Wild Swans - Jung Chang

[dilemma456]

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Read it - loved it - think I might re -read it

Read it about ten years ago and remember being absolutely gripped - couldn't put it down.

It is an incredible story, and gave me a totally new insight into a period of history that I had heard about but been too young to understand. I agree it is totally gripping in a way that few autobiographies are, a real page turner, I would recommend it to everyone. It certainly makes you realise what it must be like to live with injustice and tyranny.

I tried to read it too young - I think I was 16 or 17. I got stuck/bored about halfway through and gave up. I think I'd like to try it again sometime though. Thanks for reminding me about it.

I loved it. I also liked Red China Blues which is about a Canadian born Chinese women who goes to China during the Cultural Revolution and becomes a communist. She has a unique insight as a westener.

brilliant book, also private papers of eastern jewel is very good.

have the chairman mao book but haven't started it yet! looks very depressing

Read it, loved it & read nothing but memoirs of the Cultural Revolution for ages afterwards. Wild Swans still stands out, and all kinds of details still pop back into my mind years later - first description I had ever read of footbinding, for example.

I also saw Jung Chang and her husband Jon Halliday when the Mao book was being launched & she signed the book for me!

it was a set text for a womens studies unit at uni.

it was one of the very few set texts that i actually enjoyed.

I loved it and after I had read it vowed I would never complain about anything in my life EVER again.

Does anyone think I kept that resolution?

A fab book but I do wish she had explained how her grandad could have an orgasm without ejaculating.

I have read it several times.

Like BalloonSlayer it makes me resolve to be more appreciative of my life.

Parts of that book are truly terrifying.

a superb book.....it ranks alongside life and death in shanghai... also a very intelligently written memoir

the mao book is interesting but very repetitive, it needed to be written but it's not as accessible or as gripping imo

I absolutely loved it- I was gripped! I read so many superb novels after that about China, and Japan too, and I learnt more than I ever would have from some dry history book. It was fantastic.

Loved it. Fascinating story, I was totally gripped from beginning to end. Met her at a booksigning, and she is amazing.

Fantastic book but I was horrified at the human cruelty within the Mao regime and I actually had nightmares for a few nights after reading it

Does make you appreciate what you have in life

Fantastic book

must reread it