@brittarnhild
15 books now, 14 shown here + one read on my kindle. This last one, Wild Swans, Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang, was not originally my own choice, but when it came up as the next book for my reading group (9 friends meeting every sixth week or so, discussing one partivular book every time), I decided it was actually a good choice for my world reading tour. It turned out the be quite long though, almost 700 pages, and at times a bit boring, with a kind of listing of the events of the lives of the author Jung Chang, her mother and her grandmother. Through their lives, spanding from the beginning of last century and almost until the book was published in 1991, we learn the dramatic history of China, lived the hard way by Jung Chang´s family, and millions of other people.
Colin Thubron, one of many favorite writers of mine, writes about the book:
"Of all the personal histories to have emerged out of China´s twentieth-century nightmare, Wild Swans is the most deeply thoughtful and the most heart-rending I´ve read. It moves, in part, like a ghastly oriental fairytale, but the authority and the reticent passion with which Jung Chang speaks her memories - and those of others - is unmistakable."
Wild Swans won the 1992 NCR Book Award and the 1993 British Book of the Year Award.