Last week, I wrote an article about a reading plan for taking my Chinese to the next level. In order to have a clearer starting point and allow others to understand better what I’m doing and how things are going, this article details all books I’ve read in Chinese so far. I will keep it updated as I read more books.

The following list consists of all books I’ve read in Chinese so far. I have only included…

• …books written for native speakers
• …books written for adults
• …books I’ve read from cover to cover

That means that I haven’t included dozens of textbooks for foreigners, untold numbers of newspaper articles, papers, theses and so on, neither have I included books for children or other learning materials which aren’t aimed towards adults I might have forgotten a book or two, but this list should be almost complete (with approximate dates). In case I have written something about my experience reading the book, I have provided a link.

Naturally, there’s a huge difference in time spent per book. 《實用現代漢語語法》is 500+ pages of grammar and probably took ten times longer to read than《茫點》, which is a fairly short and easy-to-read novel. Even though my own Chinese ability also influences speed, I would argue that the main reason I didn’t read more earlier is simply because…. I didn’t read. Obviously, reading《潰雪》(that’s Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson) in 2011 took some serious time and I could have read at least five easier novels in that time, but this isn’t important. Regardless of how I measure reading in Chinese, the measurement is going to be crude and I’m fine with that. Book length and complexity probably balances out in the end anyway.

Books I’ve read in Chinese so far (2013-05-14):

• 2010-07: 《孔子的部落格》 陳峰、夢亦非 （哲學）
• 2010-09: 《銀河公民》 羅伯特·海萊因 （小說）
• 2011-02: 《鍊金術士》 保羅·科而賀 （小說）
• 2011-04: 《世界大戰》 H.G.威爾斯 （小說）
• 2011-11: 《潰雪》 尼爾·史蒂芬森 （小說）
• 2012-03: 《華語文教學規範與理論基礎》 葉德明 （語言 ）
• 2012-06: 《空想科學》 柳田理科雄 （科學）
• 2012-08: 《漢語語法：修訂版》 李納、湯姆遜 （語言）
• 2012-11: 《犀照》 倪匡 （小說）
• 2013-01: 《天觀雙俠》 鄭丰 （小說）
• 2013-01: 《華語語音學》 葉德明 （語言）
• 2013-02: 《實用現代漢語語法》 劉月華、潘文娛、故辭 （語言）
• 2013-02: 《跟狗狗一起學物理》 查德·歐澤 （科學）
• 2013-02: 《茫點》 倪匡 （小說）
• 2013-03: 《三體》 劉慈欣 （小說）
• 2013-03: 《漢語音韻》 耿志堅 （語言）
• 2013-04 《世界之眼（上）》 羅伯特·喬丹 （小說）
• 2013-05: 《世界之眼（下）》 羅伯特·喬丹 （小說）

Books I’m currently reading:

• 對比分析與教學應用
• 飢餓遊戲
• 謝謝你離開我

2013-03-21 update

As you can see, I’m well on my towards reading 25 books this year. I have already read six books so far, which is almost equal to the number of books I read in 2011 and 2012 combined. If we extrapolate this number, I will end up with 25-30 books before the end of 2013.

If I keep that going, I will reach 100 books in about three years. Of course, steadily improving reading speed should increase the number of books, but there will inevitably be periods when I read less, which cancels out any speed improvements. I will update this article whenever I finish reading a book, although I might not write reviews of all the books I read.