The Mandarin Club

The 1930s and 40s were one of the mos fascinating periods in China's long history. Helen Foster Snow and her husband Edgar Snow were foreign friends of the Communist Party both before and after they got to power.

Toward the end of her life and with decades of hindsight, 'My China Years' intimately recounts those turbulent times. Her politics won't be everybody's cup of tea (she writes 'capitalism is now and has been impossible in China')

Long-listed for the Booker Prize in 2023, this is less a China book than one in which China constantly looms in the background. Set in the early twentieth century in what is now Malaysia when it was a British colony, 'The House of Doors' contains William Somerset Maugham and Dr Sun Yat-sen as fictionalised characters.

Somerset Maugham was one of the most successful authors of his day, but in this story he is fresh off a financial misfortune and desperate for a comeback. 'The House of Doors' contains the sensational murder trial of Ethel Proudlock, which made headlines around the world in its day. Somerset Maugham would later turn it into his short story 'The Letter', which was eventually made into a movie with Bette Davies.

Meanwhile Sun Yat-sen is paying visits as he tries to revolutionise his beloved country.

In this spy thriller, Daniel Lohr is fleeing the Nazis on a ship to Shanghai. He has been asked to carry a mysterious package for his uncle, who he will meet there. On the boat he meets a colourful and shady collection of characters, many of whom he will see again when he arrives.

1930s Shanghai is a sexy and seedy place, and murder is just business. Lohr has to negotiate this world, while also maintaining an unlikely romance.

Subtitled 'Mandarin Lessons In Life, Love, And Language' this book is the recollection of a lifelong linguist learning Mandarin as an adult. It is full of recollections about the challenges of the language and observations about its history and relationship with the world's oldest civilisation.

Before living in East Asia, Fallows was assistant dean of languages and linguistics at Georgetown University. The book is accessible, relatable, and a goldmine of observations and insights about the Chinese language.