100 books like The Sand Pebbles

This is my candidate for the Great American Novel. Read it for its storyline and its fascinating chapters on whales. Along the way, you’ll encounter discussions about race, religion, friendship, and the virtuous life.

Some of my students ask, “Why does Melville digress so much?” My response: persist in reading this work. What at first seems extraneous becomes vital. You’ll discover a masterpiece.

This 1934 work tells the moving story of a young country girl called Cuicui and her ferryman grandfather. As the girl comes of age, she catches the eye of two brothers. It’s a simple plot but beautifully told, with sympathetic depictions of the common folk and rich nostalgic evocations of rural life. The “border” in the title refers to the West Hunan setting near the provincial border with Sichuan. The area is also a cultural border between the Han and various minorities. Shen Congwen grew up there and was himself of mixed heritage. Chosen to receive the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature, he died before the announcement, and the prize – following the rule against awarding posthumously – went to another writer. 

Carroll’s debut novel has earned considerable praise for its quiet, elegant prose and the affecting realism of its characters: a young introverted American wholly at home in the small backwater college in Hunan Province where he teaches English and builds an aeolian harp, the awkward female student who tries to befriend him, and the choleric old misanthrope of an American with a crippled leg, who joins the school and inadvertently proceeds to disrupt their lives. What makes the novel work is its dramatic irony – the chemical reactions that ensue when three peculiar and hapless personalities combine and threaten to blow up into almost Greek-tragedy proportions, and only the reader understands why. A handful of memorable subplots and minor characters flesh out the tale.

This strange novel consists of vignettes presented as encyclopedia-style entries written by the narrator. He’s an “educated youth” relocated to the fictional rural Hunan village of Maqiao as part of the Cultural Revolution “learn from the peasants” movement, reminiscent of Han Shaogong’s own experience of being sent to the countryside. First published in 1996 and in English in 2003 (expertly translated by Julia Lovell), the novel is better than the premise suggests, and it often features in “best of” Chinese literature lists.

I’ve always turned to historical fiction to deepen my understanding of an era and help spark my imagination for class prep.

This book, set in late nineteenth-century China, helped me better contextualize the challenges confronting Chinese women at that time—and how they overcame, or at least endured them. I recently had the privilege of hearing Lisa See speak on her research and writing—she was quite engaging and shared much about her process.

She’s a passionate, dedicated, and disciplined scholar. This shines through in all her work, especially this bittersweet tale of friendship, love, and heartbreak.

In the early 1970s, when I was a Buck Sergeant in the US Army stationed overseas in Korea, I received a small package from my cousin. He was a year older than me and in the Navy and stationed at Subic Bay in the Philippines. What was odd about the package was that he seldom mailed me anything, and certainly nothing that would be more trouble than a brief letter. I opened the package and therein lay a paperback copy of The Last Detail.

The story starts out with Petty Officer First Class William Buddusky, better known as Billy Bad-Ass, passed out drunk in the Day Room in the barracks, still in dress uniform with an almost empty bottle of cheap wine next to him. Immediately, I recognized a kindred spirit. A lifer, an enlisted man, and somebody who lived in the real world of the military as I… show more.

White Badge was originally written in Korean and the title was Baegma (White Horse). The author, Ahn Junghyo, translated it into English himself and submitted it to an American publisher who changed the title to White Badge. White Horse referred to the White Horse Division, a unit of the South Korean army that was deployed to Vietnam during the 1960s. A force of 50,000 South Korean troops engaged in that war and saw some of the toughest fighting seen.

Ahn, an intellectual and a journalist, fictionalized his experiences brilliantly. Drafted at the age of 20, he was assigned to the White Horse Division and soon found himself in a military vehicle being chased by starving Vietnamese children. It was during a particularly brutal battle in the middle of dense jungle foliage that he says he thought of himself as an observer of the war rather than a participant. However,… show more.

I’ve known plenty of GIs like Master Sergeant Maxwell Slaughter. Non-commissioned Officers who hustle and make deals and wrap military bureaucracy around their little fingers. Slaughter’s supply room had air conditioning, plenty of pristine underwear, socks, and long johns to bargain with, and his own vending machine to satisfy his addiction to cold bottles of soda. He also had a protégé, in this case, the young Eustis Clay, who tried to out-hustle his mentor but never quite made it. He did, however, introduce Master Sergeant Slaughter to the even younger Bobby Jo Pepperdine, but instead of kindling a romance, the two lost souls started a father/daughter affection that the teenage girl had never before experienced.

Ultimately tragic, Goldman shows his dramatic flair with the simple line of farewell uttered by Slaughter:  “Until that time, Eustis. Until that time.”

What could be cooler than underwater archaeology? This book tells the incredible story of how Mongol emperor Kublai Khan attempted to conquer Japan, not once, but twice in the late twelfth century. Both invasions were unsuccessful, and Kublai’s second fleet was sunk by a “divine wind” or kamikaze in the waters off Kyushu island in western Japan—only to be rediscovered in modern times by underwater archaeologists.

The author’s first-hand interviews with the subjects, naval officers, crews, sailors, and naval pilots offered a front-row seat for me as a reader. Li brings China’s naval operations into a clear view and offers an insightful perspective on their navy’s operations in the South China Sea.

In short, he brings China’s naval history alive and offers us a better understanding of the current standoff between Washington and Beijing. I recommend it to anyone who wants a clear and unwavering picture of the evolving military balance in the Indo-Pacific region.