Against the vivid, gritty backdrop of 1980s China, Lu Yao traces the proud and passionate Gao Jialin’s difficult path to professional, romantic, and personal fulfillment—or at least hard-won acceptance.With the emotional acuity and narrative mastery that secured his reputation as one of China’s great novelists, Lu Yao paints a vivid, emotional, and unsparing portrait of contemporary Chinese life, seen through the eyes of a working-class man who refuses to be broken.

    Each book uses characters, words, and grammar that a learner is most likely to know at each level based on in-depth analysis of textbooks, education programs, and natural Chinese language. Every story is written in a style that is easy for a learner to understand and enjoyable to read. Level 1 is intended for Chinese learners who have obtained a middle-elementary level of Chinese. Most students will be able to approach this book after one to two years of traditional formal study. This story is written using approximately 300 characters and contains approximately 400 elementary words. Mr. Xie was recently hired by the Curly Haired Company. For a significant weekly allowance, he was required to sit in an office and copy articles from a book, in the meantime his assistant looked after his shop. He had answered an advertisement in the paper and although hundreds of people applied, he was the only one selected because of his very curly hair. When the company unexpectedly closed, Mr. Xie visited Gao Ming (Sherlock Holmes) with this strange story. Gao Ming is certain something is not right, but will he solve the mystery in time?

    This original story by Baoshu―published with Liu’s support―envisions the aftermath of the conflict between humanity and the extraterrestrial Trisolarans.In the midst of an interstellar war, Yun Tianming found himself on the front lines. Riddled with cancer, he chose to end his life, only to find himself flash frozen and launched into space where the Trisolaran First Fleet awaited. Captured and tortured beyond endurance for decades, Yun eventually succumbed to helping the aliens subjugate humanity in order to save Earth from complete destruction.Granted a healthy clone body by the Trisolarans, Yun has spent his very long life in exile as a traitor to the human race. Nearing the end of his existence at last, he suddenly receives another reprieve―and another regeneration. A consciousness calling itself The Spirit has recruited him to wage battle against an entity that threatens the existence of the entire universe. But Yun refuses to be a pawn again and makes his own plans to save humanity’s future…

    

    The Communist government has encouraged them to plant garlic, but selling the crop is not as simple as they believed. Warehouses fill up, taxes skyrocket, and government officials maltreat even those who have traveled for days to sell their harvest. A surplus on the garlic market ensues, and the farmers must watch in horror as their crops wither and rot in the fields. Families are destroyed by the random imprisonment of young and old for supposed crimes against the state. The prisoners languish in horrifying conditions in their cells, with only their strength of character and thoughts of their loved ones to save them from madness. Meanwhile, a blind minstrel incites the masses to take the law into their own hands, and a riot of apocalyptic proportions follows with savage and unforgettable consequences. The Garlic Ballads is a powerful vision of life under the heel of an inflexible and uncaring government. It is also a delicate story of love between man and woman, father and child, friend and friend—and the struggle to maintain that love despite overwhelming obstacles.

    Inside the Forbidden City, she witnessed seductions, plots, murders, and brazen acts of treason. Propelled by a shrewd intelligence, an extraordinary persistence, and a friendship with the imperial heir, she rose through the ranks to become the first Empress of China. On the one hand, she was a political mastermind who quelled insurrections, eased famine, and opened wide the routes of international trade. On the other, she was a passionate patron of the arts who brought Chinese civilization to unsurpassed heights of knowledge, beauty, and sophistication.And yet, from the moment of her death to the present day, her name has been sullied, her story distorted, and her memoirs obliterated by men taking vengeance on a women who dared become Emperor. For the first time in thirteen centuries, Empress Wu flings open the gates of her Forbidden City and tells her own astonishing tale–revealing a fascinating, complex figure who in many ways remains modern to this day.

    In June 1989, the world watched in horror as China's military was mobilized to suppress a student movement that stood for peaceful democracy. Hundreds were killed; others say thousands. No one knows for sure. But the image that remains most powerful is that of a lone young man, looking confused yet terribly brave, as he held his ground before a rolling line of tanks. Who was he, and why did he do what he did? No one has ever been able to determine his identity or fate. Within the pages of "Sons of Heaven, in a stunning blend of history and fiction, Terrence Cheng has vividly created a life for this young hero and given him a voice.

    It's a thrilling story of adventure and rescue, of escape and revenge, set in New England in the early days of Prohibition. Written in the great storytelling tradition, 'Warm Moonlight' has all the intensity of a got-to-hear-how-it-ends campfire yarn, but with a decidedly adult sophistication and sensibility. The ending is unique and satisfying, but leaves the audience, like one of the characters in the story, wondering - how much of it was true? How much invented? Can such things be? Maybe it's a ghost story or . . . . maybe it isn't.

    It's the story of three young men, Chen Zhong, Li Liang and Big Head Wang and their tragi-comic struggles to make their way in Chengdu, China's fifth most populous city. Despite their aspirations in the newly capitalist China, the trio's lives are beset by dead-end jobs, gambling debts, drinking, drugs, and whoring. Chen Zhong is married to Zhao Yue. Although he loves her, he plays around with other women. But it isn't until Chen Zhong discovers that Zhao Yue is having an affair that he realizes exactly how much he stands to lose "

    As Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau struggles to trace the hidden threads of her past, he finds himself challenging the very political forces that have guided his life since birth. Chen must tiptoe around his superiors if he wants to get to the bottom of this crime, and risk his career—perhaps even his life—to see justice done.

    It initially seems a simple duty until the professor begins to rave, pleading with invisible tormentors and denouncing his family...Are these just manifestations of illness, or is Yang spewing up the truth? In a China convulsed by the Tiananmen uprising, those who listen to the truth are as much at risk as those who speak it. Lyrical and heart-breaking, The Crazed is an incisive portrait of modern Chinese society.

    • Stories beyond the digest and tidbits you may not know • The book's impact and its important to read • And more! What other readers are saying: "You can read it before you read the novel or after you read it as a supplement to the actual book." "Very concise and helpful for our Book Club." "It is full of story information, interesting facts about the novel and the author as well." "This overview gave me an idea of what the book covers. From it, I have been able to decide whether or not to purchase the book." "The Digest helped clarify the historical background. Beautifully written and deeply moving." Our promise: Reader’s Companions bring you immaculate study materials on literature at exceptionally low prices that do not compromise on quality. These are supplementary materials and does not contain any text or summary of the book. 100% satisfaction guaranteed.

    Fiercely independent, with a husband and two children, Alice strives to make sense of her changing world as her memory begins to fail. This heartbreaking and hopeful adaptation of the award-winning book by Lisa Genova puts Alice onstage with Herself, providing the audience with an extraordinary window into the experience of living with dementia.

    Ken Richmond hits his breaking point when he puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger. When his plan misfires—literally—he interprets the failed suicide as his calling to a higher purpose. Fueled by long-simmering hatred, Ken sets out on a murderous mission—but in order to get away with it, he’ll have to leave a trail of blood through the city.Detectives Dick Van Endel and Phil Nelson start chasing Ken toward a special spot in hell. But can the detectives put an end to the fiend’s sprees for good, before more bodies pile up?

    As he tries to get back, he finds something he wasn't expecting, something that points toward everything he thought he knew about the world and said, “No, it isn't like that at all.” He had a choice: pretend he hadn’t seen it, or spend the rest of his life trying to understand it. The ripples from the choice he made would, over the next two generations, spread as far as the other side of the world, and maybe, just maybe, even farther than that.This story is, however, only partly about Private Dawson. At another level, this is the story of a present-day 18-year-old boy's freshman year in college. And on a much deeper level, this is a story about what happens when you stare into Nietzsche's abyss, and the abyss does more than just stare back at you. Whether there are even more levels than that is for the reader to determine.Life is improvisational theater. You're given a name and a situation, but where the scene goes after that is up to you and the other players. The other players in this story represent every hue of the moral spectrum, from saint to sociopath, but each of them has a part to play. The props for this play include bells and pillows and bayberry candles, bullets and fireworks and plaid flannel shirts. Come on in, find your seat, and let’s cue the curtain. You’re going to enjoy this.