Historic Shanghai’s Top 15 Books

We’re constantly asked to recommend ‘one book’ on Old Shanghai. Impossible! Old Shanghai was too complicated. But we have narrowed it down to 15 must-reads, compiled from Book Club readings and out-of- print classics.

Topics

Architecture

History

Memoir

Nonfiction

Fiction

Architecture

A Last Look: Western Architecture in Old Shanghai by Tess Johnston and Deke Erh

Building Shanghai: The Story of China’s Gateway by Edward Denison and Guang Yu Ren

History

Shanghai: China’s Gateway to Modernity by Marie-Claire Bergere

Memoir

A Last Look: Western Architecture in Old Shanghai by Tess Johnston and Deke Erh

Building Shanghai: The Story of China’s Gateway by Edward Denison and Guang Yu Ren

Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng

Tracing It Home: A Chinese Journey by Lynn Pan

Strangers Always: A Jewish Family in Wartime Shanghai by Rena Krasno

Shanghai Faithful: Betrayal and Forgiveness in a Chinese Christian Family by Jennifer Lin

Nonfiction

Old Shanghai: Gangsters in Paradise by Lynn Pan

400 Million Customers by Carl Crow

Shanghai Homes: Palimpsests of Private Lives by Jie Li

City of Devils: The Two Men Who Ruled the Underworld of Shanghai by Paul French

Fiction

French Concession: A Novel by Xiao Bai

Lust, Caution and other short stories by Eileen Chang

Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard

Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi