Comments (49)

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Jul 20, 2023rab1953 rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Do Not Say We Have Nothing has such richness of language, theme and story that it’s hard to know where to begin. Connections between family and friends; music in one’s life and culture; stories and the recording of them; loss, grief and…
Mar 07, 2022yewentan rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
A heart-breaking and yet beautiful book. The events that she described during multiple Chinese political movements are realistic. I know because I grew up during the cultural revolution. If you want to know what happened during these…
Feb 04, 2022BangsJeffrey rated this title 2 out of 5 stars
very difficult to read, what I did understand about the music was beautiful.
Jan 10, 2022
saw her in pbs interview
Jan 26, 2021richibi rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
does for China in the 20th Century what Pasternak's "Dr Zhivago" did for Russia during its Bolshevik Revolution
Jan 17, 2021rclane rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
A fairly affecting yarn of the tragic familial impacts of the Cultural Revolution and the other significant historical events that followed.
Aug 12, 2020kthngongan rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
A good book but I had a hard time getting through the pages. - The book tells the stories of Chinese people's lives, during the 1900s, where revolutions and reform happened, with a particular focus on music. - I find this hard to…
May 20, 2020esherbine rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Moving tale - made me emphathize with what it would have been like for perceived class enemies (musicians) during Cultural Revolution in China and then again in the democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. Subjects I do not know a lot…
Feb 17, 2020Mountainlaurel57 rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
Difficult and long, never finished but a very good book about politics and China
Dec 03, 2019MikeEe rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Covering the time of the "Great Leap Forward" of the 1950s, through Mao’s Cultural Revolution of the 60s and 70s to the brutal massacre of pro-democracy students at Tiananmen Square in 1989, and finally, the years after in Vancouver, these…
Aug 26, 2019
Tea & Talk Book Club / May 2018
Jul 22, 2019hannahcameron08 rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
This book is a masterpiece like no other.
Apr 22, 2019CICarlier rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
A beautiful and very poetic novel that I enjoyed reading very much. A great way to learn about China's history while going through very important topics: emancipation, freedom, love... Music, mathematics, poesy, literature and action…
Jan 23, 2019
Prose. You will be swept away to 20th century China with this novel's lyrical writing.
Dec 16, 2018JessicaGma rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
A really interesting 'history' of contemporary China where Mao's reforms turned everything on its head. Marie recounts her family history in the effort to find her cousin. It's a slow moving story but very intriguing.
Jul 24, 2018
This book started off with prose, an exquisite storyline filled with music and bold characters, and in the end I couldn’t finish it out of sheer boredom. I knew that this would be a slow paced novel, but there’s a limit. The characters…
Jun 28, 2018FVReader rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
I really enjoyed this read. The characters were real, damaged and good at heart. They lived in horrible times that caught them in a lifestyle mess where they had no control on any aspect of their lives. I think this novel did a good job…
Jun 27, 2018janestream rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
I found this multi-generational saga to be educational and endearing; it even brought tears to my eyes at a few points in the story. Not only that, it piqued my curiosity on the subject and led me down a few wikiholes to find out more…
Jan 22, 2018AlwaysGrateful rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Read this book twice and LOVE it. The second reading was very worthwhile and I appreciated it even more than the first time, partly because I could keep the characters and history in my mind. Beautiful writing style. Extremely…
Jan 15, 2018sgcf rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
This is a brilliantly written epic of a heart-wrenching era in China’s history, from the repressive Great Leap Forward of the 1950s, through Mao’s cultural revolution, through Tiananmen Square to the present. The characters are achingly…
Jan 14, 2018thepudman rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
For all those who hard a hard time finishing the book, sign it out again and finish it! It is a great book, easily in my top ten ever. I agree with another person who posted though - it is too long. I almost gave up, but the story came…
Dec 09, 2017
A book with a high degree of difficulty! It required a lot of reflection afterward, but once you are able to gather all the strands of the story, it becomes a beautiful and moving read.
Oct 23, 2017
Hard work
Sep 20, 2017ehbooklover rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
A meticulously researched, eye-opening book about the cultural revolution in China that was well worth the effort involved in reading it.
Sep 11, 2017
I got this from the express shelf and it was very much touch and go whether I could finish it in the 7 days + 7 renewal days (but I did it - yay me ;->). At 100+ pages too long, I nonetheless appreciated discovering some Chinese history…