Interesting list compiled by Paul French’s Access Asia on the best and worst books about China in 2008.

Some highlights:

WORST CHINA BOOKS OF 2008

My Favourite Wife, Tony Parsons
While Parsons captured some of the flavour of ex-pat bubble Shanghai our problem with this was that it was just clunking, pontificating and the last few scenes were frankly nuts – Ozzie ex-pat lawyers with pistols in their sideboards willing to die for Filipino cover band birds? Like most people we have no love for lawyers and are quite happy to watch them shoot each other but we doubt it likely. Thanks Tony, but please go back to writing about north London. We wouldn’t mind betting that if he’d submitted the manuscript under any other name it would never have made it out of the slush pile.

What China Thinks? Mark Leonard
oh dear, oh dear, oh dear (again), this piece of wonkish nonsense left you feeling sorry for the trees that had to be sacrificed. Nil points for effort; nil points for research; nil points for being unable to filter the official line due to linguistic and political lack of education and nil points for anything at all really. Let us all pray that this will be Leonard’s first and last outing on China.

Dishonourable mentions: While the above were all totally risible we should also note Simon Winchester’s Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China – though bits were interesting, it was riddled with mistakes that could have been easily checked and corrected had a) an editor done a serious job on the manuscript or b) Winchester wasn’t such a pompous ass as to believe himself infallible.

THE BEST CHINA BOOKS OF 2008

The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage, Alexandra Harney
After all the tomes about how to profit from low-cost manufacturing in China and the wonders of the export economy we were long overdue a good book that looked at the dark side of manufacturing in China. Perfectly timed to deal with the rising costs of production, the moves inland, the recession and factory closures and the stupidity of companies who claimed they were effectively auditing their suppliers. Harney also notes the gorilla in the corner of the CSR party – the general disinclination for supposedly concerned and ethical western consumers to cough up more money for products. Harney gets it all down in a readable fashion and nails her subject. We won’t need another book on the problems with this sector for a while now.

The City of Heavenly Tranquillity: Beijing in the History of China, Jasper Becker
A great gallimaufry of Beijing stories from the veteran journalist and all immensely readable. However, it is Becker’s searing indictment of Neanderthal communist officialdom, the campaign to destroy historical memory and the collusion in this process of vainglorious foreign architects and builders that hits home hardest.