2010 Aug 26 New China Books Roundup
With bookshop shelves heavy with scores of China-related titles these days, making sense of the China book field can be daunting. Over at the History News Network, Jeffrey Wasserstrom has published a useful rundown of recent works.
Wasserstrom’s essay doesn’t contain any titles that will be unfamiliar to those who keep an eye on new China releases, but he does sort through the current trends in China book publishing and assess the relative merits of a lot of new titles.
Two works he singles out for particular praise are Jonathan Watts’ When a Billion Chinese Jump: How China Will Save Mankind—Or Destroy It and Richard McGregor’s The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers. Both authors have made recent appearances at the Beijing Bookworm to promote their books.
Many Beijingers will be familiar with Watts, who has been based in Beijing for the UK Guardian for many years. You can read our interview with him about When a Billion Chinese Jump, an in-depth look at China’s chronic environmental problems, here. McGregor’s The Party is an examination of that most opaque of Chinese institutions - and just to make things even more opaque, the Amazon page on McGregor’s title seems to be blocked, as do most articles discussing his work. You’d think they’d be flattered having a whole book dedicated to them.
Peter Hessler’s “gracefully written” Country Driving is also recommended by Wasserstrom. Although Hessler unfortunately had to cancel his appearance at this year’s Bookworm Literary Festival, you can read our interview with the former New Yorker China correspondent here.
All of these titles are available at The Bookworm, or via Amazon - though you may need a VPN to order Richard McGregor’s The Party.
You might also be interested in :
A Chat with Peter Hessler
Ah, Peter Hessler. The China writer we all know and love, and whom we're all just a little bit jealous of, because, hey, who hasn't thought, "Oh man, I just got ripped off, I should write a book!" Of course, Hessler's written not one but three books about his experiences in China, each of them setting pretty high standards for depth, insight, and humor. But that's ok, it just means the rest of us have to come up with niche angles. Like, "Oh man, I just got ripped off and had the royal rumbles at the same time!" There you go.
Peter Hessler Says Goodbye to China
When author Peter Hessler left China in 2007, it was not simply a physical relocation. The move marked an intentional change in the direction of his writing career – a career forged on his intimate portraits of a Chinese society in flux and transitioning into the new millennium. Recently Christine Laskowski spoke to Hessler to ask him whether his new book, Country Driving – A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory, really marks his farewell to the Middle Kingdom.
Art Attack: Red Gate’s 20th Anniversary, Kung Fu Flick and the Environment
Beijing’s first private contemporary art space, Red Gate Gallery, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this Saturday with the preview of their newest exhibit, “20 years: Two Generations of Artists.” It features 11 of their long-standing artists alongside their 11 picks for newer up-and-coming artists. Also this week, Jonathan Watts tells us more about China’s biggest environmental concerns. Or you can just sit there and watch a ton of movies while the world burns. (Dramatic guilt trips are the best.)
Journalists Back from Japan: Meet Them at the Bookworm
When an 8.9-magnitude earthquake sent a tsunami washing over Japan on March 11, several Beijing-based foreign correspondents headed off to cover the crisis and its aftermath, many of them ducking out of previously scheduled talks as part of the Bookworm International Literary Festival.
Now they’re back and ready to share their experiences – and footage – from their jaunts in Japan. Join freelance photographer Adam Dean and journalists Barbara Demick from the LA Times, Evan Osnos of The New Yorker and Jonathan Watts from The Guardian in a rare opportunity to hear about the situation on the ground this Thursday night, April 7 at 7.30pm at The Bookworm.
Spy Babies: Leslie T. Chang on Factory Girls and Her New Family
Leslie Chang's Factory Girls follows the lives of the young women who've left their farming villages in search of material gain and self-development in the factories of southern China. She grows especially close to two women, Min and Chunming, whose stories about black market driving licenses and unstable work situations shed light on migrant subculture in a way other China reporting has failed to do. Before Chang appears at the Bookworm Festival this week, we talked with her about her work in China, and the challenges of writing with twin babies on her arm:
