Welcome to Litsy!

This was an outstanding reading experience for me. I enjoyed seeing the ways the various characters cropped up and related to one another in these connected short stories. I really appreciated the exploration of different generational experiences, with stories set from the 70s through 2020s. The exploration of Chinese vs. American POVs was equal parts fascinating, humorous, and touching. One I‘ll be revisiting again for sure.
#carolshieldsprize

If I hadn‘t seen this longlisted for the new Carol Shields Prize, I likely wouldn‘t have picked this up. And I loved it! These moving, loosely interconnected short stories span 50 years—1972-2002—and incorporate a fascinating cast of Chinese & Chinese American characters. Vibrant, morally intriguing stories with issues of identity & belonging; imperialism; communism & capitalism; integrity & forgiveness. Thank You, Gish Jen!

If Betty ever wrote a mystery, it would be about a world without politics and what a mystery it was that we had to have them when everyone hated them.

She was full of interesting questions. Like, who was Jane Austen‘s father, that he had so many books? And why did we feel sorry for Jane Austen when she didn‘t have to work and could stay home and write? My student‘s original name was Huiyang Wang, but after she read Middlemarch—and, two-year marathon that it was for her, she did read the whole thing—she changed her name to Mary Ann Evans.

Book synchronicity: two that feature characters that live within regimes where they are ruthlessly oppressed because of their intellectual or middle class background.

Dear Mr Nixon,
I don‘t know if you will remember me, especially now that I am in heaven and you are in hell. I was one of the little girls you talked to when you came in 1972. Not the one in the famous picture. I was the other one.

It gave you whiplash to go from famines and terror to _The top of everyone's must-see list is of course the Forbidden City!_ and _Though the Great Wall can be seen from outer space, nothing compares to seeing it in person._ But the bamboo curtain had parted. Not all that wide, really, but wide enough for tour buses to get through.

#SundaySentence

Interlinked short story collection from the author of The Resisters. A similar sensibility to the author‘s previous novel. Loved the stories and the characters they contained. #audiobook

Gish Jens latest a time to celebrate a book of short stories.I will be reading this weekend.💕📚