Audiobook for “Last King of Shang” now on Audible.com

November 9, 2024 – Posted in: Audiobooks, Investiture of the Gods, Last King of Shang

I’m delighted to announce that the complete audiobook of The Last King of Shang is now available on Audible.com. This is a high-quality recording, almost 22 hours long, with my introduction in English read by Geraldo Cortes, and all 100 chapters read in Chinese by our terrific audio artist Junyou Chen. If you’re an Audible.com member, you can get this for 1 credit. If you’re not, you can still buy it for $20.96. Check it…

Lots of “Last King of Shang” books now available

October 20, 2024 – Posted in: Investiture of the Gods

So, you’ve been wanting to read our epic Last King of Shang series (based on the Chinese classic Investiture of the Gods), but you’ve been frightened away by the prospect of having to buy and read all six books in the series? We’ve heard you! Now that the series is completed, our final task has been to create a set of comprehensive, single-volume books that cover the entire series, all 100 chapters. Here they are.…

Re-issue of the complete Journey to the West in English

September 16, 2024 – Posted in: Journey to the West

There’s been a lot of buzz about the new video game Wukong: Black Myth. Released in August 2024, it is one of the fastest selling video games of all time, with 18 million units sold in the first two weeks. It’s also an incredibly beautiful game, with computer graphics that appear completely lifelike. Check out the 5-minute trailer on YouTube here. So we thought it would be fun to re-issue our English language version of…

What We’re Working On

September 7, 2024 – Posted in: Journey to the West

In the last couple of months we’ve taken on three brand new book projects. They’re in various stages of development, but I want to share some general info on what’s coming. First on the list is Chinese Myths and Legends, an easy-to-read collection of nine short stories. These stories will be familiar to every Chinese person, as well as anyone else learning the language. They are Pangu Opens Heaven and Earth, Nüwa Creates Mankind, Nüwa…

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…