An excellent collection of representative verse, song, stories, essays and excerpts from classic novels, a sampling of Chinese writing over the last 700 years with an introduction by the editor. It includes Ghosts and other Marvels, Red Chamber Dream and writing by masters little known in the West. This volume follows Birch's well received anthology of writings from ancient China, a banquet of love stories, operatic plays, drinking poems and other traditional Chinese writing.  (CHN14, $16.50)