Reddit reviews Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

Narr, this be tasteless bilge. Ye be joking 'bout the starvin' death of 30-55 million people, not just yer splitcoins. It wouldn't even be funny if WuJihan be a commie, but he ain't and neither is anyone else runnin' China, and fer good reason. If ye wants ter educate yourself about why, and what ye be making jokes about, then read this. If ye can sit through a real book instead of a website, then read this. If ye don't care for the history of the Chinese civilisation and it's people, and just see them as a source of commie-nostalgia jokes, then ye can feel free to down vote this pirate's reprimand like a cur, and begone back to playin' fallout where ye can gun down Chinese commies without thinkin'

Prob not the same book, but Wild Swans by Jung Chang is a great book about life under Mao Zedong.

this is an incredible description of how these ideas take hold of a person's mind, and lead society to destroy itself whilst believing it is doing good. this book humbled me. as alien as chinese culture is to my own, everything she wrote felt intuitive, personal, as if i was there and as if the people around me could and might do the very same. a very, very emotionally touching description of a seminal moment of human history - and possibly a stark warning of where we might be currently headed.

if you are interested in readin about the udnerlying pschological disorder that leads to this phenomenon, I would argue it has been perfectly described by the genius that is karen horney, as I mention here. that book too is incredible; it has really made me a better person and given me a lot more compassion for people's bad behaviour and fuckups (because it could easily have happenened to me too, through accident of birth or situation). there is a pdf floating about of this book, if you are interested.

I have four on the go right now. That's pretty typical for me, hahahaha.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China is a biography spanning three generations of women in 20th century China, and I picked it up after listening to an audio book based in 19th century China to learn more. It's horrifying and fascinating all at once and I really quite love it. I've actually been meaning to read it for years.

The Queen's Agent: Francis Walsingham at the Court of Elizabeth I is a non-fictional history book about the intelligence and spy circles Francis Walsingham controlled in the late 1500s at the Elizabethan court. I normally have at least one history book on the go at any one time and I really like this one. Some factual history books are a real slog but this isn't at all, it's incredibly immersive.

I'm also working my way through a beautifully illustrated hardcover version of The Hobbit right now.

And just to switch over to when I'm tired of history, I downloaded and started The Dragon Keeper: Rain Wild Chronicles Book 1 by Robin Hobb the other day. I love Hobb's Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies and I've been meaning to really read her Rain Wilds chronicles but haven't given them much of a go. Hopefully this will impress me just as much as Fitz and the Fool did.