18 books like On a Chinese screen

What to read after On a Chinese screen — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

China Road Rob Gifford · 2007 · ★ 4.3 · 342p · ≈ 11h · Moderate Route 312 is the Chinese Route 66. It flows three thousand miles from east to west, passing through the factory towns of the coastal areas, through the rural heart of China, then up into the Gobi Desert, where it merges with the Old Silk Road. The highway witnesses every part of the social and economic revolution that is turning China upside down.In this utterly surprising and deeply personal… 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

Paul Kelver Jerome Klapka Jérôme · 1902 · 322p · ≈ 10h · Challenging IN WHICH THE AUTHOR SEEKS TO CAST THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THIS STORY UPON ANOTHER. Shares: English Authors, Authors, Biography & Memoir

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: Authors, Description and travel, Travel, Social life and customs

Boy Roald Dahl · 1984 · ★ 4.1 · 187p · ≈ 6h · Moderate Boy is an autobiographical book by British writer Roald Dahl. This book describes his life from birth until leaving school, focusing on living conditions in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s, the public school system at the time, and how his childhood experiences led him to writing as a career. It ends with his first job, working for Royal Dutch Shell. His autobiography continues in the book Going… Shares: English Authors, Authors, Manners and customs, Travel

Wild Wales George Henry Borrow · 1798 · 608p · ≈ 20h · Demanding Wild Wales: Its People, Language and Scenery is a travel book by the English Victorian gentleman writer George Borrow (1803–1881), first published in 1862. Shares: English Authors, Description and travel, Travel, Social life and customs

Life of Samuel Johnson James Boswell · 1776 · ★ 3.8 · 567p · ≈ 18h · Demanding Poet, lexicographer, critic, moralist and Great Cham, Dr. Johnson had in his friend Boswell the ideal biographer. Notoriously and self-confessedly intemperate, Boswell shared with Johnson a huge appetite for life and threw equal energy into recording its every aspect in minute but telling detail. This irrepressible Scotsman was 'always studying human nature and making experiments', and the… Shares: English Authors, Authors, Description and travel, Travel

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

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

War Boy Michael Foreman · 1990 · ★ 4.0 · 92p · ≈ 3h · Moderate An English artist writes and illustrates a memoir of his own wartime childhood. Shares: English Authors, Authors, Manners and customs, Social life and customs

Mosaic Holroyd, Michael. · 2004 · ★ 3.9 · 288p · ≈ 9h · Moderate A love story, a detective story, a book of secrets, a beautifully written journey into a forest of family trees. After writing the definitive biographies of Lytton Strachey and George Bernard Shaw, Michael Holroyd turned his hand to a more personal subject: his own family. The result was Basil Street Blues, published in 1999. But rather than the story being over, it was in fact only beginning. As… Shares: English Authors, Authors, Manners and customs, Social life and customs

Travels with a donkey in the Cevennes Robert Louis Stevenson · 1879 · ★ 3.6 · 191p · ≈ 6h · Challenging A classic of travel writing, this book recounts Stevenson's adventures on an extended walk through uplands and mountains in south-western France. Humorous on his own failings as a traveller, and on his travails with Modestine the self-willed donkey, it is also an exploration of peasant life in an area marked by the violence of the wars of religion. This version includes the fragment "A mountain… Shares: English Authors, Description and travel, Travel, Biography & Memoir

Here Lies Eric Ambler · 1985 · 234p · ≈ 7h · Moderate Winner of the Edgar Award, Eric Ambler’s autobiography Here Lies is an intriguing look inside the mind of one of our greatest thriller writers. Here the famously recalcitrant Ambler peels back the layers of experience that affected his life with the same skill he uses to unfold the plots of his novels. His South London childhood; his brief engineering career, which he gave up to work in theater;… Shares: English Authors, Authors, Biography & Memoir

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