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best titles there? To this last question the answer is certainly "No". Either I did not happen to pick up the best book on a particular subject when I was in search of a quotation or, and this was often the case, the best book turned out not to be very quotable. Some authors' styles do not lend themselves to excerpting, not because they are bad but because they are more cumulative than 'dashing'. I think it was Somerset Maugham who described one of his characters as the kind of man you wouldn't mind being marooned for years with but couldn't stand the prospect of one afternoon with. Quotable authors have to scintillate a little, but it doesn't mean that their whole books are good, and vice versa.
No, the list is also not a representative sample. Too much has been written on too many China topics to hope for that. So the answer to my first question must presumably be "Not very good". It is at best an "interesting" and "fun" list. Partly to redress it I appended a short list of 'Suggestions for Further Reading' to Ancestral Images Again. I could not presume to attempt a definitive list of the most important books on Chinese culture, and discerning readers will doubtless have spotted already that I have made little effort to cover the large realm of capital-C Culture, but let me add here some other important and useful books which I think ought to be on a general list:
Bodde, Derk and Morris, Clarence, Law in Imperial China, Harvard University Press, 1967.
Buchanan, K. The Transformation of the Chinese Earth, London, 1970.
Buck, Pearl S, The Good Earth, London, 1931.
Chang, K. C., (ed.), Food in Chinese Culture, New Haven, 1977.
Endacott, G. B. and Birch, Alan, Hong Kong Eclipse, Hong Kong, 1978.
Freedman, Maurice, Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung, London, 1966.
Hawkes, David, The Story of the Stone, Penguin Books, 1973+ (series still in progress).
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best titles there? To this last question the answer is certainly "No". Either I did not happen to pick up the best book on a particular subject when I was in search of a quotation or, and this was often the case, the best book turned out not to be very quotable. Some authors' styles do not lend themselves to excerpting, not because they are bad but because they are more cumulative than 'dashing'. I think it was Somerset Maugham who described one of his characters as the kind of man you wouldn't mind being marooned for years with but couldn't stand the prospect of one afternoon with. Quotable authors have to scintillate a little, but it doesn't mean that their whole books are good, and vice versa.
No, the list is also not a representative sample. Too much has been written on too many China topics to hope for that. So the answer to my first question must presumably be "Not very good". It is at best an "interesting" and "fun" list. Partly to redress it I appended a short list of 'Suggestions for Further Reading' to Ancestral Images Again. I could not presume to attempt a definitive list of the most important books on Chinese culture, and discerning readers will doubtless have spotted already that I have made little effort to cover the large realm of capital-C Culture, but let me add here some other important and useful books which I think ought to be on a general list:
Bodde, Derk and Morris, Clarence, Law in Imperial China,
Harvard University Press, 1967.
Buchanan, K. The Transformation of the Chinese Earth,
London, 1970.
Buck, Pearl S, The Good Earth, London, 1931.
Chang, K. C., (ed.), Food in Chinese Culture, New Haven,
1977.
Endacott, G. B. and Birch, Alan, Hong Kong Eclipse, Hong
Kong, 1978.
Freedman, Maurice, Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and
Kwangtung, London, 1966.
Hawkes, David, The Story of the Stone, Penguin Books,
1973-
+
(series still in progress).
!
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