CHINA & THE YANGTZE
Sichuan & China's Giant Pandas   |   READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE

Here's a page from Longitude, the specialty bookseller for travelers. To order online, and to see the latest, most comprehensive selection of books and maps, go to http://reading.longitudebooks.com/SI723. You may also call 800-342-2164 to order or request a catalog.


Essential Books These 5 items are available for $80, including
U.S. shipping, a 15% discount (Item no. EXCHN450)		  
Giant Pandas  •  John Seidensticker  •  Susan Lumpkin
NATURAL HISTORY •  2007 •  PAPER  • 186 PAGES
Lumpkin and Seidensticker, Senior Scientist at Smithsonian's National Zoological Park, combine gorgeous photography and the latest research to provide an excellent introduction to pandas, their behavior and conservation. (CHN456, $19.95)		   Giant Pandas
Wild Swans, Three Daughters of China  •  Jung Chang
BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •  2003 •  PAPER  • 524 PAGES • FAVORITE
A riveting tale of three generations spanning the end of Old China, Mao's regime and the Japanese occupation. Chang chronicles the enormous changes in China since 1929 through her family's story, which includes arrest during the Cultural Revolution, exile to the Sichuan wilderness and coming to terms with the bewildering state of China today. It's quite a tale, wonderfully told without a trace of rancor or bitterness. Living in London since 1978, Chang visits her mother back in China every year. You can imagine Chang with notebook in hand back in the family apartment absorbed in the stories of her much-loved mother. The book opens with the statement, "At the age of 15 my grandmother became the concubine of a warlord general. It was 1929 and China was in chaos." (CHN04, $16.99)		   Wild Swans, Three Daughters of China
The Last Panda  •  George Schaller
NATURAL HISTORY •  1993 •  PAPER  • 291 PAGES
The great naturalist George Schaller spent almost five years in the wild in Sichuan province studying the panda in the 1980s. This book is both his description of the great panda in nature, and an eloquent plea for how to save the species in the wild. With 16 color plates. (CHN24, $17.50)		   The Last Panda
Understanding China  •  John Bryan Starr
HISTORY •  2010 •  PAPER  • 400 PAGES
Yale professor John Bryan Starr brings us up to date in this just published third edition (the last one was ten years old) of his succinct and refreshingly forthright best-selling guide to China's economy, history and politics. With all the frothing over the role of China in the world, this is the essential primer. (CHN196, $17.95)		   Understanding China
Central China Map  •  Nelles
2007 •  MAP
An excellent shaded relief map in the regional series by Nelles, at a scale of 1:1,500,000. It's an attractive map at a much-better-than-usual scale which covers from Shanghai west across the country, including Xian, Three Gorges and other popular destinations. Two Sides. 20x40 inches. (CHN65, $13.95)		   Central China Map



Also Recommended

China Adventure Map  •  National Geographic    •  A double-sided, full-color map of China, at a useful scale of 1:4,375,000, which shows roads and cities. Printed on tear- and water-reistant paper. (CHN06, $11.95)
 		  
Culture Smart! China  •  Kathy Flower   • GUIDEBOOK  •  Take along this handy guide to local customs, etiquette and culture. (CHN434, $9.95)
 		  
Lonely Planet Discover China  •  Lonely Planet   • GUIDEBOOK  •  Focusing on must-see and memorable places and experiences, this all color guide by the discerning editors at Lonely Planet, featuring hundreds of color photographs and maps, includes suggested tours and itineraries along with not-to-be-missed places to stay, eat, shop and see. (CHN674, $27.99)
 		  
Lonely Planet Mandarin Phrasebook  •  Hua-Yuan L. Mowry  •  Justin Ben-Adam Rudelson   • LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS  •  A handy phrasebook for basic Mandarin, focusing on pronunciation, grammar and essential vocabulary for the traveler. (CHN72, $8.99)
 		  
Odyssey Guide Xi'an, Shaanxi & the Terracotta Army  •  Kevin Bishop   • GUIDEBOOK  •  With color photographs, insightful essays on culture and history, site plans and places of interest in and around China's ancient capital. (CHN34, $24.95)
 		  
Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, A Sweet-sour Memoir of Eating in China  •  Fuschia Dunlop   • FOOD  •  Dunlop writes with verve and flavor on her eating adventures in China -- including the time she tried snake stir-fry -- and includes recipes in this entertaining cultural portrait. (CHN509, $24.95)
 		  
The Chinese Kitchen  •  Eileen Yin-Fei Lo   • FOOD  •  An authoritative compendium of Chinese recipes and food-oriented cultural practices. Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's cookbook doubles as an introduction to China itself. (CHN134, $39.95)
 		  
China, A New History  •  John Fairbank  •  Merle Goldman   • HISTORY  •  A sweeping history of China from the Paleolithic to Tiananmen, revised with a new chapter by Merle Goldman. A standard for history buffs. (CHN11, $26.50)
 		  
Essential Tibetan Buddhism  •  Robert Thurman   • RELIGION  •  The foremost Western scholar of Tibetan Buddhism, Thurman has chosen well from that tradition's sacred literature and helpfully includes suggested further reading, explanatory notes and a directory of sacred sites. (TBT15, $14.99)
 		  
Mountain of Fame, Portraits in Chinese History  •  John Wills   • HISTORY  •  An intriguing, novel approach to Chinese history. Instead of marching through the dynasties, Wells illuminates themes and continuities within Chinese tradition through 20 representative personalities. (CHN10, $29.95)
 		  
Oracle Bones  •  Peter Hessler   • HISTORY  •  In this fine portrait of tumult and tradition, Hessler (River Town) finds clues to modern China's realities in the personal stories of peasants, scholars, day laborers and activists. (CHN316, $15.99)
 		  
Original Tao: Inward Training and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism  •  Harold D. Roth   • RELIGION  •  Harold D. Roth, professor of East Asian studies at Brown, reinterprets the origins of Taoism through a fourth-century B.C. text. (CHN245, $26.50)
 		  
Religions of China in Practice  •  Donald S. Lopez Jr.   • RELIGION  •  Confucionism, Daoism and Buddhism, and how they overlap and interact with each other. (CHN127, $42.00)
 		  
The Great Wall, China Against the World, 1000 BC - 2000 AD  •  Julia Lovell   • HISTORY  •  The Who, Why and Wherefore of the Great Wall, this marvelous history demolishes myths (no, the wall is not a continuous structure of great antiquity, as much of it was built in the 1600s) with fresh insight and wit. (CHN308, $15.00)
 		  
The Terra Cotta Army, China's First Emperor and the Birth of a Nation  •  John Man   • HISTORY  •  Man recounts the 1974 discovery of the 8,000 terra cotta soldiers two farmers, and uses the legend, lore and fact about Emperor Qin's Tomb to speculate about the mysterious emperor himself. (CHN518, $16.95)
 		  
Ancient Sichuan, Treasures from a Lost Civilization  •  Robert Bagley   • ARCHAEOLOGY  •  A richly illustrated catalog of the art and archaeology of Sanxingdui and the Chengdu plain, featuring large color photographs of 128 works of bronze, jade and clay dating from the thirteenth century B.C. to the second century A.D. (CHN278, $82.50)
 		  
Chinese Architecture: A Pictorial History  •  Ssu-ch'eng Liang   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  A pictorial introduction to temples, timber-frames, pagodas, bridges, terraces and gateways of China, from pre-Buddhist times to the 20th century. With 152 halftones and 94 diagrams. (CHN394, $26.95)
 		  
Terra Cotta Warriors, Guardians of China's First Emperor  •  Jane Portal   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  The stunning photographs in this companion to the traveling exhibition give a sense of the monument's scope and grandeur. (CHN519, $14.95)
 		  
The Arts of China  •  Michael Sullivan   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  A lively survey of Chinese visual arts and culture through the ages, thoroughly illustrated and accessible. With a new chapter on the 20th century and beyond, this fifth edition covers bronzes, ceramics, painting and architecture from the Neolithic to now. (CHN16, $39.95)
 		  
China Road  •  Rob Gifford   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE  •  NPR's Gifford writes with warmth and affection of his encounters with truckers, small farmers and regular folk along fabled Route 312 from Shanghai to the border of Kazakhstan. (CHN433, $17.00)
 		  
Looking for Chengdu, A Woman's Adventure in China  •  Hill Gates   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE  •  Anthropologist Hill Gates sets off on a series of excursions through the inland province of Sichuan. Gates is especially curious to learn how the economic boom has effected the women of Sichuan, which was the birthplace of Chinese economic reforms in the 1970s. (CHN74, $26.95)
 		  
Mr. China, A Memoir  •  Tim Clissold   • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR  •  An excellent portrait of contemporary China. Clissold writes with humor and insight in this entertaining account of his encounters with the Chinese and the Chinese way of doing business. (CHN306, $14.99)
 		  
Red Dust, A Path Through China  •  Ma Jian  •  Flora Drew   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE  •  An astounding memoir by an urban poet, painter and writer on the road to Tibet. A vagabond, rebel and Buddhist, Jian abandons his Beijing life for a 3-year southwestern journey through Tibet, Burma and Guizhou Province. (CHN150, $16.00)
 		  
The Great Wall, The Extraordinary Story of China's Wonder of the World  •  John Man   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE  •  Off he went, across China and Mongolia, in search of the wall of history and legend, not continuous, built over millennia, in many places a faint hill or rammed earth, not necessarily a wall at all. (CHN533, $16.95)
 		  
The Lady and the Panda, The True Adventures of the First American Explorer to Bring Back China's Most Exotic Animal  •  Vicki Croke   • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR  •  An entertaining account of the 1936 adventures of Ruth Harkness, the New York socialite and dress designer, who traveled to China on a quasi-scientific expedition and emerged with a baby giant panda, the first the world had ever seen. (CHN250, $14.95)
 		  
Chinese Poetry, An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres  •  Wai-Lim Yip   • LITERATURE  •  Wai-Lim Yip combs the literature for the finest and more unusual examples of poems from Chinese traditions. (CHN174, $26.95)
 		  
Giant Pandas, Biology and Conservation  •  Donald Lindburg  •  Karen Baragona   • NATURAL HISTORY  •  This collection of scholarly essays, drawn from the Panda 2000 symposium, covers panda biology, evolution, habitats and conservation. (CHN312, $70.00)
 		  
Nature: Pandas: Pandas of the Sleeping Dragon, The Panda Baby  •  Nature   • NATURAL HISTORY  •  A double-feature from the award-winning Nature series: Pandas of the Sleeping Dragon narrated by George Page and filmed in the bamboo forests of Wolong; and The Panda Baby, the story of the San Diego Zoo panda cub. (CHN263, $19.99)
 		  
Pandas  •  Heather Angel   • NATURAL HISTORY  •  A series of gorgeous color photographs of pandas, mostly concerned with the Giant Pandas of Wolong and with a section on the red panda. Includes some information on natural history. (CHN137, $17.95)
 		  
The Way of the Panda  •  Henry Nicholls   • NATURAL HISTORY  •  Nicholls, whose previous book was on the Galapagos tortoise, here turns to the panda as a powerful political and cultural symbol for modern China as well as for conservation. (CHN673, $15.95)
 		  
Wild China  •  John MacKinnon  •  Nigel Hicks   • NATURAL HISTORY  •  A beautiful oversize book of photographs featuring Chinese wildlife and natural history. This informative, up-to-date survey of the wildlife of China also features excellent maps and detailed explanatory text. (CHN19, $39.95)
 		  
A Field Guide to the Birds of China  •  John MacKinnon  •  Karen Phillipps   • FIELD GUIDE  •  A comprehensive field guide to the birds of China, featuring 128 color plates illustrating 1,300 species of birds. Contains introductory chapters on the history of ornithology in China, biogeography, and conservation. (CHN85, $124.00)
 		  
Chinese Wildlife  •  Martin Walters   • FIELD GUIDE  •  This compact introduction to birds, mammals, reptiles, insects and plants found from the Tibetan plateau to the deserts, tropical forests and mountains includes 200 color photographs. (CHN440, $26.99)
 		  
Photographic Guide to Birds of the Himalayas  •  Bikram Grewal   • FIELD GUIDE  •  A pocket guide to 250 birds found from the foothills up to high elevations ranging from the Hindu Kush and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh in the Eastern Himalayas. With brief descriptive information, maps and 260 full-color illustrations. (HML31, $15.95)
 		  
 
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