This page is Recommended Reading for China Information. You’ll find lots of good reading on China. Some books you may want to read in preparation for your China adventure. Other books you may want to take with you, especially for the lengthy Yangtze River cruise, flights between cities, and evenings in your hotel room.

If you enjoy history, politics, and society, you should read Jung Chang’s Wild Swans; Nien Cheng’s Life and Death in Shanghai; Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China; Arnold Brackman’s The Last Emperor; Sterling Seagrave’s Soong Dynasty; Zhisui Li’s The Private Life of Chairman Mao; Harrison Salisbury’s The New Emperors; Jonathan Spence’s The Search For Modern China; Witold Rodzinsky’s The Walled Kingdom; Jacques Gernet’s A History of Chinese Civilisation; Orville Schell’s Discos and DemocraLy; John King Fairbank’s The Great Chinese Revolution 1800-1986; Lu Xun’s The True Sto0l of AhQ; and the classics Journey to the West and Romance of Three Kingdoms.

If you’re looking for interesting travel writing and novels related to China, both fiction and nonfiction, we recommend any of Pearl S. Buck’s books on China, especially The Good Earth, Children of the Pearl, and Pavilion of Women; Gu Hua’s A Small Town Called Hibiscus; Tsao Hsueh-Chin’s The Dream of the Red Chamber; Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife; James Clavell’s Taipan and Noble House; Peter Jenkins’Across China; Paul Theroux’s Riding the Iron Rooster; Colin Thubron’s Behind the Wall; and Mark Salzman’s Iron and Silk.