What's on Your Bookshelf? Meg Maggio of Pekin Fine Arts
Meg Maggio
Director, Pékin Fine Arts
The book on my shelf with the most sentimental value is my Chinese-English dictionary: a big hardback one I bought at Xinhua Bookstore on Wangfujing. I’ve relied on it since 1986.
Another sentimental one is The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus, the English translation of the work of Jean-Denis Bredin. It was a gift from an ex.
The book I pretend to have read is The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus, the English translation of the work of Jean-Denis Bredin.
The bookshelf in Beijing I’d most like a peek at is Ambassador Jon Huntsman’s.
If you only ever read one book about China, make it any and all books on the Long March, and Ambassador James Lilley’s book, China Hands.
My three all-time favorite books? Rabbit Run by John Updike, all books by Phillip Roth, any of the writings of Joseph Brodsky, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
My favorite books from childhood are Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. And the poems of Emily Dickinson.
The last book I read? I read several simultaneously: An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin, Your Republic is Calling You by Kim Young-Ha, You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier and Off The Wall: Robert Rauschenberg and the Art World of Our Time by Calvin Tomkins.
A book that changed my life is Ulysses by James Joyce.
The characters in a book I’d like to meet are anyone in a novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
The book I wish I hadn’t read is Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster Daughter by Shoko Tendo.
Have I ever judged a book by its cover? Sure, many times – I love good book cover design.
The book I’d like to see adapted as a film is Your Republic is Calling You by Kim Young-Ha.
Fiction or non-fiction? Both. Why choose?
The book I’ll bring on my next travels is Losing Mom and Pup by Christopher Buckley.
My favorite line from a book is a Sicilian proverb: “Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.”
Pékin Fine Arts’ exhibit “You Are Not A Gadget” will be on display until Apr 18.
