Book description
Only one man dared fight to defend Shanghai from rebel hordes - the American adventurer who called up a ragtag band of deserters to defeat armies of thousands. "A master in hell before a minion in Heaven. I'll be a prince in China, and lord over these heathen beggars, or…
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Why read it?
1 author picked Yang Shen as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Also set during the Taiping Rebellion, Lande’s engrossing story begins as a sea adventure which drew me in like a Chinese version of Moby Dick, with swashbuckling characters who yell and curse in the eloquent twang of Shakespearean lowlifes.
The action shifts inland along the Yangtze River as protagonist Fletcher Thorson Wood (based on historical figure Frederick Townsend Ward) organizes a mercenary force with Western weaponry to fight off the Taiping.
There is no love story—the central characters are too busy for that—but it’s the texture of the prose, the sheer scintillating, rhythmic mastery of language, and the huge…
From Isham's list on novels that immerse you in Chinese history.
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December on 5C4
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…
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