Social issues
"The Ant Tribe" by Lian Si is an investigative report on the lives of a growing group of disadvantaged young adults gathering around the fringes of China's bigger cities. The characters in the book are university graduates with unsustainable incomes and so-called "Beijing dreams" that make them reluctant to leave the capital, despite poor living conditions and vague futures.
These residents, mostly born in the 1980s, were the prides of their families. They're referred to as ants because they're "intelligent and gregarious, weak in power but strong in spirit". As a precise sociological survey, the book creates panoramic sketches of the ant tribe's stories and stirs up broad public concern about this group, believed to be 1 million strong nationwide.
Science
"Heritage and Betrayal: A Treatise on the Emergence of Modern Science in Western Civilization" by Chen Fong Ching is an excellent analysis of the history of Western science, which tries to answer the old question: Why didn't China develop a sound modern science system, as in the West? The author is a prominent professor based in Hong Kong.
(Source: China Daily)
