Here are 100 books that Chinese Cinderella fans have personally recommended if you like
Chinese Cinderella.
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I have enjoyed personal experiences that are probably unlike those of most women my age and background. I thought it would be a unique example to write about myself, growing up as a local child in British Colonial Singapore, at a time when most other local children who grew up in Singapore during the early 50s and 60s had lives fraught with hardships, poverty, and distress. The common theme is extensive in all the book references I have made, as every story is about someone’s growing-up years in an Oriental or Eastern environment, and their relationships or lack thereof, with their respective parent(s).
I found the book reminded me so much of my own ‘tiger mother’ during my childhood and growing up years, where ‘good’ was never enough. It had to be ’best’. Her writing was plain and uncomplicated, whilst the relationships she had with her musician daughters were quite the contrary, and I found this juxtaposition rather extraordinary.
I found the book satisfying to read, and the incidents in it were uncannily similar to my own experiences with my mother.
A SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: the most talked-about book of the year
'Blissfully funny' India Knight, Sunday Times
'Entertaining, bracingly honest and, yes, thought-provoking' New York Times
'A treat from first to last: ruefully funny, endlessly self-deprecating, riven with ironies .. I relished this memoir' I
Updated with a new postscript by Amy Chua and a letter from her eldest daughter, Sophia
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs. It was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I have enjoyed personal experiences that are probably unlike those of most women my age and background. I thought it would be a unique example to write about myself, growing up as a local child in British Colonial Singapore, at a time when most other local children who grew up in Singapore during the early 50s and 60s had lives fraught with hardships, poverty, and distress. The common theme is extensive in all the book references I have made, as every story is about someone’s growing-up years in an Oriental or Eastern environment, and their relationships or lack thereof, with their respective parent(s).
This brilliantly written memoir is set in Hong Kong in the 1950s and 60s. It was written by an author who had quirky experiences as an expat child in British colonial Hong Kong. It evoked my own experiences growing up in colonial Singapore and triggered a nostalgic roller coaster ride of emotions, humor, and intrigue.
Booth also grew up in a colonial British territory–Hong Kong. He relates all his adventures and experiences as a young child, accessing all aspects of colonial Hong Kong, which were unavailable to other expat children his age. His descriptions made me feel like I was with him, learning local games and partaking in local activities in a colonial-administered country.
That narrative emulates mine in my book, which focuses on my experiences as a child in British colonial Singapore—the same quirky experiences of the 1950s and 1960s.
In this compelling memoir of his colonial childhood in Hong Kong in the 1950s, Martin Booth writes from his child's perspective of the years where he was able to roam freely around the streets of Hong Kong. Filled with an enormous curiosity about the exotic and colourful world around him, Martin quickly gains a grasp of pidgin-Cantonese and uses it to roam the streets and gain access to some of the most colourful parts of Hong Kong, including opium dens, the headquarters of ruthless criminals and a leper colony. In honouring a promise that he makes early on to a…
I have enjoyed personal experiences that are probably unlike those of most women my age and background. I thought it would be a unique example to write about myself, growing up as a local child in British Colonial Singapore, at a time when most other local children who grew up in Singapore during the early 50s and 60s had lives fraught with hardships, poverty, and distress. The common theme is extensive in all the book references I have made, as every story is about someone’s growing-up years in an Oriental or Eastern environment, and their relationships or lack thereof, with their respective parent(s).
Gurmit Singh is a funny man. His sense of humor and his love of life have turned him into a well-known celebrity in Singapore, as he plays the most notorious character, “Phua Chu Kang” in the TV Hit Comedy series of the same name.
A book written in the same style as the author’s voice, with all the same characteristics as the role he plays in the Comedy Series Phua Chu Kang. I found his writing witty, funny, and laugh-out-loud humorous, which at the same time, is peppered with a spritz of melancholy and a deep-seated emotional yank every now and then.
Singh outlines how the events of his upbringing and the impact of his mother’s influence on him sculpted him into the person he is today.
If Phua Chu Kang's yellow boots and permed hair are all you know about Gurmit Singh, you need this book. The actor, host, singer and now entrepreneur, shares not just his funny moments in life but also bares his personal moments in What Was I Thinking? and proves that the funnyman image is just one of his many Real facets. Read about the first car he drove as a child, the neighbour with the EYE, the rat that almost ate his finger when he was a baby, how he dealt with the loss of his parents and many more stories.…
The Not Quite Enlightened Sleuth
by
Verlin Darrow,
A Buddhist nun returns to her hometown and solves multiple murders while enduring her dysfunctional family.
Ivy Lutz leaves her life as a Buddhist nun in Sri Lanka and returns home to northern California when her elderly mother suffers a stroke. Her sheltered life is blasted apart by a series…
I have enjoyed personal experiences that are probably unlike those of most women my age and background. I thought it would be a unique example to write about myself, growing up as a local child in British Colonial Singapore, at a time when most other local children who grew up in Singapore during the early 50s and 60s had lives fraught with hardships, poverty, and distress. The common theme is extensive in all the book references I have made, as every story is about someone’s growing-up years in an Oriental or Eastern environment, and their relationships or lack thereof, with their respective parent(s).
Her book inspired me to write my own memoir about my experiences as a local child living the life of an expat in the British colonial territory of Singapore in the 1960s.
This is her autobiographical memoir of her life and childhood. I found her story captured in a sophisticated writing style. It covers all the elements of how she kickstarted her career as a writer and the catalysts behind the stories of all her books.
From New York Times bestselling author Amy Tan, a memoir on her life as a writer, her childhood and the symbiotic relationship between fiction and emotional memory.
In Where the Past Begins, bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and The Valley of Amazement Amy Tan is at her most intimate in revealing the truths and inspirations that underlie her extraordinary fiction.
By delving into vivid memories of her traumatic childhood, confessions of self-doubt in her journals and heartbreaking letters to and from her mother, she gathers together evidence of all that made it both unlikely and inevitable that she…
I bought a bookstore when I was twenty-five, knowing nothing about business but knowing I loved books. It was the happiest I’ve ever been, professionally, and also the most broke. At some point, I came to my senses, sold my store, and got a job working in a library. I’m a library director now, and I don’t get to recommend books as much as I used to when I didn’t have to do things like think about the budget and remove dead mice from the cellar. Still, I get to work around books, and I overhear and occasionally insert myself into a fair number of book-related conversations.
Weike Wang is kind of a master at dry, unadorned, razor-sharp writing. This book made me both cry and laugh. Joan is doing perfectly fine—great, even—if anyone asks her. Her life is efficient and successful and—empty.
When her father dies, her mother returns from China, and their subsequent interactions force Joan to stop just going through the motions and actually take a look at her life. This book is sweet but not saccharine, and its humor comes from Joan’s quirky observations which felt very relatable to me.
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A witty, moving, piercingly insightful new novel about a marvelously complicated woman who can’t be anyone but herself, from the award-winning author of Chemistry
LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL • “A deeply felt portrait . . . With gimlet-eyed observation laced with darkly biting wit, Weike Wang masterfully probes the existential uncertainty of being other in America.”—Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, NPR, The Washington Post
I’m an author of historical fiction and many of my books have included war. I find I just cannot stay away from it as a subject. Obviously any war is full of natural drama which makes for wonderful narratives, but it’s more than that; it’s something to do with how war tests people to their limits, a veritable crucible. I’m fascinated by the way loyalties are split and how conflict is never simple. To paraphrase my character Helena from The Seamstress of Warsaw, war is peopled by a few heroes, a few bastards, and everyone else in the middle just trying to get through it in one piece…
An absolute tour de force from the author of The Joy Luck Club. This novel is not as famous, but it’s actually my favourite Tan book. It has that epic sweep across history that I adore, whereby the movement of history catches people in its wake and hurls them hither and thither, uncaring of the consequences of its wreckage. The novel follows the experiences of a Chinese woman before and after Japan’s invasion of China in the 1930s and 40s and on to her move to America after the war. Reading this novel was truly immersive and fueled my interest in writing about war and showing how my own characters are caught up in its inexorable flow. A brutal and beautiful novel.
A stunning reissue of the international bestseller, from the much-loved author of The Joy Luck Club and The Bonesetter's Daughter.
Pearl Louie Brandt has a terrible secret which she tries desperately to keep from her mother, Winne Louie. And Winnie has long kept her own secrets - about her past and the confusing circumstances of Pearl's birth. Fate intervenes in the form of Helen Kwong, Winnie's so-called sister-in-law, who believes she is dying and must unburden herself of all falsehoods before she flies off to heaven. But, unfortunately, the truth comes in many guises, depending on who is telling the…
Gifts from a Challenging Childhood
by
Jan Bergstrom,
Learn to understand and work with your childhood wounds. Do you feel like old wounds or trauma from your childhood keep showing up today? Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed with what to do about it and where to start? If so, this book will help you travel down a path…
I’ve always loved “big books,” novels that are described as sagas and chronicles yet whose primary focus is on singular, nuanced characters. I like seeing the ways that lives intersect and reflect each other across decades, and I enjoy being immersed in one world and then dropped, with the turn of a page, into another equally engrossing one. I am the author of the novel Rebellion as well as numerous short stories and essays. Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, I spent several years living in China and a year as the Writer-in-Residence at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C. I now live in Wisconsin, where I write and teach creative writing.
I first read Maxine Hong Kingston in college, but I can’t remember if I was assigned China Men or The Woman Warrior (the more famous counterpoint to China Men).All I know is that whichever one I read, I loved it so much that I immediately sought out the companion piece, which I also loved. In China Men, Kingston weaves together fiction and nonfiction, history and myth, story and memory. Is it a novel? A tapestry? I’m not quite sure what to call it, and that’s part of what I love about the book. Brief interludes of two or three pages present a single scene; longer stories narrate entire sagas. I love that this volume covers so much literal ground but ultimately feels incredibly personal.
The author chronicles the lives of three generations of Chinese men in America, woven from memory, myth and fact. Here's a storyteller's tale of what they endured in a strange new land.
As an Infectious Diseases specialist and epidemiologist, I became aware of the clandestine bio-weapons program in Russia when exposed—after the fall of the Soviet Union. I began to look at data and lecture on the potential problem before 9/11. I familiarized myself with the biology behind likely successful pathogens, including antibiotic resistance, inability to make a vaccine, and enhanced virulence designs. I also have a passion for Greek mythology that I wanted to stitch into a publication. This is the background for my book.
A best-selling crime writer, Cornwell outlines the fascinating story of a forensic pathologist about to uncover the strange story of an injured man in a hospital’s psychiatric ward. What Cornwell does as well or better than most authors is explain the excellent and latest technological testing to clarify events and identify the cause of the mystery.
From America's #1 bestselling crime writers comes an extraordinary #1 New York Times bestselling Kay Scarpetta novel.
Leaving behind her private forensic pathology practice in Charleston, South Carolina, Kay Scarpetta accepts an assignment in New York City, where the NYPD has asked her to examine an injured man on Bellevue Hospital's psychiatric prison ward. The handcuffed and chained patient, Oscar Bane, has specifically asked for her, and when she literally has her gloved hands on him, he begins to talk-and the story he has to tell turns out to be one of the most bizarre she has ever heard.
Heather Clark is the author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath which was a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, and a Book of the Year at The Guardian, O the Oprah Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Times (London), Lit Hub, Good Morning America Book Club, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a new group biography about the Boston years of Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, and Maxine Kumin, under contract with Knopf. She is a professor of Contemporary Poetry at the University of Huddersfield in Yorkshire, England.
Janice P. Nimura digs deep into the diaries and letters of the Blackwell sisters, who were among the very first women in America to be trained as doctors. The book reads like a novel without sacrificing historical accuracy and scholarly rigor. I found myself deeply moved by the sisters’ struggles to be taken seriously as physicians in an entirely male world. Jeered in lecture halls and treated as curiosities off-campus, they maintained a dignified courage and a relentless work ethic. Eventually, they shamed their skeptics and opened the doors for future generations of women doctors. This is a compelling tale told well.
Elizabeth Blackwell believed from an early age that she was destined for a mission beyond the scope of "ordinary" womanhood. Though the world at first recoiled at the notion of a woman studying medicine, her intelligence and intensity ultimately won her the acceptance of the male medical establishment. In 1849, she became the first woman in America to receive an M.D. She was soon joined in her iconic achievement by her younger sister, Emily, who was actually the more brilliant physician.
Exploring the sisters' allies, enemies, and enduring partnership, Janice P. Nimura presents a story of trial and triumph. Together,…
Tina Edwards loved her childhood and creating fairy houses, a passion shared with her father, a world-renowned architect. But at nine years old, she found him dead at his desk and is haunted by this memory. Tina's mother abruptly moved away, leaving Tina with feelings of abandonment and suspicion.
During the loneliness of the pandemic, I dreamed of group settings. Stuck in my apartment, I longed to lose myself in a community of people, or maybe to find myself in them. We’re all searching for that place where we belong, aren’t we? (Unless you’ve already found it, in which case: congratulations, and I’m jealous of you.) But when does a group that promises you belonging become something more sinister? I’m fascinated by groups that turn a bit (or a lot) cult-y — both in writing about them and reading about them.
Anyone who has ever seen a wellness guru post on Instagram knows that alternative medicine can get a little culty. This delightful novel follows an overworked gynecologist who takes a job at a high-end concierge service specializing in “alternative medicine,” drawn in by the perks, the flexibility, and her glamorous new clients and employers.
Behind the chic veneer of a wellness clinic lies a dangerous secret, in this compelling women's fiction novel from the author of The White Coat Diaries.
Dr. Maya Rao is a gynecologist trying to balance a busy life. With three young children, a career, and a happy marriage, she should be grateful—on paper, she has it all. But after a disastrous encounter with an entitled patient, Maya is forced to walk away from the city hospital where she’s spent her entire career.
An opportunity arises when Maya crosses paths with Amelia DeGilles…
