100 books like Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan

This book is full of “wow” moments. The author describes the history of numerous inventions to show the ingenuity of Chinese civilization. Some of these inventions are well known, like paper and the compass. But most of them come as a surprise. Until about two hundred years ago, China was far ahead of the rest of the world in most types of technology. In some respects, such as agricultural tools and steel smelting, China was two thousand years ahead of Europe. When you read this book, you will realize that for most of history, Europe was like a marginal third-world society and China was the center of things.  

The eighteenth-century Kangxi Emperor was one of the most successful rulers in Chinese history, and he had a fascinating life. But Jonathan Spence was not content to write a standard academic biography. Instead, he writes from a first-person perspective. The reader does not look at Kangxi’s life from the outside but sees the world from the emperor’s point of view. Spence was a talented stylist, so the book is not only a profound study of Chinese history but also an innovative piece of literature. 

In 1795 a group of Dutch diplomats traveled across China from a port in the south to Beijing in the north. At this time, few Westerners had ever traveled beyond the coast, so when the embassy returned to the Netherlands, several members wrote accounts of their unusual journey. This book gives an enormous amount of fascinating detail about what it was like to travel in imperial China, and about the lifestyles in various regions of the country. At times the diplomats enjoyed luxury and refinement, but they also had to endure hardship and mistreatment. The book evokes what daily life was like in China prior to the Western impact.

Few Western intellectuals are aware of the scale of the atrocities during China’s Great Famine. If they had been and had written more on the famine, there could have been a greater impact on popular consciousness.

Yet, Dikötter cared to painstakingly search through local archives, and with his fine book, depicted the well-hidden human miseries to a much broader global audience. This is another book by a person who is foreign to China that greatly inspired me to look into improving China’s food security.

In this prize-winning book, Dikötter confirms that the famine was the worst man-made human catastrophe, not a natural calamity. Book prize judges regarded it as stunningly original and hugely important.

This book is a memoir that demonstrates the power and joys of gratitude through the author’s memories of her childhood in Moline, Illinois. 

Diane Johnson demonstrates much gratitude for her childhood, but she is no midwestern hickster. Johnson is a Hollywood film writer who has worked with such directors as Francis for Coppola and Sydney Pollack. She has traveled the world, and yet she reveals how the gratitude for her youth has sustained her through life.

I think every woman should read this book. In a time when we need a “movement” to be seen or heard, Dragons reminded me of our strength, of how often the world has its boot on the back of our necks.

I loved the story of 2 sisters-one who desperately wants to be a dragon and the other, who does not. It was my first audiobook and I finished it in 2 days.

It’s hard for me to imagine a family where the siblings are more uninterested in one another than the Oppenheimer triplets in this novel. But I do love a twin story (am, in fact, fascinated by the twin thing) so triplets really intrigued me. These siblings, however, are determined to disengage from one another and stalk off into their solo adulthood. And they manage to do so with just enough hubris to make a mess of it. But can we ever really cut the ties that bind? Thankfully—probably not. 

Inspired by her personal experience living in Baghdad, Wilkinson writes a fascinating book that is breathtakingly beautiful and powerfully true! I chose this debut novel because it is about three courageous women who risk it all to help the next generation of Iraqis—Huda, Rania, and Australian journalist Ally.

The story carried me away to Baghdad, and I willingly went on an exotic adventure with these fierce females, where mud-brick huts dot the landscape. The suspense unwinds along the Tigris in the undying gritty winds, during a time when Iraq was cut off from the world by Saddam Hussein.

Can Huda, Ally, and Rania, help two teenagers whose lives are endangered by the regime? Read Wilkinson’s enchanting When the Apricots Bloom and find out for yourself.

This book will always be special to my heart because it was the most influential book in getting me involved with rape crisis counseling and advocacy. I remember being a college student while reading this and feeling emotions of horror, anger, compassion, and inspiration.

Raine takes the reader on her personal journey of being violently raped and the ups and downs of her healing process. Part of the beauty of this book is the skill with which the author demonstrates how incredibly destructive and life-changing our responses to rape disclosures can be.

Her book encourages: if anyone ever discloses to you, please believe them, listen to them, and try your best to meet them wherever they are. 

Want to know how samurai women managed their high status but meager incomes? This engaging memoir takes us inside the nitty-gritty of their everyday life that was frugal by necessity. We learn how samurai women dressed, the importance they placed on meticulous grooming, and how they dealt with in-laws, concubines, and a runaway daughter. It shows how in principle samurai women were expected to practice the martial arts with the naginata (a long, thin halberd), but in fact, they were too busy with household chores to receive more than token training.

For the history buff, the memoir also paints a vivid picture of the civil war that erupted in the Mito domain in 1864 and its devastating consequences for the women whose families ended up on the losing side.