The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. FIC BUC
This modern classic and Pulitzer Prize winner chronicles peasant Wang Lung’s rise to wealth and descent into tragedy in pre-revolutionary, pre-industrial China.

Sons of Heaven: A Novel by Terrence Cheng, FIC CHE
Combining history and fiction, the author creates the story of Xiao-Di, the man who stopped the tanks at Tiananmen Square in June of 1989.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie Dai. FIC DAI
Two youths whose fathers are doctors are sent to the country to be “re-educated” during the Cultural Revolution, and encounter unexpected opportunities.

Heaven Lake: A Novel by John Dalton. FIC DAL
This book is a revealing, and yet comic, exploration of modern Taiwan seen through the eyes of a missionary from the United States.

Soul Mountain by Xingjian Gao. FIC GAO
This Nobel Prize-winning novel narrates the author’s journey, both real and imagined, through remote parts of China.

One Man’s Bible: A Novel by Xingjian Gao. FIC GAO
At once shocking and frank, this novel depicts a fictionalized account of the author’s life under the communist regime in China.

Waiting by Ha Jin. FIC JIN
Lin Kong, a military doctor in China in the 1960s, struggles to do his duty as dictated by the traditional China of his parents, and to find happiness in the communist culture of the new China. National Book Award winner for 1999.

The Crazed by Ha Jin. FIC JIN
Jian Wan, a student in post-Tiananmen-Square-massacre Beijing, is assigned to care for an ill professor and finds that his whole life is significantly altered.

Spring Moon by Bette Bao Lord. FIC LOR
Spring Moon, cherished daughter of a prominent Mandarin family, is born into the old order in China at the end of the 19th century, and must grow into the new order in modern China.

Middle Heart by Bette Bao Lord. FIC LOR
The lives of three children who forge a life-long bond of friendship and love are intertwined with the history of profound change in China from 1932 to the 1980s.

Becoming Madame Mao by Anchee Min. FIC MIN
This fictionalized biography uses facts of history and psychological imaginings to disclose the character of the instigator of the Cultural Revolution.

Wild Ginger by Anchee Min. FIC MIN
Drawing from her own experiences during the Cultural Revolution, the author creates a love story of young people in the late 1960s in Shanghai.

Empress Orchid by Anchee Min. FIC MIN
Inside the Forbidden City during the last part of the 19th century, Tsu Hsi, fourth wife of Emperor Hsien Feng, struggles to establish her place and protect her son in the face of palace intrigue and waning imperial power.

The Garlic Ballads by Yan Mo. FIC MO
This critically-acclaimed author depicts the pain and hardship of the Chinese peasants during the reforms of 1978-1989.

Lost in Translation by Nicole Mones. FIC MON
Exile Alice Mannegan, who works as a translator for English-speakers traveling in China, is assigned to translate for an American archaeologist on the trail of Peking man.

David Rotenberg,
The Shanghai Murders MYS ROT
The Lake Ching Murders MYS ROT
This mystery series features Zong Fong, a young, ambitious homicide detective, who must continually prove his abilities in contemporary Shanghai.

Lisa  See,
Flower Net FIC SEE
The Interior FIC SEE
Dragon Bones FIC SEE
In this mystery/thriller series, Chinese police inspector Liu Hulan and American attorney David Stark combine talents to pursue suspects and solve mysteries in modern-day China.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. FIC TAN
Four mothers, born in China, and their four grown daughters, born in the U.S., come to a better understanding of the bonds between them.

The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan. FIC TAN
In a semi-autobiographical novel of a Chinese-American woman, the author reveals her search into the past of her Chinese-immigrant mother.

The Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama. FIC TSU
Rural China and the silk industry are vividly portrayed in this story of Pei, who is sent to the factory at a young age by destitute parents and is drawn into the life of the silk workers' sisterhood.

Night of Many Dreams by Gail Tsukiyama. FIC TSU
Spanning the years from 1940 to 1965, this novel tells of one privileged Hong Kong family as they flee from the Japanese and return after World War II.

The Language of the Threads by Gail Tsukiyama. FIC TSU
This sequel to The Women of the Silk picks up the story of silk-worker Pei as she flees before the advancing Japanese in 1938 and makes a new life in Hong Kong.

The Lily Theater by Lulu Wang. FIC WAN
In this international bestseller, 12-year-old Lian Yang is sent to re-education camp with her professor mother, and re-educated in unexpected ways.

Nanjing 1937: A Love Story by Zhaoyan Ye. FIC YE
This best-selling Chinese author fashions an unlikely love story against the backdrop of the Japanese invasion of Nanjing before World War II.