I can recommend Red Sorghum by Mo Yan. There's also a movie which is supposed to be quite good (I haven't seen it, so cant comment on that).

I enjoyed "The Year of the Woman" by Jonathan Gash. A novel about a girl with psychic abilities, set in Hong Kong.

Two of my favorite non-fiction books are about China.

I found Leaving Mother Lake by Yang Erche Namu fascinating. It's about the Moso who live on the China-Tibet border.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang is a wonderful history/memoir of three generations of women living through China's tumultuous 20th century.

"Lost on Planet China" by J. Maarten Troost -- written in an unusually lively style.

I am woefully ignorant about China especially as soon we will probably be marching to their drum . . .
One book I found fascinating was Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China by Hilary Spurling. What a horrible early life she had, her siblings dying, her Mother ruled by a narrow-minded and unsuccessful missionary-husband and surrounded by primitive conditions and cruelty.
I have a copy of Marina Warner's The Dragon Empress: the Dowager Empress of China. It mostly deals with the rise of Western influence from the mid nineteenth century and the xenophobia and extremely evil character of Empress Tz'u-hsi who 'ruled' until 1908. Not a happy mix.
As merry suggests Wild Swans would be a good look at China under the rule of Mao.

I also loved Fuchsia Dunlop's Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet and Sour Memoir of Eating in China. She originally went to Sichuan as a scholar but ended enrolling in cooking school. She then traveled around China to explore the different regional cuisines.

Don't remember if you like/dislike mysteries but if you do Robert van Gulik wrote of Judge Dee's cases. One had a distressing passage that I quickly paged over.

Recently re-read Jean Shor's After You Marco Polo. Not about China. That was their destination. A trek that would be impossible today. Oh, read when it's hot outside. Brrrr. Back to my Charlie Chan movie.

I knew you all would come up with a great variety of selections about China -- or any other subject, for that matter. Thanks! The only trouble: Which one do I choose first?

I read Wild Swans ten to fifteen years ago. I recall getting angry about the way the women were treated in China. Maybe that's why I haven't reread it, but it was certainly interesting and worthwhile. I want to read it again now...and I'll probably get just as angry.

With the exception of Woodnymph's suggestion of Troost's travelogue (not sure about Annpan's) and the memoir Merry likes about eating in China, most books about China do seem to dwell upon sadness and unhappiness of both the historical and present-day situations. I suppose it's necessary for deriving any sort of understanding of that vast, complex, history-laden country and its culture.

Carolyn, of the books you mentioned, I've only read Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. I, too, have never got over The Good Earth.

Merry, I'm sure that I will enjoy Dunlop's eating experiences. One of my dreams was to visit Hong Kong and eat my way up one side of Temple Street and back down the other side. Alas, when I did visit there it was only for a few days so I only got a small sampling of the food offered on that storied street. China seems to be unique in that the fiery examples of its cuisine (e.g. Sichuan and Hunan) are from the north while the milder examples originated in the south. In most places, the lower the latitude (closer to the equator) the spicier and fierier the food gets.

Irisgal, I do like a mystery occasionally. I think I've read some of Judge Dee, but it was so long ago that he would almost be new to me again. I haven't thought of After You, Marco Polo in years. Now that was in the day that Americans could roam at will, and they did!

I just remembered a novel, Spring Moon, by Bette Bao Lord. Did any of you like that one?

Friedag, my suggestion "The Year of the Woman" isn't particularly sad, I don't like sad books. I liked the story especially as the main character is psychic and I am interested in how they are presented. Also having been to Hong Kong a couple of times, I could imagine the setting well. When I went alone once, I had a charming friend who lived there take me around to more than the tourist spots, again a plus!

I liked "A Dictionary of Maqiao" by Han Shaogong, about an Educated Youth sent to the village of Maqiao in the 1960s.

I enjoyed Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by
Dai Sijie. That's the only book I can recall reading that was set in China.

For something contemporary, you might like to try The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones. It's fairly light reading, but educational.

Most of PEARL S. BUCK's novels take place in China and are classics.

Just noticed on a shelf of as yet unread books (of which there are too many)
Simon Winchester's The River at the Centre of the World: Up the Yangtze and Back in Chinese Time It was written about twenty years ago so things political have very much moved on in that country, but Winchester is reckoned to be an excellent travel-writer.

If you're looking for non-fiction of a Westerner who visits (and spent quite a long time living there), you could try Peter Hessler's work. In my experience, you couldn't go wrong with either River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze about his time in a small town as a Peace Corps volunteer (2001) or his later one called Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China. Don't recommend his later one called Country Driving as it's just a poor rehash of some old columns that he had lying around. (Pretty unforgettable.) He now lives in Cairo as Middle East correspondent for The New Yorker so I bet there'll be a book about that out in the future.