China Literature

China in the 19th century: a proud and ancient empire forbidden to foreigners. The West desires Chinese tea above all other things but lacks the silver to buy it. Instead, Western adventurers resort to smuggling opium in exchange. The Qing Emperor will not allow his people to sink into addiction. Viceroy Lin is sent to the epicentre of the opium trade, Canton, to stop it. The Opium Wars begin - heralding a period of bloody military defeats, reparations, and one-sided treaties which will become known as the Century of Humiliation.

Keith Brymer Jones is the star presenter and judge of Channel 4's The Great Pottery Throw Down, famous for his emotional responses to the heartfelt and personal pieces made by contestants on the show. He is also the ultimate professional craftsman who's done the hard yards to get where he is today, working his way up from being a skivvy in an industrial pottery to running his own hugely successful international ceramics business.

Kevin Kwan, best-selling author of Crazy Rich Asians, is back with a wickedly funny new novel of social climbing, secret e-mails, art-world scandal, lovesick billionaires and the outrageous story of what happens when Rachel Chu, engaged to marry Asia's most eligible bachelor, discovers her birth father. On the eve of her wedding to Nicholas Young, heir to one of the greatest fortunes in Asia, Rachel should be over the moon.

A multigenerational novel of love, oppression, trauma and the pursuit of freedom, inspired in part by the author's own family history, China Room twines together the stories of a woman and a man separated by more than half a century but united by blood.

It’s 1938 in San Francisco: Grace, Helen, and Ruby, three young women from very different backgrounds, meet by chance at the exclusive and glamorous Forbidden City nightclub. Grace Lee, an American-born Chinese girl, has fled the Midwest with nothing but heartache, talent, and a pair of dancing shoes. Helen Fong lives with her extended family in Chinatown, where her traditional parents insist that she guard her reputation like a piece of jade. The stunning Ruby Tom challenges the boundaries of convention at every turn.

Styvie Savard was a damn good cop - before she made a mistake that cost her everything. Now she lives in her car, works a dead-end job, and scrapes by on the fumes of a dwindling savings account. Life couldn’t get much worse, until it does. One morning on the way to work, Styvie hits a 16-year-old, Dharma, with her car. When the injured girl flees the scene, Styvie finds that she can’t leave well enough alone.

China Bohannon may be a modern 1890s' career woman, but her uncle, Montgomery Howe, and his partner, Gratton Doyle haven't turned her loose on an investigative case of her own just yet. With her name newly added to the roster - though in small print - China is champing at the bit. China's friend Porter Anderson hires the agency saying his uncle has disappeared and a Johnny-come-lately timber baron claimed the family homestead. What's more, he has a bill of sale for it that Porter knows his uncle didn't sign. The problem is proving it - or so it would seem.

The Chinese government has been keeping a secret for 40 years: they have found a species of animal no one believed even existed that will amaze the world. Now the Chinese are ready to unveil their astonishing discovery within the greatest zoo ever constructed. A small group of VIPs and journalists has been brought to the zoo deep within China to see its fabulous creatures for the first time. Among them is Dr. Cassandra Jane 'CJ' Cameron, a writer for National Geographic and an expert on reptiles.

Darkness threatens to overtake Earthsea: the world and its wizards are losing their magic. Despite being wearied with age, Ged Sparrowhawk - Archmage, wizard, and dragonlord - embarks on a daring, treacherous journey, accompanied by Enlad's young Prince Arren, to discover the reasons behind this devastating pattern of loss. Together they will sail to the farthest reaches of their world - even beyond the realm of death - as they seek to restore magic to a land desperately thirsty for it.

A vehicle crammed with dozens of dead Chinese immigrants is found in Southern Texas. Pathologist Margaret Campbell must put aside her horror and find out why. Detective Li Yan - an even more unwelcome memory for Campbell - has arrived stateside to investigate a link in the case to a lucrative trade in illegal labourers.

A burned corpse is a disturbing mystery for Beijing detective Li Yan until he enlists forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell. Having abandoned a broken life in Chicago for her work, she's as determined as Li to ask difficult questions about the man's death. But some questions have answers they'd rather not hear - facts that others are desperate to conceal. The Firemaker is the first in the acclaimed China series from Peter May, author of Runaway, Entry Island and the internationally best-selling Lewis Trilogy.

When Senator Aulus Aemilius Galba is tapped to lead the first Roman mission to China, he anticipates an easy path to fame and fortune. Gaius Lucullus sees a bright military future, but his reluctant centurion Antonius Aristides would rather be somewhere else. Translators Marcia Lucia and her brother Marcus were taken from their village in China to serve the Han court, abused and despised, hiding a horrible secret.

An army of Huns led by the ferocious Shan-Yu has invaded China. The Chinese Imperial Army must fight! Mulan, a young woman desperate to bring honor to her family, disguises herself as a male warrior in order to spare her father. Follow along as Mulan proves herself and defends China from the Huns!

Three corpses: drugged, labeled and brutally beheaded; a trail that Detective Li Yan has to follow. He and forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell have been trying to deny the attraction that nearly destroyed both their careers. But when a fourth victim is found, they have no choice but to work together to track down the truth and to hunt down a ruthless killer. The Fourth Sacrifice is the second in the acclaimed China series from Peter May, author of Runaway, Entry Island and the internationally best-selling Lewis Trilogy.

The story of Tzu Hsi is the story of the last empress in China. In this audiobook, Pearl S. Buck recreates the life of one of the most intriguing rules during a time of intense turbulence. Tzu Hsi was born into one of the lowly ranks of the Imperial dynasty. According to custom, she moved to the Forbidden City at the age of 17 to become one of hundreds of concubines. But her singular beauty and powers of manipulation quickly moved her into the position of Second Consort.

Eighteen mutilated women in a Shanghai mass grave. But this is only the beginning of a horrific case for Investigator Li Yan and Mei Ling, head of Shanghai's serious crime squad. Ling is a formidable woman, and she appears to threaten Li Yan's relationship with pathologist Margaret Campbell. But when Campbell discovers that the victims were subjected to live autopsies, she knows she'll need all the help she can get.

A Daphne du Maurier-esque chiller set on the mysterious Cornish coast from the author of The Silent Companions and The Corset. Consumption has ravaged Louise Pinecroft’s family, leaving her and her father alone and heartbroken. But Dr Pinecroft has plans for a revolutionary experiment: convinced that sea air will prove to be the cure his wife and children needed, he arranges to house a group of prisoners suffering from the same disease in the cliffs beneath his new Cornish home.

There have always been whispers. Legends. The warrior who cannot be killed. Who’s seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall. He has had many names: Unute, Child of Lightning, Death himself. These days, he’s known simply as “B.” And he wants to be able to die. In the present day, a U.S. black-ops group has promised him they can help with that. And all he needs to do is help them in return.

A prodigious Chinese swimmer kills himself on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. Days later, a champion weightlifter suffers a fatal heart attack prior to competition. Detective Li Yan senses a conspiracy surrounding the fatalities and finds a female athlete willing to talk. But she will trust only one person: Li's fiancée, Margaret Campbell. When Campbell's contact herself vanishes, the gun is fired on a race against time. And Li must now outrun, and outwit, an enemy bent on pushing him beyond endurance.

His victims are young, beautiful and coldly mutilated. He calls himself the Beijing Ripper. Li Yan, head of Beijing's serious crime squad, must stop him. Just as pathologist Margaret Campbell finds an insight into the killer's sick signature, Li receives a letter from the killer, betraying his cruel intentions. There's no way Li can misinterpret the Ripper's motives: he wants to tear Li and Campbell's lives apart, and write the darkest chapter in Beijing's history.