Recommended Holiday Reads about Beijing
We are often asked about good reads about Beijing. Here are ten books we recommend as introductions to the city. Most of them qualify as fairly easy reads, but if you plan to take a deep dive, we also have something for you.
The first 5 books you can find hard copies on Beijing Postcards online store:
Rickshaw Boy
In 1936 the Chinese author Laoshe wrote the book 《骆驼祥子》 in English known as “Rickshaw Boy”. This book about the life of a rickshaw puller at the bottom of Beijing society made Laoshe the most famous Chinese author outside China. The story is still today one of the most defining books when it comes to the very idea of old Beijing.
Midnight in Peking
On January 7 the young woman Pamela Werner was found brutally murdered in Beijing. Paul French turned this almost forgotten unsolved crime into a book about the decadent western society in Beijing that existed during the years around the war with Japan.
A Death in Peking
This book written by the retired police officer Graham Sheppard also investigates the murder of Pamela Werner and adds a lot of thoroughly researched details to the story not mentioned in the more famous book by Paul French.
Sidelights on Peking Life
Robert Swallow was in the 1920s one of the first foreigners to live deep inside the hutong alleyways of Beijing. His book “Sidelights on Peking Life” is a unique and thoroughly entertaining peek into everyday life in Beijing a hundred years ago.
A Social Survey of Peking
In 1918 Sydney Gamble produced the first academically reliable numbers on Beijing, when he literally had small groups of Chinese volunteers help him make people all over the city fill out questionnaires about their general life conditions. The outcome is an extremely fascinating book that dissects every corner of Beijing society. This truly groundbreaking book is still today often referred to by modern scholars on Beijing.
The last days of old Beijing
In the years just before the 2008 Olympics Michael Meyer lived in the Hutongs of Beijing, while working as a teacher at a local school, he wrote a book about the evolution of modern Beijing rooted in his own experience. The outcome is one of the most entertaining books about how the Beijing became the city it is today.
A Billion Voices
David Moser has written a fascinating book about the creation of the modern Chinese spoken language. This little book opens a window into how education of the masses became possible, and the many fights that were fought and obstacles overcome, when the idea of one language for one people emerged a hundred years ago.
History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth
The Boxer uprising is one of the most difficult historical events to come to terms with, because quite frankly what happened in the year 1900 was both diplomatically and militarily a mess, however to the city of Beijing the chaotic political meltdown of the Qing dynasty brought a western inspired modernity upon the Chinese capital like a tsunami. Paul A. Cohen has written a diligently researched book that explore the topic of the Boxer uprising from multiple angles.
Fragile Cargo: The World War II Race to Save the Treasures of China's Forbidden City
Adam Brookes has written an extraordinary book about how the Imperial treasure was saved from the Japanese occupying power during the Second World War, at a time where the independence of the Chinese nation was under threat.
Beijing Record
Beijing Record by Wang Jun is a must read if you want to understand how modern Beijing was planned. It is a well researched, informative and truly entertaining account written by one of the most knowledgeable scholars on Beijing.