Book cover of Lives of the Family: Stories of Fate & Circumstance

Book description

International bestselling author of The Concubine's Children, Denise Chong returns to the subject of her most beloved book, the lives and times of Canada's early Chinese families.
     In 2011, Denise Chong set out to collect the history of the earliest Chinese settlers in and around Ottawa, who made their homes…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Lives of the Family as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Denise Chong explores a similar period of Chinese Canadian history in Lives of the Family: Stories of Fate & Circumstance. Similar to my own book, Lives of the Family looks beyond Vancouver and British Columbia Chinatowns to tell the story of Chinese Canadian migrants, whose lives straddled continents, who ran successful businesses, and were involved with the KMT. 

From Alison's list on to reimagine Chinatown.

If you love Lives of the Family...

Ad

Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

Want books like Lives of the Family?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Lives of the Family.

Browse books like Lives of the Family

Book cover of Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China
Book cover of Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking
Book cover of Brokering Belonging: Chinese in Canada's Exclusion Era, 1885-1945

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,278

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 If you like Lives of the Family, you might also like...

Book cover of The Bridge: Connecting The Powers of Linear and Circular Thinking

The Bridge by Kim Hudson,

The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…

Book cover of And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown

And Then They Were Gone by Ron Cabral,

Of the 918 Americans who died in the shocking murder-suicides of November 18, 1978, in the tiny South American country of Guyana, a third were under eighteen. More than half were in their twenties or younger.

The authors taught in a small high school in San Francisco where Reverend Jim…

5 book lists we think you will like!