The Books canon

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Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
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2 volumes
SortEditorial Year Title
Subject·China✕clear
Nonfiction · History

Records of the Grand Historian

Sima Qian
94 BC · 208 pages

Castrated rather than executed for defending a general, Sima Qian lived to finish his history: twenty-five centuries of China told through emperors, assassins, and merchants. The portraits are alive on the page.

★ 7.5
Nonfiction · Reporting

Age of Ambition

Evan Osnos
2014 · 403 pages

Osnos spent eight years watching China chase fortune faster than its politics allowed, and tells it through a soldier who swam the strait to defect and a blind lawyer who escaped house arrest.

★ 4.8