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Back in April we did a post on the top ten books favored by the users of Douban.com, a book review and recommendation site. Since that time, tastes have changed and new books have been released so it's about time to take a new look at the site's top ten:
- JK Rowlings - "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (Does this need an explanation?)
- Han Han - "The Glorious Day I" (Magical realism from Shanghai teen prodigy, blogger, "most read" post-80s author.)
- Audrey Niffenegger - "The Time Traveller's Wife" (Author's first novel, a love story with a sci-fi twist.)
- Car"Ballad Of The Sad Café" (Southern Gothic short stories by melancholy American author, first Chinese publication in April.)
- Sang Gege - "When I Was Young" (70s and 80s nostalgia by 27 year-old, Wang-Xiaofeng-endorsed deputy editor at Urban China magazine, started as a weblog.)
- Orhan Pamuk - "Istanbul: Memories of a City" (Melancholy and disturbing ruminations on the identity of a changing city by the first Turk to win a Nobel Prize.)
- Lian Yue - "I Love Asking Lian Yue"(Collection of this journalist and blogger's "I Am Chicken Soup" column for the Shanghai Weekly.)
- Song Hongbing - "Currency Wars" (Discussion of global banking and its effects on China, by a veteran of the US financial sector.)
- Tian Yuan - "Double Mono" (Beijing author, HK actress, lead singer of band Hopscotch, and blogger/MySpacer writes about love, youth and self-discovery.)
- Carolyn Parkhurst - "The Dogs of Babel" (Dog who witnesses wife's death taught to talk by husband, by professional American writer.)
Contrast that list, by young, connected Chinese, with the Amazon-affiliated Joyo.com's top seller list: "Harry Potter", "Don't Laugh, I'm an English Book" (humorous English textbook, translated from Korean), "Better To Ask Yourself Than To Ask A Doctor" (medical reference book), "If Life Is Merely A First Impression" (classical poetry commentary), "The Book of Bunny Suicides" (cartoons of... bunny suicides), "Kids" (cartoons by Zhu Deyong), "Currency Wars", "Si Wu Xie: Recalling the Memory of Past Life" (poetry appreciation), "The Dogs of Babel".
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Who decides which books get press (Harry Potter) and which get censored? After all, censorship is becoming America's favorite past-time. The US gov't (and their corporate friends), already detain protesters, ban books like "America Deceived" from Amazon and Wikipedia, shut down Imus and fire 21-year tenured, BYU physics professor Steven Jones because he proved explosives, thermite in particular, took down the WTC buildings. Free Speech forever (especially for books).
Last link (before Google Books caves to pressure and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
#1, you don't know what you are you talking about.
America Deceived is still available on Amazon, although not very popular due to the fact that is it a heap of crap conspiracy theories. Of course, its meager sales have benefited from useful idiots who perpetuate the urban legend of censorship, as you have insinuated herein.
Song Hongbing - "Currency Wars" (Discussion of global banking and its effects on China, by a veteran of the US financial sector.)
Song is a burglary. His book copied "The Money Masters" and "Money and Debt" (http://www.themoneymasters.com) blindly. He has no idea of his own but A TOTAL FAKE.
After reading the FT article aboout the new book the "Currency Wars" I am totally fascinated and am very interested to know whether this book is available in English and if so where can I purchase it? Please advise if possible. Bianca Quantrell, qmainc@mindspring.com
Does anyone know where to get a copy of Song Hongbing's "Currency Wars?"