95 books like Hong Kong's Watershed

By Gary Ka-Wai Cheung,

Here are 95 books that Hong Kong's Watershed fans have personally recommended if you like Hong Kong's Watershed. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China

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?

Deng Xiaoping is the most important person in contemporary Chinese affairs. It was under his time as the paramount leader of China that modernization started in earnest. He judged policy effectiveness on whether it worked or not. His story is engagingly told by historian Ezra Vogel.

By Ezra F. Vogel,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the Lionel Gelber Prize
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

An Economist Best Book of the Year | A Financial Times Book of the Year | A Wall Street Journal Book of the Year | A Washington Post Book of the Year | A Bloomberg News Book of the Year | An Esquire China Book of the Year | A Gates Notes Top Read of the Year

Perhaps no one in the twentieth century had a greater long-term impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping. And no scholar of contemporary East Asian history and culture is better qualified…


Book cover of The Communist Party of China and Marxism 1921-1985

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?

The author, a Jesuit priest from Hungary, spent years in China before moving to Hong Kong. He was the preeminent scholar on China in the 1970s-80s. Ladany poured over what the CCP said about itself to construct a marvellous “self-portrait” of the CCP, including insights about Hong Kong. His scholarship is awesome and there hasn’t been someone quite like him among scholars on China.

By Laszlo Ladany,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Communist Party of China and Marxism 1921-1985 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Without an understanding of the Communist Party no one can understand the China in which the Party has dominated the country. This book follows the development of the Communist Party and of Marxism in China from the early years. For the years 1921-49, it relies mainly on revelations in the Communist press of the early 1980s, when Chinese historians of the Party were relatively free to write. In relation to the People's Republic, beginning in 1949, it summarises what was reported by the author in China News Analysis. This is essentially the story of the Chinese Communist Party in its…


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 Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962--1976

Stephen Vines Author Of Defying the Dragon: Hong Kong and the World's Largest Dictatorship

From my list on Hong Kong and China.

Why am I passionate about this?

I came to Hong Kong as a journalist in 1987, expecting to stay a few years and then move on to the next story. But the former British colony quickly got its teeth into me, not least because I was there during the tumultuous years of transition to Chinese rule. I am always in the market to understand more about this wonderful place, which I left reluctantly in 2021 in fear that the fast-bellowing crackdown on freedom of speech was coming my way. Departure has, if anything, given me a greater appetite for reading more about Hong Kong and China. I hope these books will explain why this is so.

Stephen's book list on Hong Kong and China

Stephen Vines Why did Stephen love this book?

This harrowing account of the most consequential periods of Communist rule in China is part of a series covering the evolution of the Chinese dictatorship.

I would happily recommend all four of the books, but this one in particular, because it sheds considerable new light on a terrifying series of events that the author has unearthed by diligently studying regional archives containing a wealth of material not researched by other historians. Dikotter is an academic, but these books are not at all dry academic studies.

By Frank Dikotter,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The concluding volume--following Mao's Great Famine and The Tragedy of Liberation--in Frank Dikötter's award-winning trilogy chronicling the Communist revolution in China.

After the economic disaster of the Great Leap Forward that claimed tens of millions of lives from 1958–1962, an aging Mao Zedong launched an ambitious scheme to shore up his reputation and eliminate those he viewed as a threat to his legacy. The Cultural Revolution's goal was to purge the country of bourgeois, capitalistic elements he claimed were threatening genuine communist ideology. Young students formed the Red Guards, vowing to defend the Chairman to the death, but soon rival…


Book cover of The Age of Water

Joe Kilgore Author Of Misfortune’s Wake

From my list on expat adventures.

Why am I passionate about this?

In a previous career, I traveled extensively to many parts of the world. I always found new cultures, old traditions, strange languages, and exotic environments fascinating. Perhaps even more fascinating, were the expats I found who had traded in their home country for an existence far from where they were born and different from how they were reared. In many instances, I’ve attempted to incorporate—in Heinlein’s words—this stranger in a strange land motif in my work. It always seems to heighten my interest. I hope the reader’s as well. 

Joe's book list on expat adventures

Joe Kilgore Why did Joe love this book?

This novel brings readers up close and personal with Hong Kong. Clarke is a young Englishman doing a banking stint in the fabled city. He lives a relatively sedate existence in his corporately antiseptic neighborhood. But one day he decides to get off his beaten path and winds up having his life changed dramatically. He becomes enamored with a shantytown prostitute, embroiled in the geopolitical struggle with Mainland China, and involved in a potential swindle of international proportions. In addition to spinning an interesting tale, Craft is also able to weave in the ticking time bomb of environmental hazards that plague the area without pious preaching and totally within the confines of the story he’s telling. 

By Sean Craft,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Rivers had become toxic and the ocean shore is a sea of plastic: there's money to be made. But for Philip Clarke, handsome, clever, and decidedly available, that world seemed a distraction from an altogether different one, where the possibilities of pleasure overwrote the machinery of commerce.

Newly arrived in Hong Kong, his island world lay somewhere between the looming shadow of China, and its strange double downtown, where bankers and brokers breathed the same crowded air as a new breed of political activists. In his mind, he was thankfully immune from both.

But the tranquillity of his island home…


Book cover of Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong

Stephen Vines Author Of Defying the Dragon: Hong Kong and the World's Largest Dictatorship

From my list on Hong Kong and China.

Why am I passionate about this?

I came to Hong Kong as a journalist in 1987, expecting to stay a few years and then move on to the next story. But the former British colony quickly got its teeth into me, not least because I was there during the tumultuous years of transition to Chinese rule. I am always in the market to understand more about this wonderful place, which I left reluctantly in 2021 in fear that the fast-bellowing crackdown on freedom of speech was coming my way. Departure has, if anything, given me a greater appetite for reading more about Hong Kong and China. I hope these books will explain why this is so.

Stephen's book list on Hong Kong and China

Stephen Vines Why did Stephen love this book?

Louisa Lim has a deep knowledge of Hong Kong. In this book, she uses her considerable journalistic skills to reflect the voices of the people involved in the 2019/20 protest movement.

She also examines the profound cultural changes that have taken place in Hong Kong, offering real insight from a side view.

By Louisa Lim,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

An award-winning journalist and longtime Hong Konger indelibly captures the place, its people, and the untold history they are claiming, just as it is being erased.

The story of Hong Kong has long been dominated by competing myths: to Britain, a “barren rock” with no appreciable history; to China, a part of Chinese soil from time immemorial, at last returned to the ancestral fold. For decades, Hong Kong’s history was simply not taught, especially to Hong Kongers, obscuring its origins as a place of refuge and rebellion. When protests erupted in…


Book cover of Neon Panic

Gerald Elias Author Of Cloudy with a Chance of Murder: A Daniel Jacobus Mystery

From my list on mysteries in the world of classical music.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve spent a lifetime as a professional classical musician and a mystery reader. Starting with Hardy Boys adventures at the same time I started playing the violin, my intertwined love affairs with music and the mystery genre continue to this day. As a long-time member of major American symphony orchestras, I’ve heard and experienced so many stories about the dark corners of the classical music world that they could fill a library. It gives me endless pleasure to read other mystery authors’ take on this fascinating, semi-cloistered world and to share some of my own tales with the lay public in my Daniel Jacobus mystery series.

Gerald's book list on mysteries in the world of classical music

Gerald Elias Why did Gerald love this book?

The setting is roiling Hong Kong just before the British turnover to China. A musician in the Hong Kong Philharmonic, searching for an unaccountably missing friend and colleague, becomes sucked into the back alleys of organized crime. Martin himself was a veteran professional orchestral string bass player in Hong Kong and has a consummate grasp of the pulse of the city and the vagaries of the music business. This gritty, rough-and-tumble page-turning thriller, with dialogue as spicy as the food and a noire feel, is an under-the-radar gem that in a fair world should be a best-seller. May be hard to find but so worth the effort.

By Charles Philipp Martin,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The body of a young woman washes up in Hong Kong harbour. To Inspector Herman Lok of the Hong Kong Police Force it appears to be an acccidental death - a fisherwoman who drowned. But Lok soon discovers that the woman is linked not just to the triads, the city's infamous criminal societies, but also to an organization not usually associated with murder and conspiracy - the Hong Kong Symphony Orchestra.

Meanwhile Hector Siefert, an American musician living in Hong Kong, learns that his colleague for Leo Stern has disappeared. Enlisting the help of a newspaper reporter with the unlikely…


Book cover of The Piano Teacher

Jill Santopolo Author Of Everything After

From my list on love and music.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m Jill Santopolo, a novelist, editor, and mom who was born in New York and currently lives in Washington, DC. I’ve written Everything After, More Than Words, and The Light We Lost, which was the Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick in February 2018. My books have been named to The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Apple, and Indiebound bestseller lists, and have been translated into more than 35 languages. I love Instagram and rarely ever use Twitter (but you can find me there, too)--and music makes my heart sing. When I was growing up I learned to play the piano, flute, and piccolo, and I loved singing and dancing.

Jill's book list on love and music

Jill Santopolo Why did Jill love this book?

Janice Y.K Lee marries historical fiction with music and passion in this epic story set in Singapore in the 1940s and 1950s. Like all the best historical novels, this book highlighted aspects of history not always discussed, and did it with a thread of beautiful music woven through the story. This book is all-consuming.  

By Janice Y. K. Lee,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Ambitious, exotic, and a classic book club read, 'The Piano Teacher' is a combination of 'Tenko' meets 'The Remains of the Day'.

Sometimes the end of a love affair is only the beginning...

In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman newly arrived in Hong Kong, falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their love affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese, with terrible consequences for both of them, and for members of their fragile community who will betray each other in the darkest days of the war.

Ten years later, Claire…


Book cover of The Impossible City

Stephen Vines Author Of Defying the Dragon: Hong Kong and the World's Largest Dictatorship

From my list on Hong Kong and China.

Why am I passionate about this?

I came to Hong Kong as a journalist in 1987, expecting to stay a few years and then move on to the next story. But the former British colony quickly got its teeth into me, not least because I was there during the tumultuous years of transition to Chinese rule. I am always in the market to understand more about this wonderful place, which I left reluctantly in 2021 in fear that the fast-bellowing crackdown on freedom of speech was coming my way. Departure has, if anything, given me a greater appetite for reading more about Hong Kong and China. I hope these books will explain why this is so.

Stephen's book list on Hong Kong and China

Stephen Vines Why did Stephen love this book?

In many ways this is the quintessential Hong Kong book because its very style and approach is, as the title says, somewhat impossible, mixing the intensely personal with the political, closely observed reflections and a large collection of unique Hong Kong voices.

Written during and after the 2019/20 protests, Cheung throws her net wide to give the reader an intimate picture of the real Hong Kong, an exasperating and wonderful place. She is the youngest of the authors I have recommended and, therefore, closer to the generation who gave rise to the protests. People often speak of the unique Hong Kong spirit in Hong Kong, and this book gives profound insight into what that means.

By Karen Cheung,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A boldly rendered—and deeply intimate—account of Hong Kong today, from a resilient young woman whose stories explore what it means to survive in a city teeming with broken promises.

“[A] pulsing debut . . . about what it means to find your place in a city as it vanishes before your eyes.”—The New York Times Book Review

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post

Hong Kong is known as a place of extremes: a former colony of the United Kingdom that now exists at the margins of an ascendant China; a city rocked by mass protests,…


Book cover of Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China
Book cover of The Communist Party of China and Marxism 1921-1985
Book cover of The Dynamics of Chinese Politics

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