesty, reminded me we are not alone, we all share in the journey of self-growth and awareness of life.

Tibet-O-Rama is a very refreshing book whose author is not afraid to blur the genres of ethnography and personal memoir (after all, Klieger shows, aren't our interests and observations informed by who we are?!). The protagonist, Eric, has a passion for Tibet -- is it just another case of the Westerner's Orientalist gaze/desire, or is it devoted political activism...or both? There is much to be learned here about those who readily give and receive aid, about the dilemmas that face those born with everything and those born with nothing, and about the commonalities they share.

Tibet-O-Rama by cultural anthropologist P. Christiaan Klieger (California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco) is the recollections of a professional and personal life intertwined with the amazing beauty and rich culture that characterizes the nation of Tibet. From 1978 to the present day, and encompassing the paradox of the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan exiles, Tibet-O-Rama is a wonderfully presented ethnographical and historical work celebrating the author's admiration and appreciation for Tibet, its people, and their courage in spite of all of the social and political dilemmas they face.

we wonder if the feelings we have are too bounded & we learn that the tendency is -- yes -- we do restrict ourselves. something, aweful. & this text assures us that our inclinations to be children in bed, as well as in our hearts, is a key to the liberation & empowerment we seek & can find in a partner; like iron sharpening iron . . .

I am new to the study of eastern religions, and I enjoyed this book. About a third of it is devoted to a literal translation of a handbook on Vajrayan Buddhism which was published in the 1930s - pretty spicy stuff in those days, a veritable how-to list. But there is not much new in that part if you have read " The Joy of Sex" or any amount of other erotic literature. There are no pictures and if that is what you are interested in, you would do better by going to your local big-box bookstore. The strength of this book would seem to be in two areas. First, there is a detailed analysis by Jeffrey Hopkins, who evidently is a professor of Eastern Religions in London. Replete with footnotes. In a scholarly way, he re-interprets the imagery of the original author so that a modern reader would understand the references. Also, Hopkins has added a chapter 5 is titled "Sexual PLeasure and Spiritual Insight" and I thought it was the most illuminating section of the book. The chapter links the practice of yoga & meditation, the theory of spirituality, and the chakra system to the path of enlightenment, and also describes the nature of the link between sexuality in Tibetan Vajrayan ( also known as Tantric) practice with all these. I confess that maybe I should have known all this, and maybe there will be those who take it for granted....but it did not come together in a cohesive whole before this.

Everything you ever wanted to know... and more. Unflinching details, well written, and thorough. Somehow more accessible than the Kama Sutra.

I'm an artist with a particular interest in the decorative arts - and, while I can't say much about the text (I haven't read much of it), the artwork shown in this book is exquisite. I purchased this book for the eye candy - and there's quite a bit here to be had.

The book focuses on hand-painted Tibetan furniture, and it's the highly stylized, decorative, and "folky" painting which I find so appealing in the work presented. The book is richly illustrated with many examples, the examples are well photographed, and the printing is high-quality.

If you're an artist, it's a great reference book - there are many decorative motifs and design ideas from which you can "steal", "borrow", "adapt", or otherwise use as inspiration in your own work.

This beautiful book offers much more than a generous selection of wonderful photographs! It is historically informative and well organized so that it is easy to read for both the professional and collector. If you are interested in Tibetan antique furniture-this is the publication for you!

This is an early book--one of only two at the present time--focusing on Tibetan furniture from the perspective of the antiques field. Tibetan furniture is an area that will surely find a wider, recognized place given the growing role of some Asian countries, especially China and India, in global political and economic affairs. Already one sees a growing interest in Chinese antiquities and art. As Buckley notes, the time when a survey of ancient and older Tibetan furniture including many photographs such as found in this book is possible is likely passing because many of the finer pieces of Tibetan furniture are already scattered in private homes and museums throughout the world and there is already considerable interest in this field among Hong Kong and other regional dealers. Although the author admits he is "biased toward chests," these serve sufficiently for instruction and examples on the construction, materials, dates, and carvings, illustrations, and other decorative and symbolic features of all Tibetan furniture. "The echoes of contacts with peoples all over Asia can be traced in the designs found on Tibetan furniture." Yet the furniture and its designs are not a simple imitation or composite of forms, designs, etc., of other cultures, but shown the stamp of the "unique identity" of the Tibetan people and culture so that Tibetan furniture is unmistakable. The illustrations and symbols of Tibetan furniture are usually related to the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet. Buckley's book is not only a guide to identification of the desirable antique Tibetan furniture, but it also relates the historical and cultural context of the furniture. The author is a recognized expert on antiques and collecting currently living in Beijing.

This is an excellent book and anyone with an interest in the Viet Nam War should read it. The events of July and August 1964 are thoroughly examined and analyzed step by step. There are interviews with many of the people who were involved in the incident on both sides. It has a good technical discussion of the military equipment(ships and radar/sonar systems) that greatly contributes to an understanding of what happened on those "dark and stormy nights". This is definitely the best book about the Tonkin Gulf incident. The author is a History Professor at Clemson University and I had the priviledge of taking his Vietnam War and Modern Military History courses back in 1993. He told our class that he was writing a book about the Tonkin Gulf incident so it was great to finally read it after all these years.

Sometimes the details that matter aren't captured on videotape and broadcast around the world, like more recent events in the year 2001. What history doesn't have to show what was going on is a picture of how things were set up for this book. "Around noon on August 2, at the White House, President Johnson discussed the American response to the August 2 incident with Secretary Rusk, George Ball, Cyrus Vance, and Tom Hughes of the State Department; General Wheeler; Colonel Ralph Steakley of the Joint Staff; and Winston Cornelius of the CIA. At this meeting the president not only confirmed the decision that sent the Maddox back into the Gulf of Tonkin along with the Turner Joy, he authorized the continuation of OPLAN 34A raids (definitely the one scheduled for the night of August 3-4, and perhaps also those for the night of August 4-5; the procedure of waiting for the results of each raid to be evaluated, before approval of the next was initiated . . . would not have been practiced when there were to be raids on consecutive nights)." (pp. 103-4).

The amount of detail in this book could support a view that secret operations are those things which are not revealed in order to create the greatest spin in the direction of the psychological warfare advantage desired by whoever is keeping the secrets. To get a full appreciation of the kind of restraint which the American government displayed in this incident, the whole picture should be compared to how well the participants in World War II responded to the order given by the president in August, 1945 (a mere 19 years before the Tonkin incident) not to drop any more atomic bombs on people whose government exhibited any hostility toward military activities directed by the United States of America. President Truman's order was followed by massive conventional bombing, much as the history of American bombing in Vietnam shows how long a superpower can maintain a campaign of destruction against anyone who knows the truth about something which is supposed to be secret. This book shows great deference to the feelings of the anonymous secret operations experts who would never say anything that wasn't in the best interests of the powers that be. "Escalation" is an understatement for the overt actions taken against North Vietnam in August, 1964. Adopting a bombing routine as a conditioned response to false accusations in anticipation of making the bombing a regular routine, in the absence of any debate on why things happened as they did, was the real policy. Even now, most people who ought to know better are pretending that a lot of things revealed in this book are still secret. What people don't believe now is the preamble to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which stated that the United States was going to be maintaining peace there, where it had no territoreal, military, or political ambitions. My ambition was to get the Combat Infantryman's Badge without getting killed, so I could be the CIB who failed to agree with whoever thought this ought to be. Check the facts in this book for a truly tortured bit of not being able to see a forest because the treehouse doesn't have any windows, and the trap door in the floor is closed.

This excellent book demonstrates that the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" was not really an incident at all. It explains in detail the events that lead up to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and the escaltion of the war that followed. My only complaint is that the author says that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was based on a "misunderstanding" and not "knowingly faked." Even if that is true, the fact remains that it was used as a convenient excuse to escelate war. In addition, the fact that there was no effort on the part of the government to determine the facts behind the Tonkin incident demonstrates that the government wanted war, and were just looking for the right excuse.

Pour l'Occident, la Chine qui a constitué depuis plusieurs siècles à la fois un spectacle et un spectre. Alors que pour la Chine, c'est l'Occident qui l'a menacée, envahie, et contrainte à changer ses modes de vie. Pendant plus d'un siècle la société et la culture chinoises ont dû faire face aux pratiques et aux mentalités de la modernité occidentale et le métissage socioculturel y a été imposé par le colonialisme. En Occident, en choisissant d'oublier cette histoire, on exige aussi que la Chine reste « authentique » et « exotique », source de philosophies apaisantes et passives pour assouvir nos âmes troublées.

Que cet ouvrage cible les pratiques lyriques n'est pas un choix aléatoire, car si c'est le roman qui a narré et négocié notre modernité, c'est bien la poésie, quand ses pratiquants ne se sont pas laissés séduire par les politiciens, qui l'a contesté.

Dans ce livre, des contestataires lyriques célèbres, tels que Benjamin Péret côtoient des poètes chinois « dissidents » tels que Duoduo et Bei Dao, et des penseurs d'avant-garde tels Guy Debord et Raoul Vaneigem, sont associes à des chanteurs d'Occitanie, à des troubadours des Chinatowns, ou encore aux pionniers du rock et roll pékinois. La mobilisation de ces diverses formes de pensée exprime toute la puissance que représente l'arme de la critique intellectuelle et poétique.

Dans les combats de civilisation qui se jouent aujourd'hui autours des formes de la mondialisation n'oublions pas le monde rêvé par les penseurs poétiques qui en imaginent aussi l'avenir.
PS Ce livre est disponible en français : La Chine et le spectre de l'Occident : Contestation poétique, modernité et métissage.
Editions Syllepse, Paris, 2002

This book attempts to promote a non-authentic, non ethnocentric, and more complex perspective on certain aspects of Chinese poetic and political culture. Its concerns, as the title suggests, are not just with the culture of making and consuming lyrics, poems and songs, but also with questions to which such practices give rise. As the sub-title ( Lyricism, Nationalism and Hybridity in China and Its Others) suggests the interest is also in `inauthentic' hybrid practices and communities - the book talks not just about mainland China, but about peripheral communities like Chinatowns and Hong Kong. Since this is a comprative work it looks at other non-national communities and cultures like that of southern France, or Occitania. Nor is the book an orthodox British or Western sinological statement on modern Chinese culture. Rather it attempts to shed light on those lyrical works that are either marginalized and occulted, or considered by conventional scholars to be literally beneath consideration. The chapters on contemporary poetry and the chapter on Chinese popular music, are attempts to do just that. Similarly the chapter on the representation of the Chinese American and the descendants of Chinese immigrants to Britain is there to tell a story of Chinese people who in a sense are no longer Chinese, and yet will always be seen and represented as such, and so at a certain level will always remain so.

Louise Edwards writing in The China Journal (July 1999) says: "This innovative volume furthers a dialogue between China studies and postcolonial and cultural studies. Using literary debate as its primary focus (popular music is also discussed in Chapter 6), the book raises questions for all disciplines of China studies, Gregory Lee also makes a timely contribution to the field of postcolonial studies...Troubadours, Trumpeters, Troubled Makers makes a valuable contribution in resisting the "mixophobia" that is so prevalent in academic scholarship."

The author did a magnificent job of telling the story of a bunch of kids who were handed a tough job and went about getting that job done, even at the ultimate cost...the book will always occupy a place of honor on my bookshelf.

Jim Vesely presents an interesting treatment of the life of American aircrews and support personnel by combining operational reports, veteran naratives and some letters from his uncle Sgt Adolph 'Otsie' Malovich, who was killed-in-action while serving his country, his family and his comrades. Mr. Vesely shares his heart with the reader, explaining his search to know more about the uncle he barely knew, and what Otsie's time might have been like while he was part of the 'Burma Bridge Busters', 490th Bomb Squadron. The author beautifully highlights how this group of men, serving in one of the remotest actions of the war, performed with gallantry, dignity and dedication. A must read for anyone interested in American participation in the China-Burma-India theater!

Well written, educational, well-researched, and intensely interesting. I learned more about the war in and around India, Burma, and China from this book than from my experience in the two plus years I was in the squadron. I really appreciate that aspect. The author must have spent untold hours researching the facts and then did a splendid job of putting it all together in an interesting way. The book helps a lot in putting a time frame on some of my memories. Thanks again.