开卷有益: Always a good time for books!
Wow it’s summer!! But no classes also sometimes means you kind of fall off the language wagon :/ a nice way to maintain momentum but not get too brain fried is to read works in translation, or works about china/the sinosphere. This can help remind you why you started learning or just kind of fill out fun background knowledge and maybe pick up a few things. a mish mash selection (mostly amazon links but then you have the isbn for your library or pdfing or w/e):
Free online
Paper Republic focuses on Chinese translations, Asymptote Journal is also wonderful and has work from not only Mandarin but Cantonese, Uyghur, and more!
The Four Classic Novels
You don’t need to read these, straight up it’s ok. That said, they are referenced a lot and work their way into things, and for the most part are just fun stories. Most have multiple translations, I’m linking to one but feel free to poke around
Dream of The Red Chamber (Story of the Stone)
Journey to the West (or abridged ver, or really, this is what Dragonball is based on)
Romance of the Three Kingdoms (also a tv version from 2010 on youtube)
More Fiction
There is no real logic to this selection ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Legends of the Condor Heroes - very popular wuxia novels
Lu Xun - A Madman’s Diary, etc. A founding story in the vernacularization movement. It’s possible to find bilingual copies of much of his work, but because he was a pioneer in the early not-Classical Chinese writing movement (白话) his writing is not what is now considered “standard Mandarin.” It’s decently easy to read, but maybe don’t learn grammar from it (another: 孔乙己)
Chronicle of a Blood Merchant - Yu Hua
Beijing Comrades - gay and graphic in moments, so originally published anonymously online
Notes of a Crocodile - Qiu Miaojin, a “cult classic”
The Chilli Bean Paste Clan - Yan Ge
Frontier - Can Xue (she has also written short stories)
Running Through Beijing - Xu Zechen
Red Peonies: Two Novellas of China - Zhang Yihe has written quite a few stories about women from her time in prison during the Cultural Revolution, and while censored in China they are popular elsewhere. (careful tho some have only been translated into French so far but might look like English titles)
The Tibetan Suitcase - I was actually trying to remember the name of a different book, but also this looks good too
Love in a Fallen City - Eileen Chang
Cantonese Love Stories - Dung Kai-Cheung (more city romantic than people)
The Wandering Earth - Liu Cixin. (havn’t seen the movie but it is on netflix) I really enjoyed the Three Body Problem series, especially the first one as it actually starts a bit in the past, but if you’re not sure about scifi his stories are a good place to start and I think are a sort of look at some Chinese approaches to tech that vary from the “colonialism in space” style of a lot of Western scifi.
There are also lots of anthologies out there (boo).
Anthology of Modern Chinese Poetry
Words from the Fire: Poems by Jidi Majia - Jidi Majia is from the Yi minority group (which has its own alphabet!) and he incorporates elements unique to it
The Poem Behind The Poem: Translating Asian Poetry
The Private Life of Chairman Mao - written by Mao’s doctor, prof recommended this as a kind of fun/interesting read
Shanzai - Byung-Chul Han, short but a thing I think about a lot
The East is Black: Cold War China in the Black Radical Imagination
Age of Ambition - Evan Osnos. I found Osnos through this New Yorker article (long but worth it) and I think he brings both nuanced analysis (apparently difficult for some western journalists ఠ ͟ಠ) and engaging story telling
The State, Identity, and the National Question in China and Japan
Creativity Class: Art School and Cultural Work in Post-socialist China
The Birth of Chinese Feminism - Lydia Liu (I’m taking a class with her next semester I’m so excited and nervous)
The Chinese Typewriter - Thomas Mullaney. one of my favorite books, also about technology/media/info processing with great history work
Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora
Multilingualism In China - Zhou (you can tell these are kind of linguistic-y but I’ve tried to choose ones I think are approachable)
Lin Shu Inc: Translation and the Making of Modern Chinese Culture - did you know Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a big hit in China? neither did I
China’s Design Revolution - honestly this book was a mixed bag, only bother if you find it in the library or used or something
A Short History of Chinese Philosophy - bilingual! even if you plan to read Zhuangzi or something on its own I recommend some sort of contextual history help to get the most out of it (we used this in a class)
There’s so much out there but hopefully this gets you grazing in the right direction!
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