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      • The Cellist of Sarajevo
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​​Upcoming Books:

January 16 
Jeri Lynn

Where the Crawdads Sing  - Delia Owens

February 20
Maitland 

Death of a Red Heroine - Qiu Xiaolong 

March 19 
Debra

Beneath the Scarlet Sky  - Mark T. Sullivan

Author Bio: 

Qiu Xiaolong was born in Shanghai, China. He published prize-winning poetry, translation and criticism in Chinese in the eighties, and became a member of the Chinese Writers' Association. In 1988, he came to the
United States as a Ford Foundation Fellow, started writing in English,
and obtained a Ph.D. in comparative literature at Washington University.
He is the author of Death of a Red Heroine (2000), A Loyal Character Dancer (2002), When Red Is Black (2004), A Case of Two Cities (2006), Red Mandarin Dress (2007), The Mao Case (2009), Don't Cry, Tai Lake (2012), Enigma of China (2013), Shanghai Redemption (2015), and Becoming Inspector Chen (in French and Italian, 2016 and 2017) in the critically acclaimed, award-winning Inspector Chen series; a collection of linked stories Years of Red Dust (serialized in Le Monde first, 2010); three poetry translations, Treasury of Chinese Love Poems (2003), Evoking
T'ang (2007) and 100 Classic Chinese Poems (2010); and his own poetry collections, Lines Around China (2003) and Poems of Inspector Chen (2016). Qiu's books have sold over two million copies worldwide and have been published in twenty languages. He currently lives in St. Louis with
​his wife and daughter.
Visit the Author's website here. 
Author Quotes: 
Real drama inspires crime author
Shanghai Daily 
​By Xu Qin | May 22, 2016, Sunday
 
“I always wanted to smuggle some poems into my stories,” said Qiu. “My publisher first disagreed with me, but I persuaded him by saying that in classical Chinese thrillers, it’s always the poems that give the clues.”

NiGHTSTAND READS - on the blog

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​READ this BOOK! 
​The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris is an important reminder for the world to remember those who were murdered, tortured and dehumanized and bore witness to the atrocities of the Holocaust  and the strength of love and the power of resilience to overcome and survive.


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Read BExtraordinaire Blog for more about books I am reading and other book club updates. ​
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I added The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewel and Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate.to the BExtraordinaire Blog. Check it out. 

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is reading Death of a Red Heroine by Qui Xaiolong for February Book Club.
​
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The novel was published in English in 2000 and set in Shanghai, China after the cultural revolution. We typically don’t read detective style murder mysteries for book club but The Red Heroine is not your typical murder mystery.Yes, there is a murder and a detective who is the main character. 

​Newly appointed Chief Inspector Chen Cao leads the special case squad, Homicide Division, Shanghai Police Bureau is no ordinary cop. He has the heart of a poet. He writes, translates, and recites poetry for extra cash and has the amazing ability to come up with a stanza or two for just about any situation.

​His team takes on a case that on first look appears to be a routine murder only to discover the victim is a celebrated “national model worker named Guan Hongying. Detective Chen thinks: 

”After examining her room, he thinks of this public woman, “A young woman, Guan must also have experienced her moments of surging loneliness – sudden sleeplessness, in that small dorm room of hers. The ending of a poem by Matthew Arnold came swelling to him in the night air.
​
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! For the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.
And we are here, as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
It was a poem he had translated years earlier. The broken and uneven lines, as well as the abrupt, almost surrealist transitions and juxtapositions, had appealed to him."

The above is just a taste of what you have in store for your reading pleasure. 

Talking Point: Qiu Xiaolong
Aug 11, 2011
UNSW Channel 


BOOK REVIEW 
SEEING THE WORLD THROUGH BOOKS
Reviews by Mary Whipple

Qiu Xiaolong–DEATH OF A RED HEROINE
Mar 25th, 2013 by mary
 
“Death of a Red Heroine, an unusual mystery for a western audience, provides much information about how the political system in China “works,” while also creating situations in which the reader empathizes with Chen as he tries to accomplish what he believes are the true goals of the country, as opposed to the personal goals of individual party officials.”

Read More of this review at Qiu Xiaolong- Death of a Red Heroine 


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  • Home
    • BExtraordinaire Calendar
  • Blog BExtraordinaire
  • Past Reads
    • 2021 >
      • The Mysteries
      • The Long Petal of the Sea
      • The Silent Patient
      • The Broken Heart of America
      • The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
    • 2020 >
      • Where the Crawdads Sing
      • Death of a Red Heroine
      • Age of Light
      • Beneath the Scarlet Sky
      • Next Year in Havana
      • What the Wind Knows
      • Simon the Fiddler
      • The Dutch House
      • Dear Edward
    • 2019 >
      • Caleb's Crossing
    • 2018 >
      • Educated
      • To Have and To Have Not
    • 2017 >
      • A Gentleman in Moscow
    • 2016 >
      • The Mare
      • Fates and Furies
    • 2015 >
      • Citizens of London
      • Euphoria
      • The Blue Flower
      • Being Mortal
      • Waiting for Snow in Havana
      • All that is Solid Melts into Air
      • All the Light We Cannot See
    • 2014 >
      • On Such a Full Sea
      • A Canticle for Leibowitz
      • The Luminaries
      • The Lowland
      • Alice Munro shorts
      • The Goldfinch
      • The Round House
      • Salvage the Bones
    • 2013 >
      • The Monuments Men
      • Wild
      • The Great Fire
      • A Time of Gifts
      • Sweet Tooth
      • The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
      • To the End of the Land
      • The Casual Vacancy
      • Canada
      • The Light Between Oceans
    • 2012 >
      • One Amazing Thing
      • Bossypants
      • The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
      • Rules of Civility
      • Cutting for Stone
      • Just Kids
      • Red Badge of Courage
      • Lost on Treasure Island
      • The Reluctant Fundamentalist
      • The Children's Book
    • 2011 >
      • The Cellist of Sarajevo
      • Food Rules
      • Freedom
      • Unbroken
      • The Painted Veil
      • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
      • Elegance of the Hedgehog
      • Soul Mountain
  • Highlights
    • The Complete List
  • ReaderRec