Xinran's Top Book Recommendations

XinranYes. I normally only read non-fiction books but, as you can see, this novel is exceptional like A Good Earth by Pearl S Buck. It is all about family life in a Chinese village before and after the 1949 revolution. These are ordinary people and the book looks at how they survive this very difficult period in Chinese history. This was the time of endless political war between 1940s to 1980s. (Source)

Chris KutarnaIt’s a story of the personal experience of the chaos of revolutionary political and economic change in China. (Source)

XinranYes. There is a story in there which I particularly like, ‘A Letter to My Father’. In it he writes about what life was really like in the countryside from 1960 to 1980. I really admire his writing because he hardly uses adjectives and adverbs but he uses verbs perfectly. He paints amazing pictures through his descriptions. Reading his stories is like watching a film. His book for me is like a... (Source)

XinranYes. He was the first professor to teach foreigners in English so he wrote this book to give his students a better understanding of what the Chinese people are like. It was published in 1915 and it talks about the soul of Chinese culture. He explains why Chinese people respect old people and food. So, for example, for Chinese people part of the social order is that you never challenge your... (Source)

XinranThis book is believed by many to be the greatest Chinese novel ever written. (Source)

Chris LivaccariLike Lu Xun for the modern literary tradition, if you ask scholars – or most people in China – for the greatest novel in the classical tradition, there are generally four novels of the Ming and Qing that are venerated. This is the most recent. It’s a very long and complex novel, and hard to summarise. For me, in the literary tradition of the whole world, this book along with two others – The Tale... (Source)

Africa MentorThe book that helped an entrepreneur’s move to Hong Kong  South China Morning Post Published in 1935, Lin Yutang's My Country and My People is still relevant today, says Hungarian Tony Verb, and provides great in... https://t.co/OEp8ATai0Q via @theafricamentor #africa #africabiz https://t.co/cYLZDQRHdx (Source)

XinranHe wrote it during the 1930s, although he is looking at what happened in China after the Opium Wars of the 19th century. A lot of people were trying to understand what was going on in China so Yutang wrote the book to explain. For many people it became the standard text to read on the subject if you wanted to understand the key characteristics of Chinese people and China’s history. He wanted to... (Source)