Black Friday Deal – 33% discount on our most popular books

November 24, 2024 – Posted in: Investiture of the Gods, Journey to the West, Last King of Shang

From now through December 10 2024, you can get our most popular series of graded readers – Journey to the West and Last King of Shang – in paperback, for a really low price. You get 33% off the regular price, with no sales tax and free shipping to the US and Canada. This offer is for the following three sets of books: The Journey to the West – All 31 Individual Books in the Series, In Simplified OR Traditional Chinese, Pinyin and…

2 new coffee-table books: The Journey to the West and The Last King of Shang

November 9, 2024 – Posted in: Investiture of the Gods, Journey to the West, Last King of Shang

We’ve just released two oversized hardcover books that will make perfect gifts. They are the complete versions of our two best-selling Chinese novels, “Journey to the West” and “The Last King of Shang” (based on Investiture of the Gods). For both novels, we’ve converted the entire story – in Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English – into a single very large book. Each book is 8.5″ wide, 11″ high, and weighs over 5 pounds. Because the…

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

– 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…

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…

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

September 26, 2023 – Posted in: Best Sellers, 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: Best Sellers, 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…