Dream of the Red Chamber


Cao Xueqin - 1791
    Chi-chen Wang's translation is skillful and accurate.

Inward


Yung Pueblo - 2017
    It serves as a reminder to the reader that healing, transformation, and freedom are possible.

Genghis Khan and the Quest for God: How the World's Greatest Conqueror Gave Us Religious Freedom


Jack Weatherford - 2016
    Genghis Khan conquered by arms & bravery. He ruled by commerce & religion. He transformed the silk road into the world’s most effective trading network, established new laws & drastically lowered merchant taxes. But he knew that if his empire was going to last, he'd need something stronger & more binding than trade. He needed religion. Unlike the Christian, Taoist & Muslim conquerors who'd come before, he gave his subjects freedom of religion using an argument that would directly influence Th Jefferson. But before that, he looted their shrines, killed their priests. Genghis lived in the 13th century, but he struggled with many of the same problems faced today: How may one balance religious freedom with the need to restrain fanatics? Can one compel rival religions—driven by deep-seated hatred—to live together peacefully? A celebrated anthropologist whose bestselling Genghis Khan & the Making of the Modern World radically transformed our understanding of the Mongols & their legacy, Weatherford has spent 18 years exploring areas of Mongolia closed until the USSR's fall & researching The Secret History of the Mongols, an astonishing document written in code that was only recently discovered. He pored thru archives & found groundbreaking evidence of Genghis’ influence on the founding fathers. Now, with this masterpiece of historical erudition & religious insight, he's written his most resonant work.

Red Sorghum


Mo Yan - 1987
    A legend in China, where it won major literary awards and inspired an Oscar-nominated film, Red Sorghum is a book in which fable and history collide to produce fiction that is entirely new and unforgettable.

The Three Kingdoms: Welcome The Tiger (The Three Kingdoms, #3 of 3)


Luo Guanzhong
    It recounts in vivid historical detail the turbulent years at the close of the Han Dynasty, when China broke into three competing kingdoms and over half the population were either killed or driven from their homes. Part myth, part fact, readers will experience the loyalty and treachery, the brotherhood and rivalry of China's legendary heroes and villains during the most tumultuous period in Chinese history.Considered the greatest work in classic Chinese literature, The Three Kingdoms is read by millions throughout Asia today. Seen not just as a great work of art, many Chinese view it as a guide to success in life and business as well as a work that offers great moral clarity—while many foreigners read it to gain insights into Chinese society and culture. From the saga of The Three Kingdoms, readers will learn how great warriors motivate their troops and enhance their influence, while disguising their weaknesses and turning the strengths of others against them.This third volume concludes the tale of Liu Bei and his sworn brothers-in-arms, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, whose loyalty and fidelity are sorely tested in a society at war for its very survival.

Paper Wife


Laila Ibrahim - 2018
    Desperate to secure her future, Mei Ling’s parents arrange a marriage to a widower in California. To enter the country, she must pretend to be her husband’s first wife—a paper wife.On the perilous voyage, Mei Ling takes an orphan girl named Siew under her wing. Dreams of a better life in America give Mei Ling the strength to endure the treacherous journey and detainment on Angel Island. But when she finally reaches San Francisco, she’s met with a surprise. Her husband, Chinn Kai Li, is a houseboy, not the successful merchant he led her to believe.Mei Ling is penniless, pregnant, and bound to a man she doesn’t know. Her fragile marriage is tested further when she discovers that Siew will likely be forced into prostitution. Desperate to rescue Siew, she must convince her husband that an orphan’s life is worth fighting for. Can Mei Ling find a way to make a real family—even if it’s built on a paper foundation?

Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands-On Guide


Jane Reichhold - 2002
    Haiku are clearly shown to be a means of discovering and recording the miracles of the world, from the humorous to the tragic. This is one of the major themes underlying Writing and Enjoying Haiku-that haiku can provide a way to a better life.After looking at why the reading and writing of haiku is important from a spiritual point of view, the book shows, as has never been done before, the techniques of writing-the when and the where, punctuation and capitalization, choice of words, figures of speech, sharing haiku, and much, much more.Having come this far, having learned to read and write haiku with a discerning mind, the reader will never again look upon the world in quite the same way.

Young Babylon


Lu Nei - 2014
    At age nineteen in 1990s China, he feels pressure to follow suit with those around him and takes a job at the town’s saccharin factory. Slowly, he adjusts to the bureaucratic factory routine, making the best of the situation by bonding with coworkers, flirting with girls, and refusing to give in completely to the expectations of those around him.As Lu Xiaolu finds his way, a startling portrait of an economically expanding China comes into view; the propaganda of a common goal gives way to a bottom-line system that he sees as indifferent to individual happiness. But thanks to the relationships he develops, Lu Xiaolu decides to fight for the life he wants.

Harmony of the World: Stories


Charles Baxter - 1984
    Whether he is writing about the players in a rickety bisexual love triangle or a woman visiting her husband in a nursing home, probing the psychic mainspring of a grimly obsessive weight lifter or sifting through the layers of resentment, need, and pity in a friendship that has gone on a few decades too long, Baxter enchants us with the elegant balance of his prose and the unexpectedness of his insights. Long admired and now once more available in paperback, Harmony of the World is a masterpiece of lucidity and compassion.

The Healing Place


Sharon Downing Jarvis - 1994
    She leaves behind the woman her ex-husband wanted her to be and hopes to find herself in a new, foreign place, a place to heal. Determined to isolate herself from relationships and practically the rest of the world, Liz settles in a small farming community south of Salt Lake City. She is gradually drawn into the lives of her neighbors, most of whom are LDS. She discovers wounds heal better in warmth and acceptance of friends.

Love Poems


Peter Washington - 1993
    Nothing better justifies this claim than the splendid poems in this volume, which range from the writings of ancient China to those of modern-day America and represent, at its most piercing, a universal experience of the human soul.Includes poems by John Donne, Christina Rossetti, W. H. Auden, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Graves, e. e. cummings, Dorothy Parker, William Shakespeare, Sappho, Bhartrhari, Anna Akhmatova, and W. B. Yeats, among many others.

Tao Te Ching


Lao Tzu
    Written more than two thousand years ago, the Tao Teh Ching, or -The Classic of the Way and Its Virtue, - is one of the true classics of the world of spiritual literature. Traditionally attributed to the legendary -Old Master, - Lao Tzu, the Tao Teh Ching teaches that the qualities of the enlightened sage or ideal ruler are identical with those of the perfected individual. Today, Lao Tzu's words are as useful in mastering the arts of leadership in business and politics as they are in developing a sense of balance and harmony in everyday life. To follow the Tao or Way of all things and realize their true nature is to embody humility, spontaneity, and generosity. John C. H. Wu has done a remarkable job of rendering this subtle text into English while retaining the freshness and depth of the original. A jurist and scholar, Dr. Wu was a recognized authority on Taoism and the translator of several Taoist and Zen texts and of Chinese poetry. This book is part of the Shambhala Pocket Library series. The Shambhala Pocket Library is a collection of short, portable teachings from notable figures across religious traditions and classic texts. The covers in this series are rendered by Colorado artist Robert Spellman. The books in this collection distill the wisdom and heart of the work Shambhala Publications has published over 50 years into a compact format that is collectible, reader-friendly, and applicable to everyday life.

Crush


Richard Siken - 2005
    Siken writes with ferocity, and his reader hurtles unstoppably with him. His poetry is confessional, gay, savage, and charged with violent eroticism. In the world of American poetry, Siken's voice is striking. In her introduction to the book, competition judge Louise Glück hails the “cumulative, driving, apocalyptic power, [and] purgatorial recklessness” of Siken’s poems. She notes, “Books of this kind dream big. . . . They restore to poetry that sense of crucial moment and crucial utterance which may indeed be the great genius of the form.”

The Valley of Amazement


Amy Tan - 2013
    A deeply evocative narrative about the profound connections between mothers and daughters, The Valley of Amazement returns readers to the compelling territory of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. With her characteristic insight and humor, she conjures a story of inherited trauma, desire and deception, and the power and stubbornness of love.

Japanese Haiku


Matsuo Bashō - 1955
    Beloved translator Peter Beilenson’s goal was twofold: to craft a book of haiku accessible to anyone, and to render his best guess at what the poets would have written in English. His translations preserve the sublime spirit of each verse, conjuring vivid visual and emotional impressions in spare words.Haiku icon Basho is represented amply here, as are imagery-virtuoso Buson and wry, warm, painfully human Issa. The verses of Shiki, Joso, Kyorai, Kikaku, Chora, Gyodai, Kakei, Izen, and others also appear, all illuminated by lovely woodblock prints. Ranging from exquisite (In the sea surf edge/Mingling with the bright small shells…/Bush-clover petals –Basho) to bittersweet (Dead my fine hopes/And dry my dreaming, but still…/Iris, blue each spring –Shushiki) to silly (Dim the grey cow comes/Mooing, mooing, and mooing/Out of the morning mist –Issa), this collection will stir your senses and your heart.