light_reading

This list is posted for those interested in East Asia looking for good summer reading. What follows is a list of novels, biographies, and works of history concerning East Asia that I think qualify as light reading. (By "light" history I mean works that tend to be more descriptive than analytical, although that is not the case in all of the works cited below.)

The list is divided by country, era, and type—that is to say, you will find (1) novels, biographies, autobiographies, and "group" biographies listed by society and whether they are (a) premodern or (b) modern in nature, and (2) works of history in a separate section. There is also a "General" section for anthologies including works from all of East Asia as well as a "Related" section that lists texts from world history that I feel are useful to understand the societies of East Asia and their histories. The sections are arranged as follows:

General

China

Japan

Korea

Vietnam

Related (though some are not exactly light)

Provocative Readings on Current Global Issues (new page)

Library call numbers are provided for those materials available at Saint Mary's Patrick Power Library and Dalhousie's Killam Memorial Library, as well as occasionally for some materials held at the libraries at Mount Saint Vincent University or King's College. Note that call numbers are not listed for materials held at other libraries in the province, even though they may be there. Note also that these listings are subject to change. Check Novanet for other locations and to see if particular titles are available.

Please feel free to add your recommendations to the list or to contact me to discuss any of the following at: Bill.Sewell@smu.ca.

1. General

Dorothy Blair Shimer, ed., The Mentor Book of Modern Asian Literature from the Khyber Pass to Fuji, New York: New American Library, 1969 (UCCB: PJ 409 S55)

Dorothy Blair Shimer, ed., Rice Bowl Women: Writings by and about the Women of China and Japan, New York: New American Library, 1982 (SMU: PL 2658 E8 R52 1982)

2. China

premodern

Cyril Birch, Anthology of Chinese Literature, New York: Grove Press, 1967-72 (SMU: PL 2658 E1 B5 1967 v.1-2)

Robert Hans van Gulik (1910-1967), (any of the Judge Dee mysteries)

LO Kuan-chung (c 1330 - c 1400), Three Kingdoms: China's Epic Drama, New York: Pantheon Books, 1976 (DAL KIL: PL 2690 S3 E53 1976) [Chinese title: Sanguo zhi, Sanguo yanyi/Sankuo chi, Sankuo yen'i]

P‘U Sung-ling (1640 - 1715), Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1916 (SMU: PL 2998 P7 L4 1916)

SHEN Fu (c 1763 - 1808), Six Records of a Floating Life, Harmondsworth, Middlesex & Markham, Ont: Penguin Books, 1983 (SMU: PL 2724 H4 F413 1983)

SHIH Nai-an (c 13th century), Water Margin, New York: Paragon, 1968; also published as All Men are Brothers, New York: Day, 1968 (1937) (SMU: PL 2694 S5 E52 1968 v 1-2); also published as Outlaws of the Marsh, Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1980 (SMU: PL 2694 S5 E5 1980 v 1-3) [Chinese title: Shuihu]

Jonathan D. Spence, Ts‘ao Yin and the K‘ang-hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966 (SMU & DAL KIL: DS 754.4 T72 S66 1966)

Jonathan D. Spence, Emperor of China: Self Portrait of K‘ang Hsi, New York: Knopf, 1974 (SMU: DS 754.4 C53 A33 1974)

Jonathan D. Spence, The Death of Woman Wang, New York: Viking Press, 1978 (SMU & DAL KIL: HQ 1767 S63 1978)

Jonathan D. Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, New York: Viking Penguin, 1984 (DAL KIL: BV 3427 R46 S66 1984)

Jonathan D. Spence, The Question of Hu, New York: Knopf, 1988 (SMU: BX 4668 H82 S66)

T‘ANG, Msien-tsu (1550-1616), The Peony Pavilion, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980 (SMU: PL 2695 M8 E5)

Shih-Shan Henry TSAI, The Eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995

Shih Shan Henry TSAI, Perpetual Happiness: The Ming Emperor Yongle, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001

TS'AO Hsüeh-ch‘in (ca. 1717-1763), The Story of the Stone: A Chinese Novel in Five Volumes, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973-1980 (SMU: PL 2727 S2 S76 v.1-2); also published as TS'AO Hsüeh-ch‘in, Dream of the Red Chamber, Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1958 (abridged) (SMU & MSVU: PL 2998 T7 H812 1958); also published as TS'AO Hsüeh-ch‘in, A Dream of Red Mansions, Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 1996 (Chinese title: Hongloumeng/Hungloumeng)

WU Ch'eng-en, Monkey: Folk Novel of China, New York: Grove Press, 1970 (1943); also published as Journey to the West, Peking: Foreign Language Press (various dates); also published as Monkey: A Journey to the West, New York: Random House (2000); also published under various titles for juvenile readers (Chinese title: Xiyouji/Hsiyuchi]

modern

Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth, New York: Day, 1965 (1949) (SMU: PS 3503 U198 G6 1965)

Jung CHANG, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, New York: Anchor Books, 1992 (SMU: CT 1828 C478 A3 1992 & DAL KIL: DS 774 C3718 1991)

CHEN Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, and Other Stories from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978 (SMU: PL 2840 J6Y513 & DAL KIL: PL 2840 J6 E95)

Nien CHENG, Life and Death in Shanghai, New York: Grove Press, 1986/1987 (DAL KIL: DS 778.7 C445 )

GAO Xingjian, Soul Mountain, New York: Harper Collins, 2000 (1990) (2000 Nobel Prize for Literature)

GAO Xingjian, One Man's Bible, New York: Harper Collins, 2002 (1999) (2000 Nobel Prize for Literature)

LIANG Heng and Judith Shapiro, Son of the Revolution, New York: Knopf, 1983 (SMU: DS 778 L4534 A37 1983)

LU Hsün (1881-1936), The True Story of Ah Q, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1972 (SMU: PL 3000 C5 T7 1972)

LU Hsün (1881-1936), Ah Q and Others: Selected Stories, New York: Columbia University Press, 1941 (SMU: PL 832.5 L82)

Andre Malraux, Man's Fate (La condition humaine), New York: Vintage, 1969 (SMU: PQ 2625 A716 C52 1969)

Anchee MIN, Red Azalea, New York: Pantheon, 1994 (MSVU: DS 778.7 M56 1994)

NING Lao T'ai-t'ai, A Daughter of Han: The Autobiography of a Chinese Working Woman, Stanford: Stanford University Press 1967 (1945) (SMU & DAL KIL: CT 1828 N5 A3 1967)

PA Chin (BA Jin), Family, Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1972 (DAL KIL: PL 2780 F4 F3)

Jonathan D. Spence, Mao Zedong, New York: Viking, 1999 (KINGS: DS 778 M3 S685 1999)

MAO Tun (Dun), Rainbow, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992 (SMU: PL 2801 N2 H813)

MAO Tun (Dun), Midnight, Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1979; also published by Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2000

Jan WONG, Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now, Toronto: Doubleday, 1996 (SMU& KINGS: DS 779.2 W5 1996)

YE Ting-xing, A Leaf in the Bitter Wind: A Memoir, Toronto: Doubleday, 1997

ZHANG Xinxin (CHANG Hsin-hsin), Chinese Lives: An Oral History of Contemporary China, New York: Pantheon, 1987 (SMU: DS 777.55 Z45 1987)

history

recommended general "light" text: Patricia Buckley Ebrey, The Cambridge Illustrated History of China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996 (SMU: DS 706 E37 1996)

Hsin-pao CHANG, Commissioner Lin and the Opium War, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964 (SMU & DAL KIL: DS 757.5 C45)

Peter Ward Fay, The Opium War, 1840-1842: Barbarians in the Celestial Empire in the Early Part of the Nineteenth Century and the War by hich they Forced her Gates Ajar, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975 (SMU: DS 757.5 F39)

Jacques Gernet, Daily Life in China On the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276, London: Allen & Unwin, 1962 (SMU: DS 721 G413 1962)

HAN Suyin, (many books available on Novanet)

Ray Huang, 1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981 (SMU: DS 753 H798)

Philip A. Kuhn, Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990 (SMU: JQ 1508 K84)

Edward Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T'ang Exotics, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963 (DAL KIL: HF 408 S3)

Jonathan D. Spence, To Change China: Western Advisers in China, 1620-1960, Boston: Little & Brown, 1969 (SMU & DAL KIL: DS 740.4 S62)

Jonathan D. Spence, The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895-1980, New York: Viking Press, 1981 (SMU & DAL KIL: DS 774 S59 1981)

Jonathan D. Spence, God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan, New York: W.W. Norton, 1996 (SMU: DS 758.23 H85 S64 1996)

Barbara Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945, New York: Macmillan, 1970 (SMU: E 745 S68 T8 1971 1971)

Frederic E. Wakeman, Strangers at the Gate: Social Disorder in South China, 1839-1861, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966 (DAL KIL: DS 793 K7 W3)

Arthur Waldron, The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990 [SMU: DS 793 G67 W25 1990]

Joanna Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History, New York: Norton, 1999

Sally Hovey Wriggins, Xuanzang: A Buddhist Pilgrim on the Silk Road, Boulder: Westview Press, 1998

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3. Japan

premodern

Lafcadio Hearn, Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo: Tuttle, 1971 (originally 1904)

IHARA Saikaku, The Life of an Amorous Woman, New York: New Directions, 1963

KATSU Kokichi, Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988

Donald Keene, Anthology of Japanese Literature, New York: Grove Press, 1955-1956 (SMU, DALKIL, MSVU, NSCAD, STFX: PL 882 K4 1955 v. 1-2)

MURASAKI Shikibu, The Tale of Genji, New York: Knopf, 1989 (unabridged: 1090 pp.)

MURASAKI Shikibu, The Tale of Genji, New York: Vintage, 1990 (abridged: 360 pp.)

Sei SHONAGON, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, New York: Penguin, 1967

Philipp Franz von Siebold, Manners and Customs of the Japanese in the Nineteenth Century, Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo: Tuttle, 1973 (originally 1841) (SMU: DS 809 M28 1973)

The Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike, Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo: Tuttle, 1972

modern

Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories, New York and Toronto: Penguin, 2006 (DALKIL, STFX: PL 801 K8 2006)
Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Cogwheel and Other Stories, Oakville, Ont.: Mosaic, 1982 (DALKIL, NSCC: PL 801 K8 A25)
Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Hell Screen and Other Stories, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1971 (DALKIL: PN 801 K8 J513)
Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Kappa: A Novel, London: Owen, 1970 (SMU: PL 801 K8 K313 1970)
Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Exotic Japanese Stories, New York: Livelight, 1964 (DALKIL: PN 801 K8 E9)
Sawako ARYIYOSHI, The River Ki, New York and Tokyo: Kodansha, 1980
Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha: A Novel, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997 (SMU: PS 3557 O35926 M45 1997)

Masuji IBUSE, Black Rain, Tokyo: Kodansha, 1969 (SMU: PL 830 B8 K813 1979)

Yasunari KAWABATA, Snow Country, New York: Knopf, 1956 (SMU: PL 832 A9 Y813 1969)

Morio KITA, The House of Nire, Great Britain: Fontana and Kodansha, 1990

Saiichi MARUYA, Singular Rebellion, New York and Tokyo: Kodansha, 1972

Haruki MURAKAMI, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, London: Harvill Secker, 2006 (DALKIL: PL 856 U673 A23 2006)
Haruki MURAKAMI, Kafka on the Shore, New York: Knopf, 2005 (MSVU: PL 856 U673 U4813 2005)
Haruki MURAKAMI, After the Quake: Stories, New York: Knopf, 2002 (SMU, DALKIL: PL 856 U673 K36 2002)
Haruki MURAKAMI, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, New York: Vintage, 1998 (SMU: PL 856 U673 N4513 1998)

NAGATSUKA Takashi, The Soil: A Portrait of Rural Life in Meiji Japan, New York: Routledge, 1989

Junichi SAGA, Memories of Silk and Straw: A Self-Portrait of Small-Town Japan, New York and Tokyo: Kodansha, 1987

SHIGA Naoya, The Paper Door and Other Stories, San Francisco: North Point Press, 1987

Natsume SOSEKI, Kokoro, Chicago: Gateway, 1957

TANIZAKI Jun'ichiro (1886-1965), The Key, Tokyo: Tuttle, 1971

TANIZAKI Jun'ichiro (1886-1965), The Makioka Sisters, New York: Knopf, 1957 (SMU: PL 839 A7 S313)

TANIZAKI Jun'ichiro (1886-1965), Naomi, Tokyo: Tuttle, 1985

TANIZAKI Jun'ichiro (1886-1965), Some Prefer Nettles, New York: Vintage, 1995

TOKUTOMI Kenjiro (1868-1927), Footprints in the Snow: A Novel of Meiji Japan, New York: Pegasus, 1970 (SMU: PL 817 O4 O43 1970)

history

recommended general "light" text: Martin Collcutt et al., Cultural Atlas of Japan, New York: Facts on File, 1988 (DAL KIL: DS 821 C62 1988)

Mikiso HANE, Peasants, Rebels, and Outcastes: The Underside of Modern Japan, New York: Pantheon, 1982 (DAL KIL, MSVU, SMU: HN 723 H36 1982)

Mikiso HANE, Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan, Berkeley: University of California Press & Pantheon Books, 1989 (SMU: HN 726 R44 1989)

Masao MIYOSHI, As We Saw Them: The First Japanese Embassy to the United States, New York, Tokyo, London: Kodansha, 1994 (DAL KIL: E 183.8 J3 M57)

Ivan Morris, The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975 (SMU: DS 834 M64)

Haruki MURAKAMI, Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche, New York: Vintage, 2000

Noel Perrin, Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879, Boston: D. R. Godine, 1979 (DAL KIL: DS 868.2 P47)

Oliver Statler, Japanese Inn, New York: Random, 1961 (SMU: DS 897 O4 S7)

Oliver Statler, Shimoda Story, New York: Random, 1969 (DAL KIL: E 183.8 J3 S7)

Oliver Statler, Japanese Pilgrimage, New York: Morrow, 1983 (SMU: BQ 6450 J32 S48674 1983)

Peter Booth Wiley, Yankees in the Land of the Gods: Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan, New York: Penguin, 1990

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4. Korea

premodern

Korean Classical Literature: An Anthology, London: Kegan Paul International, 1989 (SMU: PL 984 E1 K67 1989)

Moo-Sook HAN, Encounter: A Novel of Nineteenth-Century Korea, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992 (SMU: SMU PL 992.26 M8 M3613 1992)

Hyegyonggung Hong Ssi (1735-1815), Memoirs of a Korean Queen, London: Kegan Paul International, 1985 (SMU: DS 913.392 H94 A3 1985)

KIM Dong-ni, The Shaman Sorceress, London: Kegan Paul International, 1989 (SMU: PL 992.415 T74 U713 1989)

modern

Choong Soon KIM, A Korean Nationalist Entrepreneur: A Life History of Kim Songsu, 1891-1955, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998

KAJIYAMA Toshiyuki (1930-1975), The Clan Records: Five Stories of Korea, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995

Richard KIM, Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood, New York: Praeger, 1970 (DAL KIL: PS 3561 I415 Z5)

Lee, Peter H., ed., Flowers of Fire: Twentieth-century Korean Stories, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986 (revised)

Kyong-Ni PAK, Land: A Novel by Park Kyong-Ni Pak, London: Kegan Paul, 1996

history

recommended general "light" text: James Hoare and Susan Pares, Korea: An Introduction, London: Kegan Paul International, 1988 (SMU: DS 907.18 H63 1988)

Bruce Cumings, Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History, New York: Norton, 1997 (SMU & DAL KIL: DS 917 C86 1997)

Carter Eckert, et al, Korea, Old and New: A History, Seoul, Korea & Cambridge, Mass.: Ilchokak and Harvard University Press, 1990 (DAL KIL: DS 907.18 K64 1990)

Carter Eckert, Offspring of Empire: The Koch'ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, 1876-1945, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991 (SMU: HC 466.5 A2 E25 1991)

Donald Stone MacDonald, The Koreans: Contemporary Politics and Society, Boulder: Westview Press, 1996 (third edition)

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5. Vietnam

premodern

NGUYEN Du, The Tale of Kieu, New York, Vintage Books, 1973; also published by New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983

modern

BAO Ninh, The Sorrow of War, London: Secker & Warburg, 1993

DUONG Thu Huong, Paradise of the Blind, New York: William Morrow & Co, 1993/New York: Penguin, 1994

DUONG Thu Huong, Novel Without a Name, New York: William Morrow & Co, 1995 (DAL KIL: PL 4378.9 D759 T5413)/New York: Penguin, 1996

DUONG Van Mai Elliott, The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000

Le Ly Hayslip, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace, New York: Doubleday, 1989 (SMU, DALKIL, MSVU: DS 556.93 H39 A3 1990/2003)

LE Lu, A Time Far Past, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997

THU Hng Dng, Memories of a Pure Spring, New York: Penguin, 2001

history

recommended general "light" text: Neil L. Jamieson, Understanding Vietnam, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995 (DAL KIL: DS 556.8 J36 1993)

Cecil B. Currey, Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam's Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, Oxford: Brasseys, 1996

Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History, New York: Penguin, 1997, second edition

William Stewart Logan, Hanoi: Biography of a City, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000

Robert Templer, Shadows and Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam, New York: Penguin, 1999

Vo Nguyen Giap, How We Won the War, Philadelphia: Recon Publications, 1976

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6. Related (though sometimes more "meaty" than those above)

East and Southeast Asia: general

David P. Chandler & David Joel Steinberg, eds., In Search of Southeast Asia: A Modern History, revised edition, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987 (DAL KIL: DS 525 I48 1987)

Charles Holcombe, The Genesis of East Asia: 221 BC - AD 907, Honolulu: Association for Asian Studies and University of Hawai'i Press, 2001 (SMU: DS 514 H65 2001)

Frank B. Tipton, The Rise of Asia: Economics, Society, and Politics in Contemporary Asia, Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998 (DAL KIL: HC 460.5 T56 1998)

East Asian history and its applications

Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History From the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995 (SMU: DS 734.7 D83 1995)

Edward W. Said, Orientalism, New York: Vintage Books, 1979 (DAL KIL, KINGS, MSVU, SMU, etc: DS 12 S24 1979)

Stefan Tanaka, Japan's Orient: Rendering Pasts into History, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993

Barbara Tuchman, Practicing History, New York: Knopf, 1981 & New York: Ballantine, 1982 (SMU & DAL KIL: D 13 T83 1981)

East Asia in the world context: geography, imperialism, and nationalism

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London & New York: Verso, 1991, revised edition (SMU, KINGS, MSVU: JC 311 A656 1991)

Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998 (SMU & DAL KIL: HF 1359 F697 1998)

Richard H. Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens, and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600 - 1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995 (SMU & DALKIL: GE 195 G76 1995)

Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900 - 1900, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986 (SMU, DAL KIL, KINGS: GF 50 C76 1986)

Daniel R. Headrick, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century, New York: Oxford University Press, 1981 (SMU, DAL KIL, KINGS: JC 359 H4)

Daniel R. Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988 (DAL KIL: JC 359 H39 1988)

Daniel R. Headrick, The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851-1945, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991 (SMU, DAL KIL, MSVU: HE 7651 H43 1991)

Daniel R. Headrick, When Information Came of Age: Technologies of Knowledge in the Age of Reason and Revolution, 1700-1850, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2000 (DAL KIL: CB 203 H39 2000)

Jared M. Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, New York: W.W. Norton, 1997 (DALKIL, KINGS, MSVU, SMU, SFX MACD, UCCB: HM 206 D48 1997)

Martin W. Lewis and Karen E. Wigen, The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997

William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982 (SMU, DAL KIL, KINGS: U 37 M38 1982)

Michael B. A. Oldstone, Viruses, Plagues, and History, New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998 (DALKIL DALSCI SCI: RC 114.5 O37 1998)

Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism, New York: Knopf, 1993 (DAL KIL, SMU, MSVU, etc: PN 761 S28 1993)

THONGCHAI Winichakul, Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-body of a Nation, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994 (SMU: DS 563.9 T47 1994)