Just published: The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl

January 20, 2025 – Posted in: Uncategorized

We just published our first totally new story in almost a year. It’s the classic Chinese legend The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl (牛郎织女). This is a wonderful story, told using fewer than 500 Chinese words, most of which are in the HSK3 vocabulary list. While most versions of this story are short, our version comes in at 15,000 Chinese characters, which works out to about 10,000 words. The book is 225 pages long. As usual, the…

What books should we publish next?

November 13, 2024 – Posted in: Uncategorized

Now that we’ve finished our two-year Last King of Shang project, we’re taking a short break for the holidays. But I’m thinking about what we should do next. Right now we are not looking to take on another huge project (sorry, no Romance of the Three Kingdoms!). But I am interested in publishing a series of short graded readers geared towards the lower end of reading ability, say around 500 to 800 word vocabulary. Ideally…

Four New Audiobooks!

November 24, 2023 – Posted in: Best Sellers, 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: Best Sellers, 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…

Word Lists Now Available for Download

July 11, 2023 – Posted in: Coming Soon, Uncategorized

A couple of weeks ago, a reader contacted us and asked for the vocabulary list for Rise of the Monkey King, so she could load it into one of her language learning apps. That seemed like a neat idea. So we’ve added a new link, “Download Vocabulary List,” to most of our fiction books on the home page. Find the book you want, click the link, and you’ll be able to download the complete vocabulary…