100 books like An Excess Male

By Maggie Shen King,

Here are 100 books that An Excess Male fans have personally recommended if you like An Excess Male. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Woman on the Edge of Time

Karin Schönpflug Author Of Feminism, Economics and Utopia: Time Travelling through Paradigms

From my list on utopian visions of feminist economics.

Why am I passionate about this?

I studied economics and found it incredibly boring, exclusive, and confusing at the same time. Eventually, I discovered feminist economics and realized that economics is loaded with crazy mathematical jargon aiming to hide exploitation processes such as unpaid work in the household, precarious production especially in former colonies of the “Global South”, as well as environmental destruction. I found that utopian and sci-fi novels are not only fun to read but may also carry antidotes to reshape traditional economic thinking. Check out my TEDx talk where I can tell you more about all this.

Karin's book list on utopian visions of feminist economics

Karin Schönpflug Why did Karin love this book?

This is an amazing book to really get sucked into.

Written in 1976, it is a fantasy to go hide in from today’s dystopia of post-COVID and early climate change. You can join 1960s Consuela Ramos in her escape from a forced hospitalization in a mental institution to a utopian world that she visits with Luciente, a time-traveler.

That future is full of amazing people who do not celebrate hierarchies of race and gender but live in anarchist poly-amorous villages where hard labor is performed by machines and babies are produced in breeders with biological components of three parents.

The book is rich in blueprints for liberated education, conflict resolution, socio-economic innovation, and relationships. The beautiful world is threatened by a wicked parallel future world that Consuela must help to prevent.

By Marge Piercy,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Woman on the Edge of Time as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'One of those rare novels that leave us different people at the end than we were at the beginning.' GLORIA STEINEM

'She is a serious writer who deserves the sort of considered attention which, too often, she does not get...' MARGARET ATWOOD
_______________________________________

Often compared to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Naomi Alderman's The Power - Woman on the Edge of Time has been hailed as a classic of speculative science fiction. Disturbing and forward thinking, Marge Piercy's remarkable novel will speak to a new generation of readers.

Connie Ramos has been unjustly incarcerated in a mental institution with…


Book cover of Twinkle Twinkle

Redfern Jon Barrett Author Of The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights

From my list on exploring polyamory and non-traditional love.

Why am I passionate about this?

My life has never been very conventional. As a 6’6 nonbinary queer writer who’s been polyamorous for over a decade, I’m very fortunate to live with my two loving partners here in Berlin. My writing focuses on nontraditional and nonmonogamous forms of love, from novels to articles and short stories which have been published in The Sun Magazine, Passages North, Booth, and Guernica. I’ve served on the review committee for the Conference on the Future of Monogamy and Nonmonogamy at UC Berkeley, publicly debated the issue at UCL, and my campaign work for LGBTQ+ and polyamory rights has been referenced in The Mirror, Buzzfeed, and BBC News.

Redfern's book list on exploring polyamory and non-traditional love

Redfern Jon Barrett Why did Redfern love this book?

An immensely sweet novel with a focus on Japanese homophobia, Twinkle Twinkle follows the gay male Mutsuki and straight woman Shoko as they enter into a sham marriage. Though it shares some themes with An Excess Male, the novel isn’t speculative, instead providing insights into contemporary Japanese society and social customs — particularly the stifling sense of conformity. Yet despite cultural pressures, the fascinating three-way dynamic between Mutsuki, Shoko, and Mutsuki’s boyfriend carries the tale and will leave a lasting impression.

By Kaori Ekuni, Emi Shimokawa (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Twinkle Twinkle as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

They got married ten days ago. They haven't had sex yet and they don't intend to.

As it turned out, the only way to make their parents get off their backs about trying to "find someone" was actually finding somone--with whom to put marriage for show. Mutsuki is stictly gay and has a boyfriend, while Shoko is a clinical case of emotional instability who's in no shape for a relationship. They've each found in the other a perfect partner for a sham marriage. Since the conspirators' parents know of their own child's undesirability, but not the spouse's, the union manages…


Book cover of Tales of Nevèrӱon

Redfern Jon Barrett Author Of The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights

From my list on exploring polyamory and non-traditional love.

Why am I passionate about this?

My life has never been very conventional. As a 6’6 nonbinary queer writer who’s been polyamorous for over a decade, I’m very fortunate to live with my two loving partners here in Berlin. My writing focuses on nontraditional and nonmonogamous forms of love, from novels to articles and short stories which have been published in The Sun Magazine, Passages North, Booth, and Guernica. I’ve served on the review committee for the Conference on the Future of Monogamy and Nonmonogamy at UC Berkeley, publicly debated the issue at UCL, and my campaign work for LGBTQ+ and polyamory rights has been referenced in The Mirror, Buzzfeed, and BBC News.

Redfern's book list on exploring polyamory and non-traditional love

Redfern Jon Barrett Why did Redfern love this book?

I might be obsessed with science and speculative fiction, but I rarely venture over to the fantasy section of the bookstore. I don’t know, maybe there’s just too much gender-stereotyping and absolute monarchy for my taste — so I’ll be ever-grateful for being gifted a copy of Tales of Nevèrӱon. Exploring polyamory without resorting to vampires, Samuel R. Delany’s novel looks at queer relationships in a manner much like Woman on the Edge of Time and was published later that same decade. It’s fantasy unlike anything else I’ve read.

By Samuel R. Delany,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Tales of Nevèrӱon as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Presumably elaborated from an ancient text of unknown geographical origin, the stories are sunk in translators' and commentators' introductions and appendices, forming a richly comic frame.


Book cover of Egalia's Daughters: A Satire of the Sexes

Redfern Jon Barrett Author Of The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights

From my list on exploring polyamory and non-traditional love.

Why am I passionate about this?

My life has never been very conventional. As a 6’6 nonbinary queer writer who’s been polyamorous for over a decade, I’m very fortunate to live with my two loving partners here in Berlin. My writing focuses on nontraditional and nonmonogamous forms of love, from novels to articles and short stories which have been published in The Sun Magazine, Passages North, Booth, and Guernica. I’ve served on the review committee for the Conference on the Future of Monogamy and Nonmonogamy at UC Berkeley, publicly debated the issue at UCL, and my campaign work for LGBTQ+ and polyamory rights has been referenced in The Mirror, Buzzfeed, and BBC News.

Redfern's book list on exploring polyamory and non-traditional love

Redfern Jon Barrett Why did Redfern love this book?

There is never enough alternate history. Particularly alternate history that doesn’t focus either on the Nazis winning World War II or the South winning the American Civil War. Thankfully we have Egalia’s Daughters, yet another forward-thinking novel from the seventies. Set in a world where gender norms are swapped around entirely, its male characters wear special testicle bras and adorn their beards with flowers (I do like that last part). Of course, this woman-dominated world is no less homophobic than our own, and as part of their gender rebellion, the men form relationships with one another, in various configurations. It’s a delightful read, with its gender reversals a mirror reflection of our own society.

By Gerd Brantenberg,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Egalia's Daughters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Reminiscent of Orwell and Huxley's dystopian novels, this classic of women's literature is an intelligent and well-written contribution to the sex-role debate.

Welcome to the land of Egalia, where gender roles are topsy-turvy as "wim" wield the power and "menwim" light the home fires. This re-telling of the prototypical coming-of-age novel will have readers laughing out loud and wondering who should prevail: poor Petronius, who wants more than anything to cruise the oceans as a seawom; or his powerful and protective mother Director Bram, who rules her family with an authoritarian righteousness. But for better or for worse, as the…


Book cover of A Mother's Ordeal: One Woman's Fight Against China's One-Child Policy

Kimberly Ells Author Of The Invincible Family: Why the Global Campaign to Crush Motherhood and Fatherhood Can't Win

From my list on smart moms.

Why am I passionate about this?

Throughout my teen years, I heard the narrative that mothers are powerless doormats who should be doing something better with their lives. But in time, I realized motherhood is a position of profound power. And I knew that the prevailing messaging on motherhood needed to change! As an author, speaker, and policy advisor for an NGO at the United Nations, I have spent the past 10 years inspiring women to embrace their potential—including their irreplaceable roles as mothers. I have a degree in English, but my finest education came from raising my four college-age daughters and my one young son. Mothers are miraculous!

Kimberly's book list on smart moms

Kimberly Ells Why did Kimberly love this book?

This book ripped my heart to pieces and somehow put it back together better than it was before. It profoundly changed my outlook on motherhood and freedom and showed me how those two things are intimately connected.

This true story of one woman, her husband, and their unthinkable life in China is riveting, chilling, hopeful, and tender. I cried, and then I cried some more. Copies of this book can be difficult to find; I’m so glad I found one. 

By Steven W Mosher,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Mother's Ordeal as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Social scientist and China expert Mosher relates the story of Chi An, a former population-control worker in China, whose own second pregnancy became the catalyst for her fight to stay in the U.S. "A searing and candid look at a place where the state brutally intrudes into the most intimate parts of a woman's life."--Kirkus Reviews.


Book cover of Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China

Aihwa Ong Author Of Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality

From my list on people's lives in contemporary China.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professor emerita of Anthropology at Berkeley. I have written books on Muslim women in runaway factories; the modern Chinese diaspora; Cambodian refugees in the US; neoliberal Asian states; and Singapore's biomedical hub. I also write on contemporary Chinese art. We live in worlds interwoven by assemblages of technology, politics, and culture. Each situation is crystallized by the shifting interactions of global forces and local elements. Given our interlocking, interdependent realities, a sustainable future depends on our appreciation of cultural differences and support of transnational cooperation. For many people, China today is a formidable challenge, but learning about its peoples' struggles and desires is a beginning toward recognizing their humanity.

Aihwa's book list on people's lives in contemporary China

Aihwa Ong Why did Aihwa love this book?

China's gargantuan size has haunted its efforts to become a modern nation. Anthropologist Greenhalgh argues that in the late 1970s, Chinese rocket scientists, influenced by doomsday policymakers in the West, convinced the Chinese government to impose a one-child family planning program. The draconian enforcement of the one-child policy subjected millions of women to intimate corporeal surveillance that resulted in uncounted numbers of forced abortions, hidden births, and suffering for the masses. By 2016, when the two children policy was instituted, family planning contributed to an unbalanced gender ratio, delayed marriages, and a possibly irreversible population decline. Social engineering is a modus operandi of the Chinese state, and ironically, its most famous strategy threatens the nation's sustainability as a world industrial power.

By Susan Greenhalgh,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Just One Child as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

China's one-child rule is unassailably one of the most controversial social policies of all time. In the first book of its kind, Susan Greenhalgh draws on twenty years of research into China's population politics to explain how the leaders of a nation of one billion decided to limit all couples to one child. Focusing on the historic period 1978-80, when China was just reentering the global capitalist system after decades of self-imposed isolation, Greenhalgh documents the extraordinary manner in which a handful of leading aerospace engineers hijacked the population policymaking process and formulated a strategy that treated people like missiles.…


Book cover of Telling the Truth: China's Great Leap Forward, Household Registration and the Famine Death Tally

Mobo C.F. Gao Author Of Constructing China: Clashing Views of the People's Republic

From my list on understanding modern China.

Why am I passionate about this?

I currently teach Chinese studies at the Department of Asian Studies of the University of Adelaide. My publications include several books, and over a hundred book chapters/articles. My book Mandarin Chinese: An Introduction is a standard reference for learners of modern Chinese in English-speaking countries. Two of my books Gao Village: A Portrait of Modern Life in Rural China and Gao Village Revisited: Life of the Rural People in Contemporary China are case studies of Gao Village where I came from. Other books include the Battle of China's Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution and Remembering Socialist China 1949 – 1976 which are reassessments of the Mao era and the Cultural Revolution. 

Mobo's book list on understanding modern China

Mobo C.F. Gao Why did Mobo love this book?

The accepted wisdom about the Chinese Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1961 both in and outside of China is that the Great Leap Forward famine death toll was 30 million. This book challenges this wisdom. The book’s argument is based on the research of Professor Sun Jingxian who is a mathematician, who, after having examined the domestic migration pattern during the period, comes to the conclusion that the famine death toll was about 4 million.

By Yang Songlin, Baohui Xie (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Telling the Truth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book discusses what is often called the "Great Leap Famine", which occurred in China during the years from 1959 to 1961. Scholarly consensus suggests that 30 million Chinese perished. Yang Songlin's book provides an evidence-based, systematic and substantial rebuff, concluding that a much smaller number of deaths can be verified. This book is of interest to scholars of China and Chinese development and politics, economists, and demographers.


Book cover of Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political Concepts from Mao to Xi

Mobo C.F. Gao Author Of Constructing China: Clashing Views of the People's Republic

From my list on understanding modern China.

Why am I passionate about this?

I currently teach Chinese studies at the Department of Asian Studies of the University of Adelaide. My publications include several books, and over a hundred book chapters/articles. My book Mandarin Chinese: An Introduction is a standard reference for learners of modern Chinese in English-speaking countries. Two of my books Gao Village: A Portrait of Modern Life in Rural China and Gao Village Revisited: Life of the Rural People in Contemporary China are case studies of Gao Village where I came from. Other books include the Battle of China's Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution and Remembering Socialist China 1949 – 1976 which are reassessments of the Mao era and the Cultural Revolution. 

Mobo's book list on understanding modern China

Mobo C.F. Gao Why did Mobo love this book?

The fact that the edited book collects more than 50 world’s renowned scholars in the field is itself unique and worth reading. The other feature of the collection is that each scholar focuses on one topic, or one theme, such as class struggle, global Maoism, or poetry. In other words, each and any reader can find his or her topic of interest. “The masterful ensemble of essays challenges us to learn from China’s socialist past – its visions, accomplishment, and mistakes – as we contemplate our possible futures” as commented by one reviewer

By Christian Sorace (editor), Ivan Franceschini (editor), Nicholas Loubere (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Afterlives of Chinese Communism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Afterlives of Chinese Communism comprises essays from over fifty world-renowned scholars in the China field, from various disciplines and continents. It provides an indispensable guide for understanding how the Mao era continues to shape Chinese politics today. Each chapter discusses a concept or practice from the Mao period, what it attempted to do, and what has become of it since. The authors respond to the legacy of Maoism from numerous perspectives to consider what lessons Chinese communism can offer today, and whether there is a future for the egalitarian politics that it once promised. Co-published by ANU Press: https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/afterlives-chinese-communism


Book cover of The Dynamics of Chinese Politics

Christine Loh Author Of No Third Person: Rewriting the Hong Kong Story

From my list on the Chinese Communist Party and Hong Kong.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am East-and-West. Born in British Hong Kong, studied in England, and worked for a US multinational in Beijing, I had a range of experiences that traversed Chinese and western cultures. Sucked into politics in Hong Kong prior to and post-1997, I had a ringside seat to colonial Hong Kong becoming a part of China. I too went from being a British citizen to a Chinese national. Along the way, I got interested in the environment and was appointed a minister in Hong Kong in 2012. I have always read a lot about the world and how things work or don’t work. I hope you like what I have enjoyed!

Christine's book list on the Chinese Communist Party and Hong Kong

Christine Loh Why did Christine love this book?

Lucian Pye’s parents were American missionaries in China, and the author was born in northwest China. He was a sought-after China expert in his lifetime. He had a deep understanding of China and its politics, which meant he understood the CCP, and the book includes references to Hong Kong in the days when Hong Kong was a British colony but something was rumbling.

By Lucian Pye,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Dynamics of Chinese Politics as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Book by Pye, Lucian W.


Book cover of The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution

Laura Hostetler Author Of Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China

From my list on geo-politics and rise of the nation state in China.

Why am I passionate about this?

As Professor of History and Global Asian Studies and Director of the Engaged Humanities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I'm interested in intersections at the margins between cultural systems. I first became drawn to Chinese history after visiting the country in 1982 and returned to teach English there before undertaking graduate studies. My work on eighteenth-century China focuses on ethnography and cartography as tools of empire building during its period of growth and expansion. My current project, Bridging Worlds: Reflections on a Journey, chronicles a quest for personal integration when obtaining an education has too often become predicated on the ability to cut oneself off from aspects of one’s own inner knowing and lived experience.

Laura's book list on geo-politics and rise of the nation state in China

Laura Hostetler Why did Laura love this book?

Recreating the experience of a variety of Chinese literary figures whose lives collectively spanned most of the 20th century, Jonathan Spence helps his reader to understand how and why individuals from across the political spectrum were drawn to the goal of recreating a strong and unified China, and were willing to sacrifice themselves—and fight against each other—in its pursuit. A cultural rather than a political history, we nonetheless begin to understand the power that politics has to shape lives and constrain the possibilities open to individuals, especially during times of significant upheaval. 

By Jonathan D. Spence,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Gate of Heavenly Peace as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"A milestone in Western studies of China." (John K. Fairbank)

In this masterful, highly original approach to modern Chinese history, Jonathan D. Spence shows us the Chinese revolution through the eyes of its most articulate participants-the writers, historians, philosophers, and insurrectionists who shaped and were shaped by the turbulent events of the twentieth century. By skillfully combining literary materials with more conventional sources of political and social history, Spence provides an unparalleled look at China and her people and offers valuable insight into the continuing conflict between the implacable power of the state and the strivings of China's artists, writers,…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in China, politics, and marriage?

China 640 books
Politics 763 books
Marriage 131 books