Empress Orchid

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Empress Orchid

Author : Anchee Min
Publisher : HMH
ISBN 13 : 0547347200
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (473 download)

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Book Synopsis Empress Orchid by : Anchee Min

Download or read book Empress Orchid written by Anchee Min and published by HMH. This book was released on 2005-04-11 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A fascinating novel, similar to Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha . . . A revisionist portrait of a beautiful and strong-willed woman” (Houston Chronicle). A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year From Anchee Min, a master of the historical novel, Empress Orchid sweeps readers into the heart of the Forbidden City to tell the fascinating story of a young concubine who becomes China’s last empress. Min introduces the beautiful Tzu Hsi, known as Orchid, and weaves an epic of the country girl who seized power through seduction, murder, and endless intrigue. When China is threatened by enemies, she alone seems capable of holding the country together. In this “absorbing companion piece to her novel Becoming Madame Mao,” readers and reading groups will once again be transported by Min’s lavish evocation of the Forbidden City in its last days of imperial glory and by her brilliant portrait of a flawed yet utterly compelling woman who survived, and ultimately dominated, a male world (The New York Times). “Superb . . . [An] unforgettable heroine.” —People “A sexually charged, eye-opening portrayal of the Chinese empire . . . with heart-wrenching scenes of desperate failure and a sensuality that rises off its heated pages.” —Elle

The Last Empress

Author : Anchee Min
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 1408828995
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis The Last Empress by : Anchee Min

Download or read book The Last Empress written by Anchee Min and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Vivid and entertaining ... this is history as it plays upon the emotions. Empires crumble, hearts are broken' THE TIMES From the bestselling author of Red Azalea comes the much-anticipated sequel to Empress Orchid At the end of the nineteenth century China is rocked by foreign attacks and local rebellions. The only constant is the power wielded by one woman, Tzu Hsi, also known as Empress Orchid, who must face the perilous condition of her empire and devastating personal losses. In this sequel to the bestselling Empress Orchid, Anchee Min brings to life one of the most important figures in Chinese history, a very human leader who sacrifices all she has to protect both those she loves and her doomed empire.

Pearl of China

Author : Anchee Min
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1408809796
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis Pearl of China by : Anchee Min

Download or read book Pearl of China written by Anchee Min and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-05-12 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the small southern town of Chin-kiang, two young girls from very different worlds collide and become inseparable companions. Willow is hardened by poverty and fearful for her future; Pearl is the daughter of a Christian missionary who desperately wishes she was Chinese too. Neither could have foreseen the transformation of the little American girl embarrassed by her blonde hair into the Nobel Prize-winning writer and one of China's modern heroines, Pearl S. Buck. When the country erupts in civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists, Pearl and Willow are brutally reminded of their differences. Pearl's family is forced to flee the country and Willow is punished for her loyalty to her 'cultural imperialist' friend. And yet, in the face of everything that threatens to tear them apart, the paths of these two women remain intimately entwined.

Wild Ginger

Author : Anchee Min
Publisher : HMH
ISBN 13 : 0547349378
Total Pages : 243 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (473 download)

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Book Synopsis Wild Ginger by : Anchee Min

Download or read book Wild Ginger written by Anchee Min and published by HMH. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two girls come of age during the horrors of China’s Cultural Revolution in this novel by the national bestselling author of Empress Orchid. The young and beautiful Wild Ginger is only in elementary school, but has already survived hell through her sheer iron will. Singled out by the Red Guards for her “foreign-colored eyes,” she has seen her deceased father branded a traitor and her mother commit suicide under the oppressive weight of persecution. But the young Wild Ginger will not allow herself to be taken down. Nor will she turn her back on other martyrs—like sweet Maple, daughter of a teacher of Chinese history, survivor of a labor camp, and victim of daily brutal beatings by a gang girl called Hot Pepper. While the two become fast friends over their shared ostracism, it is Wild Ginger who will take her Maoist principles to the extreme, becoming no less than a national model for the revolutionary Communist doctrine. But when both self-possessed young girls begin to feel a prohibited romantic love for the same boy, all three of them will face mortal danger. In this novel, the author of Pearl of China and the New York Times Notable Book Red Azalea “continues her extraordinarily acute inquiry into the wounded psyches of martyrs…and survivors of China's horrific Cultural Revolution… As in all her unsparing, compelling, and transcendent books, Min discerns both the vulnerability and strength of individuals and, more disturbingly, unveils the eroticism of pain. Given our own times, Min's taut and compassionate tale of oppressed teenagers kept in ignorance of the wider world, children brainwashed into performing acts of violence and self-destruction, is especially urgent.”—Booklist

Empress Dowager Cixi

Author : Jung Chang
Publisher : Random House Canada
ISBN 13 : 0307363120
Total Pages : 431 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis Empress Dowager Cixi by : Jung Chang

Download or read book Empress Dowager Cixi written by Jung Chang and published by Random House Canada. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beloved, internationally bestselling author of Wild Swans, and co-author of the bestselling Mao: The Unknown Story, the dramatic, epic biography of the unusual woman who ruled China for 50 years, from concubine to Empress, overturning centuries of traditions and formalities to bring China into the modern world. A woman, an Empress of immense wealth who was largely a prisoner within the compound walls of her palaces, a mother, a ruthless enemy, and a brilliant strategist: Chang makes a compelling case that Cixi was one of the most formidable and enlightened rulers of any nation. Cixi led an intense and singular life. Chosen at the age of 12 to be a concubine by the Emperor Xianfeng, she gave birth to his only male heir who at four was designated Emperor when his father died in 1861. In a brilliant move, the young woman enlisted the help of the Emperor's widow and the two women orchestrated a coup that ousted the regents and made Cixi sole Regent. Untrained and untaught, the two studied history and politics together, ruling the huge nation from behind a curtain. When her boy died, Cixi designated a young nephew as Emperor, continuing her reign till her death in 1908. Chang gives us a complex, riveting portrait of Cixi through a reign as long as that of her fellow Empress, Victoria, whom she longed to meet: her ruthlessness in fighting off rivals; her curiosity to learn; her reliance on Westerners who she placed in key positions; and her sensitivity and desire to preserve the distinctiveness of China's past while overturning traditions (she, as Chang reveals--not Mao, as he claimed--banned footbinding) and exposing its culture to western ideas and technology.

Empress

Author : Shan Sa
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 9780060817589
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (175 download)

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Book Synopsis Empress by : Shan Sa

Download or read book Empress written by Shan Sa and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2006-05-02 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empress Wu, China's only female emperor, rises from a humble clan and position of concubine to brave the intrigues, betrayal, and violence of the court to become the first Empress of China during the great Tang dynasty in seventh-century China.

Red Azalea

Author : Anchee Min
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 1408840855
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis Red Azalea by : Anchee Min

Download or read book Red Azalea written by Anchee Min and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-11-05 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born into a devoutly Maoist family in 1950s Shanghai and forced to work on a communal farm from the age of seventeen, Anchee Min found herself in an alienating and hostile political climate, where her only friendships were perilous and intense. Both candid and touching, this compelling memoir documents her isolation and illicit love against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution. From her coming of age in the Red Guard to her recruitment into Madame Mao's burgeoning industry of propaganda movies, Red Azalea explores the secret sensuality of a repressive society with elegance and honesty.

The Cooked Seed

Author : Anchee Min
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1608194248
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (81 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cooked Seed by : Anchee Min

Download or read book The Cooked Seed written by Anchee Min and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1994, Anchee Min made her literary debut with a memoir of growing up in China during the violent trauma of the Cultural Revolution. Red Azalea became an international bestseller and propelled her career as a successful, critically acclaimed author. Twenty years later, Min returns to the story of her own life to give us the next chapter, an immigrant story that takes her from the shocking deprivations of her homeland to the sudden bounty of the promised land of America, without language, money, or a clear path. It is a hard and lonely road. She teaches herself English by watching Sesame Street, keeps herself afloat working five jobs at once, lives in unheated rooms, suffers rape, collapses from exhaustion, marries poorly and divorces.But she also gives birth to her daughter, Lauryann, who will inspire her and finally root her in her new country. Min's eventual successes-her writing career, a daughter at Stanford, a second husband she loves-are remarkable, but it is her struggle throughout toward genuine selfhood that elevates this dramatic, classic immigrant story to something powerfully universal.

The Moon in the Palace

Author : Weina Dai Randel
Publisher : Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1492613576
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (926 download)

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Book Synopsis The Moon in the Palace by : Weina Dai Randel

Download or read book The Moon in the Palace written by Weina Dai Randel and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Randel's gorgeous debut novel seductively pulls back the curtain to reveal the heartbreaking world of...China."—Stephanie Dray, NYT bestselling Author of America's First Daughter A thrilling work of historical fiction, bringing romance, intrigue, and the unexpected rise of an Empress to intoxicating life under the inscrutable moon. In Tang Dynasty China, a concubine at the palace learns quickly that there are many ways to capture the Emperor's attention. Many hope to lure in the One Above All with their beauty. Some present him with fantastic gifts, such as jade pendants and scrolls of calligraphy, while others rely on their knowledge of seduction to draw his interest. Young Mei knows nothing of these womanly arts, yet she will give the Emperor a gift he can never forget. Mei's intelligence and curiosity, the same traits that make her an outcast among the other concubines, impress the Emperor. But just as she is in a position to seduce the most powerful man in China, divided loyalties split the palace in two, culminating in a perilous battle that Mei can only hope to survive. In the breakthrough first volume in the Empress of Bright Moon duology, Weina Dai Randel paints a vibrant portrait of the Emperor's Palace—where love, ambition, and loyalty can spell life or death—and the woman who came to rule all of ancient China. "I absolutely loved The Moon in the Palace... A rare and beautiful treasure."—Elizabeth Chadwick, NYT bestselling author Winner of RWA RITA® Award 2017 Recommended by Texas Library Association's 2017 Lariat Reading List One of the Biggest Historical Fiction books of 2016 by Bookbub One of Washington Independent Reviews of Book's 25 Favorite Books of 2016 A San Francisco Book Festival Honorable Mention

The Empress of Bright Moon

Author : Weina Dai Randel
Publisher : Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1492613606
Total Pages : 365 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (926 download)

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Book Synopsis The Empress of Bright Moon by : Weina Dai Randel

Download or read book The Empress of Bright Moon written by Weina Dai Randel and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The author's talent for dramatic, well-timed dialogue, and portrayal of women's friendships and emotions-especially dislikes, jealousy, and fear - intensifies the reader's understanding of palace intrigue."—Booklist, STARRED Review The time for taking hold of her destiny is now At the moment of the Emperor's death, everything changes in the palace. Mei, his former concubine, is free, and Pheasant, the heir and Mei's lover, is proclaimed as the new Emperor, heralding a new era in China. But just when Mei believes she's closer to her dream, Pheasant's chief wife, Lady Wang, powerful and unpredictable, turns against Mei and takes unthinkable measures to stop her. The power struggle that ensues will determine Mei's fate–and that of China. Surrounded by enemies within the palace that she calls home, Mei continues her journey to the throne in The Empress of Bright Moon, the second book in Weina Dai Randel's acclaimed duology. Only by fighting back against those who wish her harm will Mei be able to realize her destiny as the most powerful woman in China.

The Last Empress

Author : Keith Laidler
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 0470864265
Total Pages : 316 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis The Last Empress by : Keith Laidler

Download or read book The Last Empress written by Keith Laidler and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2005-01-21 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1851, a sixteen-year-old girl named Yehonala entered the Imperial Palace of China as a concubine third grade, leaving behind her family, the love of her life, and nearly all contact with the outside world. She emerged as Tsu Hsi, Dowager Empress of China and one of the most powerful autocrats in history. A fascinating tale of love, betrayal, murder, intrigue, and survival, The Last Empress offers remarkable insight into life behind the closed doors of the forbidden city.

The Last Empress

Author : Hannah Pakula
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 9781439154236
Total Pages : 816 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (542 download)

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Book Synopsis The Last Empress by : Hannah Pakula

Download or read book The Last Empress written by Hannah Pakula and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-11-03 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the beautiful, powerful, and sexy Madame Chiang Kai-shek at the center of one of the great dramas of the twentieth century, this is the story of the founding of modern China, starting with a revolution that swept away more than 2,000 years of monarchy, followed by World War II, and ending in the eventual loss to the Communists and exile in Taiwan. An epic historical tapestry, this wonderfully wrought narrative brings to life what Americans should know about China -- the superpower we are inextricably linked with -- the way its people think and their code of behavior, both vastly different from our own. The story revolves around this fascinating woman and her family: her father, a peasant who raised himself into Shanghai society and sent his daughters to college in America in a day when Chinese women were kept purposefully uneducated; her mother, an unlikely Methodist from the Mandarin class; her husband, a military leader and dogmatic warlord; her sisters, one married to Sun Yat-sen, the George Washington of China, the other to a seventy-fifth lineal descendant of Confucius; and her older brother, a financial genius. This was the Soong family, which, along with their partners in marriage, was largely responsible for dragging China into the twentieth century. Brilliantly narrated, this fierce and bloody drama also includes U.S. Army General Joseph Stilwell; Claire Chennault, head of the Flying Tigers; Communist leaders Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai; murderous warlords; journalists Henry Luce, Theodore White, and Edgar Snow; and the unfortunate State Department officials who would be purged for predicting (correctly) the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War. As the representative of an Eastern ally in the West, Madame Chiang was befriended -- before being rejected -- by the Roosevelts, stayed in the White House for long periods during World War II, and charmed the U.S. Congress into giving China billions of dollars. Although she was dubbed the Dragon Lady in some quarters, she was an icon to her people and is certainly one of the most remarkable women of the twentieth century.

The Secrets of Jin-shei

Author : Alma Alexander
Publisher : Crossroad Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Secrets of Jin-shei by : Alma Alexander

Download or read book The Secrets of Jin-shei written by Alma Alexander and published by Crossroad Press. This book was released on 2017-05-11 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A group of women, the jin-shei sisterhood, form a uniquely powerful circle that transcends class and social custom. They are bound together by a declaration of loyalty that transcends all other vows, even those with the gods, by their own secret language, passed from mother to daughter, by the knowledge that some of them will have to pay the ultimate sacrifice to enable others to fulfill their destiny. The sisterhood we meet run from the Emperor's sister to the street-beggar, from the trainee warrior in the Emperor's Guard to the apprentice healer, from the artist to the traveller-girl, herself an illegitimate daughter of an emperor and seen as a threat to the throne. And as one of them becomes Dragon Empress, her determination to hold power against the sages of the temple, against the marauding forces from other kingdoms, drags the sisterhood into a dangerous world of court intrigue, plot and counterplot, and brings them into conflict with each other from which only the one who remains true to all the vows she made at the very beginning to the dying Princess Empress can rescue them. An amazing and unusual book, based on some historical fact, full of drama, adventure and conflict like a Shakespearean history play, it's a novel about kinship and a society of women, of mysticism, jealousy, fate, destiny, all set in the wonderful, swirling background of Syai, a fantasy kingdom inspired by Imperial China.

Becoming Madame Mao

Author : Anchee Min
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780753182369
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (823 download)

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Book Synopsis Becoming Madame Mao by : Anchee Min

Download or read book Becoming Madame Mao written by Anchee Min and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an evocation of the woman who married Chairman Mao and fought to succeed him. The unwanted daughter of a concubine, she refused to have her feet bound, ran away to join an opera troupe and eventually met Mao Zedong in the mountains of Yenan.

Empress Orchid

Author : Anchee Min
Publisher : Clipper Audio
ISBN 13 : 9781407405872
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (58 download)

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Book Synopsis Empress Orchid by : Anchee Min

Download or read book Empress Orchid written by Anchee Min and published by Clipper Audio. This book was released on 2004 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is the final days of the Chinese Empire when Orchid, a beautiful seventeen-year-old from an aristocratic, but impoverished family, finds herself unexpectedly chosen to become a lower-ranking concubine of the Emperor. Inside the Forbidden City jealousies and foul play abound, but Orchid is determined to survive. Little does she know that China will collapse around her, and she will be its last Empress...

The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak

Author : Randy Fertel
Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN 13 : 149680113X
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (968 download)

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Book Synopsis The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak by : Randy Fertel

Download or read book The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak written by Randy Fertel and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2015-02-25 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak is the story of two larger-than-life characters and the son whom their lives helped to shape. Ruth Fertel was a petite, smart, tough-as-nails blonde, with a weakness for rogues, who founded the Ruth’s Chris Steak House empire almost by accident. Rodney Fertel was a gold-plated, one-of-a-kind personality, a railbird-heir to wealth from a pawnshop of dubious repute just around the corner from where the teenage Louis Armstrong and his trumpet were discovered. When Fertel ran for mayor of New Orleans on a single campaign promise—buying a pair of gorillas for the zoo—he garnered a paltry 308 votes. Then he purchased the gorillas anyway! These colorful figures yoked together two worlds not often connected—lazy rice farms in the bayous and swinging urban streets where ethnicities jazzily collided. A trip downriver to the hamlet of Happy Jack focuses on its French-Alsatian roots, bountiful tables, and self-reliant lifestyle that inspired a restaurant legend. The story also offers a close-up of life in the Old Jewish Quarter on Rampart Street—and how it intersected with the denizens of “Back a’ Town,” just a few blocks away, who brought jazz from New Orleans to the world. The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak is a New Orleans story, featuring the distinctive characters, color, food, and history of that city—before Hurricane Katrina and after. But it also is the universal story of family and the full magnitude of outsize follies leavened with equal measures of humor, rage, and rue.

The Furies

Author : Janet Hobhouse
Publisher : New York Review of Books
ISBN 13 : 9781590170854
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis The Furies by : Janet Hobhouse

Download or read book The Furies written by Janet Hobhouse and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2004-09-30 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A SELECTION OF THE LOST BOOKS CLUB An exhilarating, fiercely honest, ultimately devastating book, The Furies confronts the claims of family and the lure of desire, the difficulties of independence, and the approach of death. Janet Hobhouse's final testament is beautifully written, deeply felt, and above all utterly alive.