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Fiction 1999

We know this list can't be complete; we didn't start to make it in this form until 2002 and can't remember for certain what we were reading back then. We had jobs until May, 1999 and then by June we were in Paris. So for May and before our reading must have been lighter than afterwards. Or should we say heavier, meaning that if we read less, it was more serious stuff, for work. After September most of what we read was about China. Some of it is mentioned here; the biography, history, and politics is on another page.

Fiction
Crossing to Safety
A Dream of Red Mansions

Biography, History, and Politics

Travel Guides

Crossing To Safety by Wallace Stegner

We both thoroughly enjoyed this book by one of our favorite contemporary American authors. It deals with two families in contemporary America who have grown up together and now have to face the fact of their mortality.

Highly Recommended

A Dream of Red Mansions

This is a 3-volume novel written in and about 18^th century China. It is rather long and tedious in parts (perhaps because of the quality of the translation) but it gives a very detailed and mostly fascinating look at life in a rich Chinese family under the Qing dynasty. It is, of course, a soap opera. It has in fact been adapted for television in China and was apparently very popular.

The supernatural twist to the story hardly detracts from the pleasure of being a fly on the wall of this large extended family as they struggle to prevent the decline of the family fortunes. Great to read while in China because of the insights into Chinese culture that it provides.

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