12 China Books Reading List
View and buy the books for our 2026 book club here!
Welcome to the 12 China books in 12 Months Book Club!
I decided I wanted to read more China books this year, and created this book club kind of on a whim to encourage myself to do so. I wanted to invite you all to take part so we could read along together and expand our knowledge and appreciation of China through fiction from the PRC, Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as non-fiction covering China’s politics, culture, economy, people, and future.
The book club is designed to be easy and accessible — it’s only one book a month and you do not need to be a China specialist in order to read and appreciate them. Comments and opinions are welcome from all!
You also do not have to read all the books to take part! Everyone is welcome to follow along, attend the livestreams or listen to the podcast recordings at any time.
I will be updating this post periodically to include links to the podcasts where we discuss the book at the end of each month.
I have an affiliate shop on Bookshop.org as well as an Amazon affiliate link for each book. I would be grateful if you would purchase through these links, as it helps support the channel!
Book List
January: Breakneck by Dan Wang
In an era of animosity and mistrust, Wang unmasks the shocking similarities between the United States and China. Breakneck reveals how each country points toward a better path for the other: Chinese citizens would be better off if their government could learn to value individual liberties, while Americans would be better off if their government could learn to embrace engineering--and to produce better outcomes for the many, not just the few.
Buy the book or ebook through Amazon here
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Listen to the podcast here
February: Serve the People! by Yan Lianke
Set in 1967, at the peak of the Mao cult, this is the tale of a forbidden love affair between Liu Lian - the bored wife of a military commander - and a young soldier, Wu Dawang.
When Liu Lian establishes a rule that Wu Dawang must attend to her needs whenever the household’s wooden ‘Serve the People!’ sign is removed from its usual place, he vows to obey. What follows is both an enthralling love story and a deliciously comic satire on the political and sexual taboos of Mao’s regime.
Buy the book or ebook through Amazon here
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March: The Troublemaker by Mark L. Clifford
The astonishing story of the billionaire businessman Jimmy Lai who became one of Hong Kong’s leading activists for democracy and is today China’s most famous political prisoner.
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April: The Last Quarter of the Moon by Chi Zijian
At the end of the twentieth century an old woman sits among the birch trees and reflects on the joys and tragedies that have befallen her people. A member of the Evenki tribe who wander the forests of north-eastern China, hers was a life lived in close sympathy with nature at its most beautiful and cruel.
Then, in the 1930s, the intimate, secluded world of the tribe is shattered when the Japanese army invades China. The Evenki cannot avoid being pulled into the brutal conflict that marks the beginning of the end of life as they know it.
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May: The Party’s Interests Come First by Joseph Torigian
The Party’s Interests Come First is the first biography of Xi Zhongxun written in English. This biography is at once a sweeping story of the Chinese revolution and the first several decades of the People’s Republic of China and a deeply personal story about making sense of one’s own identity within a larger political context. Drawing on an array of new documents, interviews, diaries, and periodicals, Joseph Torigian vividly tells the life story of Xi Zhongxun, a man who spent his entire life struggling to balance his own feelings with the Party’s demands. Through the eyes of Xi Jinping’s father, Torigian reveals the extraordinary organizational, ideological, and coercive power of the CCP―and the terrible cost in human suffering that comes with it.
Buy the book or ebook through Amazon here
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June: Tongueless by Yee-Wa Lau
Wai and Ling are secondary school Chinese language teachers in Hong Kong, both crumbling under the pressure of a forced transition from using Cantonese to Mandarin as a medium of Chinese-language instruction. Apolitical and focused only on surviving their professional environment, Wai and Ling approach the challenge differently: Wai, awkward and unpopular, becomes obsessed with Mandarin learning, only to fail the qualification exam, lose her job, become mentally ill, and kill herself by inserting a drill into her head.
Ling is polished and cunning, she knows how to please her superiors and believes she can tactfully dodge the Mandarin challenge through her social savviness. Ling sees herself haunted and mirrored by Wai’s tragedy: things around her slowly spiral out of control and her colleagues begin to shun her too. What will she do to survive in a ruthless environment where the rules of survival are constantly being re-written?
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July: When China Rules The World by Martin Jacques
China will replace the United States as the world’s dominant power. In so doing, it will not become more western but the world will become more Chinese.
Jacques argues that we cannot understand China in western terms but only through its own history and culture. To this end, he introduces a powerful set of ideas including China as a civilization-state, the tributary system, the Chinese idea of race, a very different concept of the state, and the principle of contested modernity.
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August: Not Your Child by Lâu Tsí-û
A by turns humorous, touching and harrowing story concerning Yu-Jie, a Social Media Manager for a local MP facing a PR disaster in the midst of a wave of social outrage stirred up by a troubling crime.
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September: Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang
Every year in China millions of migrant workers leave their rural towns to find jobs in the cities. These people are the driving forces behind China’s economic boom: they work very hard and for little money to make the trainers, ornaments, designer handbags and toys which we buy.
Through the lives of two young women, Chang vividly portrays a world where you can lose your boyfriend and your friends with the loss of a cell phone; where lying about your age, your education, and your work experience is often a requisite for getting ahead; where a few computer or English lessons can catapult you into a completely different social class. This is a powerful and humane portrait of the forces which are shaping China.
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October: Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-Zi
May 1938. The young novelist Aoyama Chizuko has sailed from her home in Nagasaki, Japan, and arrived in Taiwan. She’s been invited there by the Japanese government ruling the island, though she has no interest in their official banquets or imperialist agenda. Instead, Chizuko longs to experience real island life and to taste its authentic cuisine.
Soon a Taiwanese woman—who is younger than she is, and who shares the characters of her name—is hired as her interpreter and makes her dreams come true. Chizuru arranges Chizuko’s travels and proves to be an exceptional cook. Chizuko grows infatuated with her companion and intent on drawing her closer. But something causes Chizuru to keep her distance. It’s only after a heartbreaking separation that Chizuko begins to grasp what the “something” is.
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November: Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan
Stripped of his possessions and executed as a result of Mao’s Land Reform Movement in 1948, benevolent landowner Ximen Nao finds himself endlessly tortured in Hell before he is systematically reborn on Earth as each of the animals in the Chinese zodiac.
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December: Invisible Planets by Ken Liu
Here are thirteen short stories from the new frontiers of Chinese science fiction, selected and translated by Hugo, Nebula, Locus and World Fantasy Award-winner Ken Liu.
Including an introduction by Ken Liu and three essays exploring Chinese science fiction, this is a phenomenal collection of strange worlds, hypnotic landscapes and unbridled imagination.
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I will try to join along!