Books as friends and teachers

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
― Charles William Eliot

 

I read fairly widely. Books are wonderful friends and as others have said in various ways with books the ancients can talk to us.

Currently I am reading:

The Kite Runner [fiction]

Blind Descent [non-fiction about super-cavers]

Recently I read:

Custer [History]

The War of 1812 [History]

A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, Her Daring Escape, and Her Quest to Free China's Daughters [Memoir of a Chinese woman who was one of the leaders during the 1989 Tienanmen Square protests. She hide for a year and was secreted out of China and ended up in the US. She became a Christian and has done important work in helping women and opposing the one-child policy in China.]

The Incense game [fiction -- medieval Japan]

 

You would also like Pearl Buck's Letter from Peking.. As with all her books it is an interesting read. Toward the end of the book she makes the statement that goes something like this, The Chinese women is the toughest women in the world. They have to be as they have been the unwanted child for 3000 years.

Mildred Cable, an early missionary to China, wrote a number of books that are fascinating as she writes about life in a China that has disappeared. To me her most interesting book is The Gobi Desert: the Adventures of Three Women. The three women were Mildred Cable, her sister and a French woman, all missionaries, and this book covers the 13 years of travel in the Gobi ... and this was before there were trains or cars.

Peter Hessler has written three excellent books on China:

River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze
Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present
Country Driving: A Journey from Farm to Factory

Another book I really liked was :

A Higher Kind of Loyalty by Liu Binyan. He is one of the bravest people I have every read. He was an investigative reporter who was jailed numerous times because he reported the truth about corruption and misdeeds of the Communist Party and officials in China.

Red Azalea by Anchee Min. Since you liked Wild Swans I am sure you would like this book also.

If you want I can give you a rather long list of books on China. There are so many good books about China.

 

I hope you borrow some ... or all from your public library. Otherwise they might bust your budget.