18 books like China Road

What to read after China Road — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

Wild Swans Jung Chang · 1989 · ★ 4.3 · 729p · ≈ 24h · Moderate "Jung Chang vividly evokes China's sights, sounds, and smells to create what must be one of the grimmest, yet most perceptive accounts of growing up middle-class in the maelstrom that has swept China since the 1920s." - Back cover. Shares: Community pick

On a Chinese screen William Somerset Maugham · 1922 · 242p · ≈ 8h · Challenging On a Chinese Screen was first published in 1922 by Heinemann Publishers, London. Its 58 short vignettes are based on Maugham’s travels along the Yangtze River from 1919 to 1920. Although later editions of the book added the subtitle “Sketches of Life in China,” there are actually only a few descriptions of the places he visited and the local Chinese people he met; rather, Maugham focuses on… Shares: China, Manners and customs, Description and travel, Travel

Bitter lemons Lawrence Durrell · 1957 · 271p · ≈ 9h · Moderate With the publication of Justine Lawrence Durrell became, almost overnight, one of the most talked about, widely acclaimed novelists of the decade. Now, in Bitter Lemons, his focus has shifted from the world of his imagination to life itself. Writing in the exquisite poetic prose that critics have hailed as unequalled in contemporary literature, he tells the perceptive, often humorous story of his… Shares: Manners and customs, Description and travel, Travel, Social life and customs

Tent-life in Siberia and adventures among the Koraks and other tribes in Kamchatka and northern Asia George Kennan · 1870 · 425p · ≈ 14h · Challenging An account of a period living in Siberia in pursuit of a plan to carry a telegraph line across land to Europe through Siberia in consequence of the failure of efforts to carry a telegraph line to Europe under the Atlantic. Shares: Description and travel, Travel, Social life and customs

The Lands of the Saracen Bayard Taylor · 1854 · 451p · ≈ 15h · Challenging This volume comprises the second portion of a series of travels. This work includes author's adventure travels in Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Sicily and Spain. Shares: Description and travel, Travel

Journey Without Maps Graham Greene · 1936 · 249p · ≈ 8h · Challenging This is an account of a trip Graham Greene made in 1935 with his cousin, Barbara Greene, through the previously unexplored interior of Liberia. It was an extremely uncomfortable journey, with Greene falling seriously ill halfway through the trip. Possibly as a result of this he also made a point of noting the many illnesses with which the local inhabitants were assailed, particularly malaria and… Shares: Description and travel, Travel

The road to Little Dribbling Bill Bryson · 2015 · ★ 3.9 · 486p · ≈ 16h · Moderate Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to discover and celebrate that green and pleasant land. The result was Notes from a Small Island, one of the bestselling travel books ever written. Now he has traveled about Britain again, by bus and train and rental car and on foot, to see what has changed -- and what hasn't. Following a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from Bognor Regis… Shares: Manners and customs, Description and travel, Travel, Social life and customs

The Middle Kingdom S. Wells Williams · 1848 · 810p · ≈ 27h · Demanding First published in 2009. This work by S. Wells Williams is a complete look at the Chinese Empire during the mid-nineteenth century. Subjects include the divisions of the Empire, geographical descriptions, religion and art, literature, the second war between Great Britain and China and social life among the Chinese. This is Volume two of two. Shares: China, Manners and customs, Description and travel, Travel

Venetian life William Dean Howells · 1866 · 158p · ≈ 5h · Challenging This is a novel book. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Howells was appointed United States consul in Venice, Italy. In Venetian Life, an utterly engaging travelogue, Howells revises a series of travel letters he had written about his experiences in Venice for the Boston Advertiser. Honest in its love for (yet discomfort in) Venice, it would be followed by Italian Journeys. Shares: Manners and customs, Description and travel, Travel, Social life and customs

Twilight in Italy D. H. Lawrence · 1916 · 310p · ≈ 10h · Challenging In these impressions of the Italian countryside, Lawrence transforms ordinary incidents into passages of intense beauty. "Twilight in Italy" is a vibrant account of Lawrence's stay among the people of Lake Garda, whose decaying lemon gardens bear witness to the twilight of a way of life centuries old. Shares: Manners and customs, Description and travel, Travel, Social life and customs

Seven Years in Tibet (Sieben Jahre in Tibet) Heinrich Harrer · 1952 · ★ 4.3 · 314p · ≈ 10h · Moderate An account of an Austrian mountain climber's escape from a British internment camp in India during World War II and his twenty-one-month journey through the Himalayas to safety in the Forbidden City of Lhasa in Tibet. Shares: China, Manners and customs, Description and travel, Travel

Waiting Ha Jin · 1998 · ★ 3.5 · 308p · ≈ 10h · Moderate For more than seventeen years, Lin Kong, a devoted and ambitious doctor, has been in love with an educated, clever, modern woman, Manna Wu. But back in the traditional world of his home village lives the wife his family chose for him when he was young. Every year he visits her in order to ask, again and again, for a divorce. In a culture in which the ancient ties of tradition and family still… Shares: China, Manners and customs, Social life and customs

American notes Rudyard Kipling · 1890 · 68p · ≈ 2h · Challenging An account of America from Rudyard Kipling while visiting San Francisco in the late 1800s. Shares: Manners and customs, Description and travel, Travel, Social life and customs

Palmetto-leaves Harriet Beecher Stowe · 1873 · 96p · ≈ 3h · Challenging After the Civil War, the Stowes bought a house on the St. Johns River near Mandarin, Florida. For several years, they spent the winters at their Florida home. In 1872, Stowe published Pametto Leaves describing the area, its people and wildlife. The book is organized as a series of articles and includes several ink sketches. It provides a unique view of north Florida and may have influenced Henry… Shares: Description and travel, Travel, Social life and customs

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil John Berendt · 1994 · ★ 4.4 · 388p · ≈ 12h · Moderate Read John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in Large Print. All Random House Large Print editions are published in a 16-point typefaceShots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung… Shares: Manners and customs, Description and travel, Travel, Social life and customs

The travelling bachelor James Fenimore Cooper · 1828 · 486p · ≈ 16h · Challenging Notions of the Americans in considered Cooper's first work of non-fiction despite a thin overlay of character and plot. Written in the form of a travel narrative, it addresses the widespread ignorance he encountered in Europe about the people and institutions of the United States. It is an exuberant chant of praise for American representative democracy, encapsulating the utopian vision that… Shares: Manners and customs, Description and travel, Travel, Social life and customs

Epistolae Ho-Elianae James Howell · 1650 · 510p · ≈ 17h · Demanding Epistolae Ho-Elianae (or Familiar Letters) is a literary work by the 17th-century Anglo-Welsh historian and writer, James Howell. It was mainly written when Howell was in the Fleet Prison, during the 1640s; but its content reflects earlier travels he made from 1616 on behalf of a London glass factory. It appeared in three volumes from 1645 to 1650. A fourth volume was added in a collected edition… Shares: Manners and customs, Description and travel, Travel, Social life and customs

The complete works of O. Henry [pseud.] O. Henry · 1899 · ★ 3.8 · 1396p · ≈ 46h · Demanding The FICTION & PROSE LITERATURE collection includes books from the British Library digitised by Microsoft. The collection provides readers with a perspective of the world from some of the 18th and 19th century’s most talented writers. Written for a range of audiences, these works are a treasure for any curious reader looking to see the world through the eyes of ages past. Beyond the main body of… Shares: Manners and customs, Social life and customs

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