Here are 100 books that Dragon Bones fans have personally recommended if you like
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As a child I was an avid reader, my brothers’ books, my mother’s magazines, and anything in the bookcase. The library was my favorite place to go and I was proud of my library card. Today, I am a romance and cozy mystery author who is passionate about writing books that feature strong, compassionate characters that I would want to be friends with in real life. I hope you enjoy the books I've recommended but remember to pace yourself as you read through these authors' extensive lists. Allow yourself to sink into their fictional worlds and save each story.
If you love crime fiction there is no one who writes it better than Agatha Christie. Each one of her books transports you on an adventure where you become part of the crime scene, working to solve the murder before he or she gets away. In Death on the Nile, the vivid descriptions of the ship, the pyramids and the slow winding journey, and even the funny Belgian detective is so well developed you can’t help but be transported. It’s like traveling to exotic locals via armchair.
The tranquillity of a cruise along the Nile was shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway had been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful. A girl who had everything... until she lost her life.
Hercule Poirot recalled an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: 'I'd like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.' Yet in this exotic setting nothing was ever quite what it seemed...
I believe all writers must have curious minds and be avid readers. I read my first real novel at age 11: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Conan Doyle. In retrospect, I realize that it sparked a love of novels that do more than simply tell a story. I crave narratives about coping with this thing called life, and about characters that do so with resilience and tenacious grit – usually against steep odds. As Hamlet put it: “I could be bound in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.” For me, this quote is the soul of every great story.
I love to travel and frequently wonder how I’d react if an ordinary trip suddenly turned dangerous. In this novel, I learned that survival could mean being forever haunted by the experience.
Instead of a beer swilling weekend and white-water recreation, four suburbanites endure a Homeric odyssey into malevolent American darkness. Dickey’s story chronicles more than a dangerous adventure. It is extreme. It can be so extreme it challenges the reader’s tolerance.
And that gave me a powerful lesson in storytelling: do not shy away from breaking the boundaries of readerly comfort.
“You're hooked, you feel every cut, grope up every cliff, swallow water with every spill of the canoe, sweat with every draw of the bowstring. Wholly absorbing [and] dramatic.”—Harper's Magazine
The setting is the Georgia wilderness, where the states most remote white-water river awaits. In the thundering froth of that river, in its echoing stone canyons, four men on a canoe trip discover a freedom and exhilaration beyond compare. And then, in a moment of horror, the adventure turns into a struggle for survival as one man becomes a human hunter who is offered his own harrowing deliverance.
I’ve always enjoyed time spent outdoors, and over the years I’ve done plenty of hiking and camping and some whitewater rafting and canoeing. As a result, I’m intrigued by books that excel in their portrayals of outdoor settings. A serious whitewater accident prompted me to include lots of kayaking scenes in my most recent book (Over the Falls), and so I thought it would be fun to pull together a list of other river-related books that offer suspense and/or mystery. I hope these suggestions help you add a few new stories to your reading list.
I’m always up for a page-turning thriller that’s set in the outdoors, and The River at Night kept me awake late and eager for more. This story follows four women who decide to jazz up their annual girls’ trip by whitewater rafting in the Maine wilderness. What could go wrong? Just about everything. When a freak accident leaves them stranded, they’re eager for help. But are their rescuers the saviors they first believe? Grab this book for an energizing read you won’t soon forget.
A “raw, relentless, and heart-poundingly real” (Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author) thriller set against the harsh beauty of the Maine wilderness, The River at Night charts the journey of four friends as they fight to survive the aftermath of a white water rafting accident.
Winifred Allen needs a vacation.
Stifled by a soul-crushing job, devastated by the death of her beloved brother, and lonely after the end of a fifteen-year marriage, Wini is feeling vulnerable. So when her three best friends insist on a high-octane getaway for their annual girls’ trip, she signs on, despite her misgivings.
Crossing is a vividly human re-imagining of the love, sacrifices, and accomplishments that two Chinese brothers - American Immigrants - experience as they travel to California to build the Transcontinental Railroad.
Crossing is a vividly human re-imagining of the love, sacrifices, and history that laid tracks for the North America of today.
Leaving behind ancestral Chinese homelands and their family, brothers Yang and Lee face harrowing challenges as they join countless immigrants seeking a better life in the 1860s.
This story follows their remarkable journey across the ocean to San Francisco, then into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where they'll labor to build the Transcontinental Railroad. Surrounded by California's new marvels, and carrying their cultural traditions in their hearts, Yang and Lee find themselves in precarious situations. Their passions, struggles, dreams, and…
I’ve always enjoyed time spent outdoors, and over the years I’ve done plenty of hiking and camping and some whitewater rafting and canoeing. As a result, I’m intrigued by books that excel in their portrayals of outdoor settings. A serious whitewater accident prompted me to include lots of kayaking scenes in my most recent book (Over the Falls), and so I thought it would be fun to pull together a list of other river-related books that offer suspense and/or mystery. I hope these suggestions help you add a few new stories to your reading list.
We’re back in the United States for this choice, whitewater rafting on the Rio Grande with National Park ranger Anna Pigeon. This trip is supposed to be a relaxing vacation, but when a student is swept overboard and murder enters the picture, the journey becomes anything but routine. If you haven’t yet discovered this mystery series, which sets each book in a different National Park, Borderline is a great way to start.
The New York Times bestseller starring Anna Pigeon from the author of Winter Study.
“Action-packed…a narrative that plunges readers into mystery [and] mayhem.”—The Denver Post
Hoping a raft trip in Big Bend National Park will lift her spirits, Anna Pigeon and her husband Paul go to southwest Texas, where the Rio Grande is running high. The beauty of the Chihuahuan Desert and the power of the river work their magic—until the raft is lost in the rapids and a young college student makes a grisly discovery. Caught in a strainer between two boulders—and more dead than alive—is a pregnant woman.…
A youthful summer with my grandparents transformed me into a voracious reader, but I don’t recall what turned me into becoming a lifelong writer and editor. My first two teenaged short stories concerned a rock and a stoplight. My writing got better, and I’ve never stopped reading. As a grad student teaching literature, I longed to see my name on a book cover. Today, it’s on 20 books. My career was in publishing; I wrote and edited nonfiction for decades until 2007, when I turned to writing novels. My most recent is a collection of my early poetry. I also enjoy helping writers become published on The Fictional Café.
Emotion, in particular love, knows no bounds of race, culture, past, or future. I think love reaches uncommon heights in times of stress, which accounts for falling in love with abandon–like in wartime. Or when culture curbs or forbids love’s expression.
So here in this book, Lin Kong, a doctor, feels constrained during the Chinese Cultural Revolution–perhaps seeing through its façade of freedom, particularly in his own marriage. And upon that conundrum rests the plot: Lin’s waiting 18 years (by law) for divorce so he can be with the woman he desires. But the longer he waits, the more he desires her; then, once the waiting is over, desire leaves him.
Perhaps it is better for Lin to live in never-ending desire? Was his grass greener on the other side?
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 his traditional home village lives the humble, loyal wife his family chose for him years ago. Every summer, he returns to ask her for a divorce and every summer his compliant wife agrees but then backs out. This time, after eighteen years' waiting, Lin promises it will be different.
I was born to privilege in Manhattan. A seeker from the get-go, I perpetually yearned to see below the surface of the pond and understand what lay beneath and how the world really works. Not connecting with Western philosophy, religion, or culture, I turned to the wisdom of the East at a young age. I stayed the course through decades of training in Chinese martial arts, eventually reached some understanding of them, and realized my spiritual ambitions when I was ordained a Daoist monk in China in an official government ceremony. I write about China then and now and teach meditation and tai chi around the world.
There is an argument to be made that Jin Yong (aka Louis Cha) is modern China’s version of William Shakespeare. From Cha’s unimaginably rich and bottomless imagination come unforgettable stories and characters that have had a huge impact on not only contemporary China but the rest of the world. Writing in the category of wuxia (martial arts fiction) he sold 100 million copies of his books, making him China’s most famous author. Countless films and TV shows have been based on his stories, that typically portray the under classes struggling against overlords. One of my favorite memories of travels in China was sitting at the tea house inside Hong Kong’s Peninsula hotel and spending the day reading this book and munching on dim sum. If I’d stepped out and been hit by a bus, I would have died a happy monk.
This is the first of a three-volume picaresque historical romance by China's best-loved author. It tells the story of Trinket, an irreverent and comic anti-hero, and his adventures through China and Chinese history, spanning more than twenty years at the beginning of the Qing dynasty.
I became interested in China-Africa relations fifteen years ago when I realised that the rise of the former was going to have major and long-lasting effects on the politics and economics of the continent. In a sense, the rising role of China in Africa foretold its rise to global power and influence. Since then I have been fascinated by the ways in which China has restructured, or been involved in the restructuring, of African economies and politics and the ways in which that country’s global strategies and roles have continued to evolve and their impacts. I have written several books on the impacts of emerging powers in Africa.
The ascent to power of Xi Jinxing in China in 2013 heralded a new era in China’s overseas engagements and in its domestic politics and economic policy; what Elizabeth Economy has called the “third revolution.” This fascinating book by Large brings the story of China’s engagements in Africa up to date. It is packed with fascinating details and analysis and shows how China’s interests on the continent are shifting from being primarily economic to being more geopolitical. It is a detailed and nuanced analysis of the changed nature of relations.
China has gone from being a marginal to a leading power in Africa in just over two decades. Its striking ascendancy in the continent is commonly thought to have been primarily driven by economic interests, especially resources like oil. This book argues instead that politics defines the 'new era' of China-Africa relations, and examines the importance of politics across a range of areas, from foreign policy to debt, development and the Xi Jinping incarnation of the China model.
Going beyond superficial depictions of China's engagement as predatory or benign, this book explores how Africa is - and isn't - integral…
I was born to privilege in Manhattan. A seeker from the get-go, I perpetually yearned to see below the surface of the pond and understand what lay beneath and how the world really works. Not connecting with Western philosophy, religion, or culture, I turned to the wisdom of the East at a young age. I stayed the course through decades of training in Chinese martial arts, eventually reached some understanding of them, and realized my spiritual ambitions when I was ordained a Daoist monk in China in an official government ceremony. I write about China then and now and teach meditation and tai chi around the world.
Van Gulik is a giant in the field of historical mysteries, having penned the better part of 20 novels about his favorite protagonist “Judge Dee.” Set in ancient China, the stories typically involve political intrigue, moral quandaries, and settings so evocative it is easy to just close your eyes and see yourself in a pavilion overlooking a swan-filled lake or in a lady’s bed-chamber, a scholar’s library, or an artist’s studio. These novels are mood pieces as well as whodunnits, and the immersive experiences the author offers lead me to recommend not only this title but any and all in the series. Heaven for someone like me who loves what China used to be.
Early in his career, Judge Dee visits a senior magistrate who shows him a beautiful lacquer screen on which a scene of lovers has been mysteriously altered to show the man stabbing his lover. The magistrate fears he is losing his mind and will murder his own wife. Meanwhile, a banker has inexplicably killed himself, and a lovely lady has allowed Dee's lieutenant, Chiao Tai, to believe she is a courtesan. Dee and Chiao Tai go incognito among a gang of robbers to solve this mystery, and find the leader of the robbers is more honorable than the magistrate.
I have always seen my life as a journey, with lessons to be learnt along the way. Adventures on land and sea have drawn me into contact with many races and traditions and brought me close to nature in its many moods. When a physical journey ends, an inner journey takes me in directions I had never looked at before. Early spiritual questioning led me to eastern philosophies and made me aware of the underlying links between all cultures. In relying on my own experiences rather than what others have written, I believe my writing brings a freshness and individuality to the age-old questions of who we are and where we are going.
In the preface, Govinda explains: Anticipating the future, Tomo Geshe Rinpoche, one of the greatest spiritual teachers of modern Tibet and a real master of inner vision, left his remote mountain hermitage ... and proclaimed that the time had come to open to the world the spiritual treasures which had been hidden and preserved in Tibet for more than a thousand years. Because humanity stands at the crossroads of great decisions: before it lies the Path of Power ... leading to enslavement and self-destruction – and the Path of Enlightenment ... leading to liberation and self-realization.
This deeply spiritual book takes the reader through the Tibetan mantra: Om Mani Padme Hum in a way that gives true meaning to what it really is to be human.
A complete explanation of the esoteric principles of Mantra that also clarifies the differences between Hindu and Tibetan yoga. Translated into many languages, this is an important text for any student of Buddhism. With bibliography, index, and illustrations.
I’ve spent more than a decade exploring the historic roots of Asia’s modern political problems – and discovering the accidents and mistakes that got us where we are today. I spent 22 years with BBC News, including a year in Vietnam and another in Myanmar. I’ve written four books on East and Southeast Asia and I’m an Associate Fellow with the Asia-Pacific Programme at the London-based thinktank, Chatham House. I love breaking down old stereotypes and showing readers that the past is much more interesting than a series of clichés about ‘us’ and ‘them’. Perhaps through that, we can recognise that our future depends on collaboration and cooperation.
A great place to start to understand the long history of connections between East Asia and the rest of the world. Thirteen chapters take the reader from the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century up to the end of the Second World War. Each follows a particular person and their encounters with peoples of Inner and Central Asia, Europe, and Africa. They show how many things that historians have assumed to be ‘Chinese’ were borrowed from foreigners. Even the idea of the Great State, the framework through which later Chinese emperors used to describe their realm was taken from the Mongols. They also allow us to remember the ‘messiness’ of history with pioneers and villains on all sides.
The world-renowned scholar and author of Vermeer’s Hat does for China what Mary Beard did for Rome in SPQR: Timothy Brook analyzes the last eight centuries of China’s relationship with the world in this magnificent history that brings together accounts from civil servants, horse traders, spiritual leaders, explorers, pirates, emperors, migrant workers, invaders, visionaries, and traitors—creating a multifaceted portrait of this highly misunderstood nation.
China is one of the oldest states in the world. It achieved its approximate current borders with the Ascendancy of the Yuan dynasty in the thirteenth century, and despite the passing of one Imperial dynasty to…
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