My love for books was instilled in me by my mom when I was a child. Mom became a high school librarian when I was an elementary school student. She would always bring home books that she checked out from her library for my siblings and me. We were extremely lucky to have books to read at home considering the fact that there were no public libraries in China during the time I grew up. Books, since then, have brought me into an unimaginably fascinating world that led me to study literature in college and eventually become a librarian myself.
Not only did my mom nurture my love for books, but she also profoundly influenced me to appreciate literary works by great authors and poets, for she had a lifelong interest in classics. The following authors and their works are among those that are my all-time favorites:
- The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century
- The Columbia Book of Later Chinese Poetry: Yuan, Ming, and Ching Dynasties
- Hong Lou Meng by Cao Xueqin (English translations: The Story of the Stone: A Chinese Novel in Five Volumes and A Dream of Red Mansions)
- Border Town: A Novel by Shen Congwen
- “Shang Shi” and “Ye Cao” collected in The Complete Stories of Lu Xun by Lu Xun
- The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
- Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
- Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
- A Nobleman’s Nest by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (Also translated as Liza.)
- Jean-Christophe by Romain Rolland
Mom passed away last September. During the saddest time of my life, I found that only reading could pacify me and comfort me…In the days after mom’s death, one of the books I read was Musilin Di Zang Li: Funeral of Moslem by Huo Da. It is a classic contemporary Chinese novel that depicts the tragic lives of three generations of a Hui (Chinese Muslim) family. It gives the reader an utterly new perspective on understanding the history of modern China and the life of mom’s generation.
~Duan L., Columbia Library
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