Bookworm book listing

The Bookworm recommends the following titles to Beijing Today readers.

Learning to Breathe: My Yearlong Quest to Bring Calm to My Life

By Priscilla Warner, 288pp, Free Press, $23

This is Priscilla Warner’s memoir about a daughter returning home to visit her mother, who discovers the threads of history, love and care that hold a family together. It is a universal story about voice, breath, loss, illness and the redemptive power of love.

The Spirit of Cities: Why the Identity of a City Matters in a Global Age

By Daniel A. Bell and Avner de-Shalit, 352pp, Princeton University Press, $35

This book revives the classical idea that a city expresses its own distinctive ethos or values. In this original and engaging book, the authors explore how this classical idea can be applied to today’s cities, and explain why philosophy and the social sciences need to rediscover the spirit of cities.

Iran: Persia: Ancient and Modern

By Helen Loveday, Bruce Wannell, Christoph Baumer and Bijan Omarani, 464pp, Odyssey Publications, $24.95

For more than three millennia, Iran has been a melting pot of civilizations. Under Cyrus the Great, Persia was the center of the world’s first empire, which stretched from the Mediterranean to modern-day Pakistan.

(By He Jianwei)

Bookworm book listing

The Bookworm recommends the following titles to Beijing Today readers.

Ragnarok: The End of the Gods

By A. S. Byatt, 177pp, Canongate Books, $17.85

During World War II, Antonia Byatt was given a book of Norse myths by her father. She read it and reread it, but there was one myth she was drawn to and which has continued to hold her under its spell: Ragnarok. It foretells the death of the gods Odin, Freya and Thor, the swallowing of the sun and moon by the wolf Fenrir and the crushing of the world by the Midgard serpent as he devours his own tail. It is only after monstrous death and destruction that the world can begin anew.

Into the Silence

By Wade Davis, 672pp, Knopf, $32.5

This is a classic account of exploration and endurance. On June 6, 1924, two men set out from a camp on an ice ledge just below the lip of Mount Everest’s North Col. George Mallory, at 37, was Britain’s finest climber. Sandy Irvine was a young Oxford scholar of 22 with little previous mountaineering experience. Neither of them returned.

World and Town

By Gish Jen, 480pp, Vintage, $15.95

Hattie Kong, a retired teacher and a descendant of Confucius, has decided that it is time to start over. She moves to the peaceful New England town of Riverlake, a place that once represented the rock-solid base of American life. Instead of quietude, Kong discovers a town challenged by cell-phone towers, chain stores and struggling farms. Soon she is joined by an immigrant Cambodian family on the run, and – quite unexpectedly – Carter Hatch, a love from her past.

(By He Jianwei)

Bookworm book listing

The Bookworm recommends the following bestsellers to Beijing Today readers.

Shieldwall

By Justin Hill, 416pp, Little Brown and Company, $40.5

The year is 1016 and England burns while the Viking armies blockade the great city of London. King Ethelred lies dying and the England he knows dies with him; the warring kingdoms of Mercia, Wessex and Northymbria tremble on the brink of great change. One man lives to bear witness to the upheaval: Godwin, barely out of boyhood and destined to become one of his country’s great warriors.

Jamrach’s Menagerie

By Carol Birch, 304pp, Doubleday, $25.95

It tells the story of a 19th-century street urchin named Jaffy Brown. Following an incident with an escaped tiger, Brown goes to work for Charles Jamrach, the famed importer of exotic animals, alongside Tim, a good but sometimes spitefully competitive boy. Thus begins a long, close friendship fraught with ambiguity and rivalry. Jamrach recruits the two boys to capture a fabled dragon during the course of a three-year whaling expedition.

The Man From Beijing

By Henning Mankell, 464pp, Vintage, $14

In the far north of Sweden a small, quiet village has been almost entirely wiped out by a mass murderer. The only clue left at the scene is a red ribbon. Among the victims are the grandparents of Judge Birgitta Roslin, who sets out to find the killer. Despite being brushed off by the police, Birgitta is determined to prove that the murders were not a random act of violence but are part of something far more dark and complex.

(By He Jianwei)

Bookworm book listing

The Bookworm recommends the following bestsellers to Beijing Today readers.

Consumptionomics: Asia’s Role in Reshaping Capitalism and Saving the Planet

By Chandran Nair, 256pp, Wiley, $27.95

Consumption has been for many years the fuel that drives the engine of global capitalism. The recent financial crisis has seen leading economists and policymakers urging Asia to make a conscious effort to consume more and save the global economy. In the book, the author argues that the conventional view needs to be replaced – Asians consuming at these desired levels could decimate the environment.

Tide Players: The Movers and Shakers of a Rising China

By Zha Jianying, 224pp, New Press, $24.95

The author depicts a new generation of movers and shakers who are transforming modern China. Her vivid cast of characters includes a couple who teamed up to become the country’s leading real-estate moguls and a gifted chameleon who transformed himself from a barefoot doctor to a publishing maverick.

The Tiger’s Wife: A Novel

By Tea Obreht, 352pp, Random House, $25

This  is a story about family legend, loss and love. In a Balkan country, mending after years of conflict, the young doctor Natalia arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. She confronts a hurtful mystery – the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. After telling her grandmother that he was on his way to meet Natalia, he instead set off for a ramshackle settlement none of their family had ever heard of and died there alone.

(By He Jianwei)

Bookworm book listing

The Bookworm recommends the following bestsellers to Beijing Today readers.

Cutting for Stone

By Abraham Verghese, 667pp, Vintage, $15.95

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born out of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, the book is a story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles.

Big in China

By Alan Paul, 272pp, Harper, $25.99

Based on his award-winning Wall Street Journal Online column, “The Expat Life,” this book explores Alan Paul’s unlikely three-and-a-half-year journey of reinvention in this rapidly developing metropolis. He reveals the challenges that he and his family faced while living in a foreign land, including reaching beyond the expat community, coming to terms with his new role as a stay-at-home dad, and learning to navigate and thrive in an unfamiliar culture.

Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power

By Yan Xuetong, 312pp, Princeton University Press, $29.95

Policy advisor Yan Xuetong examines the lessons of ancient Chinese political thought for the future of China. He argues that political leadership is the key to national power and that morality is an essential part of political leadership. Providing new insights into the thinking of one of China’s leading foreign policy figures, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in China’s rise or in international relations.

(By He Jianwei)

Bookworm book listing

The Bookworm recommends the following bestsellers to Beijing Today readers.

Mockingbird

By Kathryn Erskine, 256pp, Puffin, $6.99

Caitlin has Asperger’s. Her world is black and white; anything in between is confusing. When life turns complicated, Caitlin used to go to her older brother Devon for help. Now Devon is dead, and Caitlin’s dad is too distraught to be helpful. Caitlin wants life to be simple again, but she does not know how she can make it so.

When You Reach Me

By Rebecca Stead, 208pp, Yearling, $6.99

By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend Sal know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. They know where it is safe to go and they know who to avoid. However, things start to unravel. Sal gets punched by a kid on the street for what seems like no reason and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The apartment key that Miranda’s mom keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen, and a mysterious note arrives, scrawled on a tiny slip of paper. The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows things no one should.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

By Rebecca Skloot, 400pp, Broadway, $16

Henrietta Lacks, known as HeLa by scientists, was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors. Yet her cells – taken without her knowledge – became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture are alive today, though she has been dead for more than 60 years.

(By He Jianwei)

Bookworm book listing

The Bookworm recommends the following bestsellers to Beijing Today readers.

Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

By Mo Yan, 552pp, Arcade Publishing, $29.97

Nao Ximen, a landowner known for his generosity and kindness to his peasants, is not only stripped of his land and worldly possessions in the Land Reform Movement of 1948, but is cruelly executed, despite his protestations of innocence. In Hell, the king of the underworld allows him to return to earth, where he is reborn as a donkey, then an ox, pig, dog and monkey.

The Harafish

By Nagiub Mahfouz, 416pp, Anchor, $16.95

This epic story chronicles the history of the al-Nagi family – a family that moves, over many generations, from the height of power and glory to the depths of decadence and decay. It begins with the tale of Ashur al-Nagi, a man who from humble beginnings grows to become a great leader. His descendants lose touch with their origins as they amass and then squander large fortunes, marry prostitutes when they marry at all and develop rivalries that end in death.

Big Girl Small

By Rachel DeWoskin, 304pp, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $25

With a singing voice that can shake an auditorium, Judy Lohden, a 16-year-old girl full of big dreams, should be the star of the local performing arts high school. So why is a girl this promising hiding out in a seedy motel room on the edge of town? The fact that the media is on her trail after a controversy that might bring down the whole school could have something to do with it. That scandal has something to do with the fact that she is 3 feet 9 inches (1.14 meters) tall.

(By He Jianwei)

Bookworm book listing

The Bookworm recommends the following bestsellers to Beijing Today readers.

Samplandia!

By Karen Russell, 336pp, Knopf, $24.95

The author’s debut novel tells the story of a family that owns a gator wrestling theme park. But their business is soon encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor called the World of Darkness. The heroine Ava Bigtree’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, has just died; her brother, who dreams of becoming a scholar, has defected to the World of Darkness in a last-ditch effort to keep their business from going under. Ava is left alone to manage 98 gators.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

By Charles Yu, 256pp, Vintage, $14.95

Every day in Minor Universe 31 people get into time machines and try to change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician, steps in. He helps save people from themselves. When he is not taking client calls, Yu visits his mother and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. The key to locating his father may be found in a book.

Please Look After Mom

By Kyung-sook Shin, 256pp, Knopf, $24.95

On a family visit to the city, Mom is right behind her husband when the train pulls out of Seoul Station without her and she is lost, possibly forever. As her children argue over how to find her and her husband returns to their countryside home to wait for her, they each recall their lives with her, their memories often more surprising than comforting.

(By He Jianwei)

Bookworm book listing

The Bookworm recommends the following bestsellers to Beijing Today readers.

Visit from the Goon Squad

By Jennifer Egan, 352pp, Anchor, $14.95

Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Jennifer Egan reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect.

The Good Book: A Humanist Bible

By A. C. Grayling, 608pp, Walker & Company, $35

Organized in 12 main sections – Genesis, Histories, Widsom, The Sages, Parables, Consolations, Lamentations, Proverbs, Songs, Epistles, Acts, and the Good – The Good Book opens with meditations on the origin and progress of the world and human life, then devotes attention to the question of how life should be lived, how we relate to one another and how vicissitudes are to be faced and joys appreciated.

Great House: A Novel

By Nicole Krauss, 289pp, W. W. Norton & Company, $24.95

For 25 years, a reclusive American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young Chilean poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochet’s secret police; one day a girl claiming to be the poet’s daughter arrives to take it away, sending the writer’s life reeling. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers, among her papers, a lock of hair that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer slowly reassembles his father’s study, plundered by the Nazis in Budapest in 1944.

(By He Jianwei)

Bookworm book listing

The Bookworm recommends the following bestsellers to Beijing Today readers.

Decadence Mandchoue: The China Memoirs of Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse

Edited by Derek Sandhaus, 336pp, Earnshaw Books, $39.99

In 1898 a young Englishman walked into a homosexual brothel in Beijing and began a journey that he claims took him all the way to the bedchamber of imperial China’s last great ruler, the Empress Dowager Cixi. Published for the first time, the controversial memoirs of Sinologist Sir Edmund Backhouse provide a unique and shocking glimpse into the hidden world of China’s imperial palace, with its rampant corruption, grand conspiracies and uninhibited sexuality.

Life

By Keith Richards, 576pp, Back Bay Books, $16.99

This autobiography is about the guitarist, songwriter, singer and founding member of the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards, who tells his story of life in the crossfire hurricane: listening obsessively to Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records, learning guitar and forming a band with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones, the Rolling Stones’ first fame and the notorious drug busts that led to his enduring image as an outlaw folk hero.

The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832-1914

By Robert Bickers, 512pp, Penguin Global, $45

In the early 19th century, China remained almost untouched by Britain and other European powers – ferocious laws forbade all foreign trade outside one tiny area of Canton and anyone teaching a European to speak Chinese was executed. New technology began to unbalance this relationship and foreigners gathered like wolves around the weakening Qing Empire.

(By He Jianwei)