Reading for China trip

[rachelmanija]

oyceter and I are going to Taipei, Xian, and Hong Kong this December! I'm so excited! It will be my first visit to Hong Kong and also to mainland China!

I need three sets of book recs. NO HARDCOVERS, and please check my tags to be sure I haven't already read it.

1. Just anything you think I would enjoy. I am especially looking for fun (ie, not about the Holocaust) fiction with Jewish, LGBT, and/or people of color as protagonists.

2. Does anyone have a recommendation for readable histories of China? Preferably by Chinese authors. I am starting from a position of near-total ignorance. Each book does not have to cover everything.

3. Sooooo, my last long plane trip I read a horrendous yet vastly entertaining awesomely bad book, Daughter of the Blood, which gave rise to the tag you see below. I think this is an excellent tradition which I ought to continue. Please rec horrendous yet entertaining novels which you would enjoy seeing me react to. I am thinking of Flowers in the Attic. That's about incestuous vampire twins locked in an attic, right?

Comments

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Oh god I forgot about the ballet thing and I REALLY forgot about the swan bed. Right, he probably could figure out how to be a doctor from their bizarre home schooling, but the ballerina thing pushed even my 12-year-old's suspension of disbelief a little too far.

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

Were the younger siblings twins? I can't remember any more.

I too had forgotten the ballet thing!

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I think maybe they were, though I may be making it up. Rachel will have to read ALL of them and report back to us.