** Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu

Peach Blossom Spring unfolds in two parts: the childhood of the hero, which unfolds in a China in turmoil, first because of a war with Japan and then as part of WWII, and later during the communist revolution, and then his adulthood, when he moves to the US and eventually settles there but refuses anything to do with China.
I found the first part to be just about perfectly rendered, through the eyes of a child, with vivid images, nonstop action, and perfectly observed emotions. The second part I felt was much more laborious. There’s too much explaining of what’s going on and not enough telling. There’s the big, unexplained mystery of why he shuts off his daughter so much, in contrast to how his mother cleverly involved him into everything while still managing to protect him–and why he seems content to interact with his mother so little, even within the strictures of history. Weird!

** Seeing Ghosts by Kat Chow

Kat Chow’s mother died when she was only 11, leaving behind the memory of a strong woman and a devastated family. While she was watched over lovingly by her older sister, she struggled with her loss and her father seems to have been little help. In Seeing Ghosts, she recounts both her growing up and the story of her extended family, of which remarkably little is known. The stories are well told but I thought there could have been a stronger theme.

** Kingdom of Characters by Jing Tsu

Imagine wanting to alphabetize a book collection, invent a typewriter, or retrofit computer systems that relied on the Roman alphabet, with a language that relies on thousands of characters that are definitely not an alphabet?  Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern tells the story of many such effort (so the “revolution” of the subtitle should really be plural), recasting the developments of the 20th century that features a dictator, several Chinese engineering students who studied in the US, missionaries, and several librarians and linguists who tried to overcome the challenges while actually knowing something about language and linguistics. We must be thankful to the last bunch!
As interesting as I found the story, the overall book is dense and full of dates, political intrigue, and details that may not be absolutely necessary to the story, hence not the most pleasant read.

** Little Gods by Meng Jin

I am leery of stories that rely on emblematic historical events. Little Gods is centered on the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and sadly fails to rise above the catastrophe–or at least the catastrophe feels superfluous to the story. It stars a brilliant female physicist who eventually leaves China and also her promise of a brilliant career, and her daughter who is told very little by her mother about her origins. She eventually travels back to find out more about her family, in a story told through alternate voices.

** The Fortunes by Peter Ho Davies

The Fortunes is a series of linked family stories, two of which I liked a lot. The first one is the story of a young Chinese man who immigrates to the US during the Gold Rush and ends up working at the personal valet of Charles Crocker, of railroad fame. The last one is the story of a biracial couple traveling to China to adopt a daughter who ends up seeing too much of the behind-the-scenes reality. Both stories are about what’s hidden and how complicated it is to know too much.

* Made in China by Amelia Pang

Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America’s Cheap Goods describes the abhorrent forced-labor camps that the Chinese government has set up, in which millions of prisoners are forced to manufacture cheap doodads sold in the US and elsewhere, and accepted without too many questions by large retailers.

The author follows a particular prisoner, imprisoned for his religious belief, which makes the story come to life. Sadly the rest of the book is more of a harangue that often mixes all the ills of Chinese manufacturing such as environmental costs–which I thought weakened the horrors of forced-labor. And the solution (never buy anything manufactured in China) does not seem to be entirely practical… 

*** Agent Sonya by Ben Macintyre

I’ve said before that I find spy novels silly, but I loved this spy biography. Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy tells the life of a dedicated communist woman who fled the Nazis and signed up with the USSR intelligence agency, meeting amazing successes, in part because no one could believe that a woman could be a spy. Sexism is good for some things, I guess. She managed to have several husbands and lovers, and three children, across multiple countries, all without being found out. It’s a fascinating life, with the great mystery of why a foreign agent would keep going even after the more unsavory aspects of the USSR came to light.

** Eat the Buddha by Barbara Demick

I had loved the author’s exploration of North Korea. Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town follows the same structure: tell a few personal stories that illustrate a larger history, in this case the sad story of Tibet and its annexation by China. While the sad treatment of the Uyghurs is in the news today, Tibetans were invaded, summarily annexed, killed, and prevented from practicing their religion and language, starting in the fifties. The personal stories felt a little forced and overly specific, but the story is well told, and sobering.

*** Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister by

The Soong sisters, whose lives are told in Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China, managed to marry Chiang Kai-shek, his finance minister, and, for the “Red” one, a famous Mainland China revolutionary. The book tells of their privates lives, but embedded as they were in the politics of China, and along the way enjoyed tremendous wealth and privilege, and access to various foreign government leaders, in part thanks to their American educations. The corruption and political intrigue are breathtaking.

** Leaving the Witness by Amber Scorah

Together with her unloved husband, the author of Leaving the Witness: Exiting a Religion and Finding a Life goes to China, undercover, to proselyte for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, an organization that is banned by the Chinese government. There, she finds herself with a job as an unlikely podcast host, new friends, and an illicit correspondence with a Californian man that make her question her faith, and drag her away from it, and her family and old friends, who must shun her. I found her descriptions of living in Shanghai as a foreigner are delightful and her earnest description of losing her faith is arresting, although she could have excised the long exchanges with her Californian penpal.