English version of Investiture of the Gods finished!

August 24, 2024 – Posted in: Investiture of the Gods

We’ve been hard at work finishing up the final book in the Last King of Shang series. This, in case you haven’t been keeping track, is our retelling of the classic Chinese novel Investiture of the Gods, using simpler language to make it more accessible to modern readers. It’s a long, long book, which we’ve split into 6 volumes. Five of the volumes are already published. We’ve finished the sixth and final one, in English,…

5th book in Last King of Shang published!

June 20, 2024 – Posted in: Investiture of the Gods, Last King of Shang

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this blog, apologies to those who read this 🙂 Last week we published the fifth book in the Last King of Shang series, covering chapters 68 through 84 of the original 100-chapter epic shenmo novel Investiture of the Gods. Here’s the back cover blurb: Jiang Ziya unites the Zhou rebels and leads them in a series of epic battles as they struggle to overthrow the corrupt Shang dynasty.…

Audiobook for Last King of Shang, Book 3

December 30, 2023 – Posted in: Audiobooks, Last King of Shang

It’s done, all 4 hours of it, and uploaded to YouTube! Link is https://youtu.be/Ni3OCLmRHBE. Thanks to Junyou Chen for his terrific audio recording, as always.

Poems added to Last King of Shang, Book 1

December 16, 2023 – Posted in: Last King of Shang

If you’re reading our Last King of Shang series, you’ve probably noticed that Book 1 does not have poems at the beginning of each chapter, but Books 2 and 3 do. That’s our fault. When we wrote the first book, we just focused on retelling the story. But as we got deeper into the project, we decided that the poems were an important part of the story, so we included them in Books 2 and…

Vocabulary lists for Last King of Shang series

December 7, 2023 – Posted in: Last King of Shang

Many of our readers ask for the vocabulary lists for our books. They’re available on the home page, just look for the “Download Vocabulary List” link next to each book. For the Last King of Shang series, we have individual vocabulary lists for each of the 3 books published so far, and also a master list that covers all 3 books. Here are the download links: Last King of Shang, Book 1 – vocabulary list…

Just released: The Last King of Shang, Book 3

– Posted in: Investiture of the Gods, Last King of Shang

Good news! We are happy to announce the arrival of the third book in our Last King of Shang series of graded readers. It covers the events in chapters 35 through 50 of the original epic Chinese novel Investiture of the Gods (封神榜 ). We have now covered half of the material in the original 100-chapter novel. Here is a short blurb from the back cover: In the waning days of the Shang dynasty in ancient China, an epic…

Four New Audiobooks!

November 24, 2023 – Posted in: Uncategorized

We now have four Chinese language audiobooks available on Audible.com. These books all have English language introductions, but the main body of the audiobooks is a word-for-word version of the Chinese books. Here are the four books, with links to their Audible.com listings, length, and purchase prices: Journey to the West in Easy Chinese (the complete novel, 36 hours 53 minutes), cost $16.99 or one Audible credit Learn to Read Chinese, Book 1 (four short…

New Book: “The Investiture of the Gods, Part 1”

– Posted in: Uncategorized

We’re happy to announce our first full length book in English! It’s a translation and retelling of the first 50 chapters of the classic Chinese novel 封神榜, known in the west as The Investiture of the Gods. The Investiture of the Gods is one of the most famous novels in classic Chinese literature. It is a gripping tale of powerful gods, scheming mortals and epic battles, but it also explores the dilemma faced by loyal…

New Book: “The Last King of Shang, Book 2”

September 26, 2023 – Posted in: Last King of Shang

At last, the second book in our Last King of Shang series is finished and available for purchase! The title is, not surprisingly, The Last King of Shang, Book 2. It covers the events in chapters 18 through 34 of the original epic Chinese novel Investiture of the Gods. Here is a short blurb from the back cover: In ancient China, the Shang kingdom descends into chaos as Daji, the beautiful thousand year old fox…

Update on 2nd “Last King of Shang” Book

August 22, 2023 – Posted in: Last King of Shang

I promised that the second installment of The Last King of Shang would be out by end of August. We’re going to miss that target by a month. Here’s why. The book is pretty much written. But I decided that it would be fun to include the short introductory poem that the original author provided at the start of each chapter. We didn’t do that for Book 1, but we will do it for all…