Our Books on China, Taiwan and Tibet

A select list of some of the books about China, Taiwan and Tibet and authors from these countries.

Red Roulette by Desmond Shum

Red Roulette by Desmond Shum

Red Roulette | An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China by Desmond Shum. This vivid, explosive memoir shows “how the Chinese government keeps business in line—and what happens when businesspeople overstep” (The New York Times).
Read more
China Coup by Roger Garside

China Coup by Roger Garside

China Coup | The Great Leap to Freedom by Roger Garside looks into the possibility of change within the Chinese political structure. Garside argues that under Xi Jinping's overconfident leadership, China is on a collision course with an America that is newly awakened out of complacency
Read more
Lost in the Cold War by John T. Downey, Thomas J. Christensen, and Jack Lee Downey

Lost in the Cold War by John T. Downey, Thomas J. Christensen, and Jack Lee Downey

Lost in the Cold War | The Story of Jack Downey, America’s Longest-Held POW by John T. Downey, Thomas J. Christensen, and Jack Lee Downey recounts the story of Jack Downey's time as a prisoner in Cold War China. Downey’s lively and gripping memoir—written in secret late in life—interweaves horrors and deprivation with humor and the absurdities of captivity.
Read more
Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden

Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden by Zhuqing Li

Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden | Two Sisters Separated by China's Civil War by Zhuqing Li tells the story of the harrowing lives of two sisters, the author's aunts, in twentieth-century China. In this riveting and deeply personal account, Li confronts the bitter political rivals of mainland China and Taiwan with elegance and unique insight, while celebrating her aunts’ remarkable legacies.
Read more
Indelible City: Dispossession And Defiance In Hong Kong By Louisa Lim

Indelible City by Louisa Lim

Indelible City | Dispossession And Defiance In Hong Kong By Louisa Lim is rich with the history of Hong Kong. An award-winning journalist and longtime Hong Konger, Lim, indelibly captures the place, its people, and the untold history they are claiming, just as it is being erased.
Read more
Wuhan: Dokumentarroman

Wuhan: Dokumentarroman by Liao Yiwu (published in German)

Wuhan: Dokumentarroman by Liao Yiwu (published in German) | Wuhan: The Documentary Novel is a fascinating novel which delves into what really happened in Wuhan.
Read more
The Cowshed by Ji Xianlin

The Cowshed by Ji Xianlin

The Cowshed | Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution by Ji Xianlin recounts the authors imprisonment and struggle during the Cultural Revolution in China. The book is the author's harrowing account of his imprisonment in 1968 on the campus of Peking University and his subsequent disillusionment with the cult of Mao.
Read more
The Secret Listener: An Ingenue in Mao's Court by Yuan-tsung Chen

The Secret Listener by Yuan-tsung Chen

The Secret Listener | An Ingenue in Mao's Court by Yuan-tsung Chen shares the experiences of the author's life in China under Mao's regime. It is a personal account of life in the orbit of Mao and Zhao En-Lai and one woman's effort to tell what it was like to be at the center of the storm.
Read more
When the Iron Bird Flies by Jianglin Li

When the Iron Bird Flies by Jianglin Li

When the Iron Bird Flies | China's Secret War in Tibet by Jianglin Li tells the untold story of China's military operations in Tibet. The book breaks this decades long silence to reveal for the first time a comprehensive and explosive picture of the six years that would prove definitive in modern Tibetan and Chinese history.
Read more
Selected Poems by Ai Qing

Selected Poems by Ai Qing

Selected Poems by Ai Qing is a treasure of Chinese poetry.  It is an extraordinary collection that traces the powerful inner life of this influential poet who crafted poems of protest, who longed for a newer, happier age, and who wrote with a profound lyricism that reaches deep into the heart of the reader.
Read more
1000 Years of Joy and Sorrow by Al Wei Wei

A Thousand Years of Joys and Sorrows by Ai Weiwei

A Thousand Years of Joys and Sorrows: A Memoir, written by Ai Weiwei, was published on November 2, 2021. The book chronicles Ai Weiwei’s early years and the myriad forces that have shaped modern China. Recounting the memories of Weiwei’s childhood spent in exile with his father, poet Ai Qing, who Mao Zedong branded a “rightist intellectual” for his critical view of the government.
Read more
Engaging China by Anne F. Thurston

Engaging China edited by Anne F. Thurston

Engaging China | Fifty Years of Sino-American Relations by Anne F. Thurston explores the importance of the relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China which has only grown since Richard Nixon’s epochal visit in 1972. By the early twenty-first century, when the rise of China had become an inescapable fact, most American policy makers and experts saw bilateral ties with China as the most consequential foreign-relations priority for the United States.
Read more