HCCC Libraries: Religions of Asia: Course Texts and Recommended Materials

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To the right are required course texts and recommended reading material and films to supplement our coursework.

When available, recommended materials are linked to the HCCC Library Catelog. NOTE some materials are in Professor L.B-B's reserve and will have to be requested.

Required Course Texts

World Religions by Willard G. Oxtoby; Roy C. Amore
ISBN: 9780195426762
Publication Date: 2010-02-08

Recommended Books

One World, Many Cultures by Stuart Hirschberg; Terry Hirschberg
Call Number: PE1417.O57 2017
ISBN: 9780134425726
Publication Date: 2017-02-01
For courses in English Composition. This truly global multicultural reader highlights contemporary selections by internationally acclaimed authors.
How to Be a Perfect Stranger by Stuart M. Matlins (Editor); Arthur J. Magida (Editor)
Call Number: BJ2010.H68 2006
ISBN: 1594731403
Publication Date: 2006-02-01
This two-volume resource is a good guide to the etiquette involved in visiting worshiping communities you are not familiar with – this is an important social skill to learn in contemporary society. Also, most communities and large houses of worship have their own Websites. Visit the Website for more information about that community’s history.
Shogun by James Clavell
ISBN: 0385343248
Publication Date: 2009-05-19
Beginning in feudal Japan some months before the critical Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Shōgun gives an account of the rise of the daimyo "Toranaga" (based upon the actual Tokugawa Ieyasu).
The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye
Call Number: PR6061.A945F37 1978B V.1
ISBN: 031215125X
Publication Date: 1997-01-15
The Far Pavilions is an epic novel of British-Indian history by M. M. Kaye, first published in 1978, which tells the story of an English officer during the British Raj.
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse; Hilda Rosner (Translator)
ISBN: 0811202925
Publication Date: 1951-10-01
Herman Hesse’s version of the life of the Buddha.
The Jewel Trader of Pegu by Jeffrey Hantover
ISBN: 0061252719
Publication Date: 2008-12-30
About a 16-century Jewish merchant escaping the ghetto of Venice by going to Burma in search of gems to trade, and the spiritual journey his business trip becomes.
Prisoners of Shangri-La by Donald S. Lopez
ISBN: 0226493113
Publication Date: 1999-05-01
An excellent non-fiction look at Tibetan Buddhism in the globalized culture.
Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer
ISBN: 1585427438
Publication Date: 2009-08-20
The amazing true story of the Austrian mountain-climbing Olympic medalist who left Germany as Hitler was about to invade Poland, for an expedition to the Himalayas; and wound up as the personal tutor of the Dalai Lama, when His Holiness was a very young boy (there is also a Brad Pitt film – but the book is better). This book is a memoir; and includes vivid descriptions of the tensions in Lhasa as the Chinese Invasion moved into Tibet in 1949 that are not part of the movie.
City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre
ISBN: 0446355569
Publication Date: 1988-07-15
On life in 20th century Calcutta, where Mother Theresa started her order to work among the poor, see the memoir: City of Joy (there is a Patrick Swayze film – but the book is better).
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan; Richard Andrews (Editor); Judith Baxter (Contribution by)
Call Number: PS3570.A48J6 1995
ISBN: 0521485622
Publication Date: 1995-05-25
The Joy Luck Club is a best-selling novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco who start a club known as "the Joy Luck Club," playing the Chinese game of mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods.
The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
Call Number: PS3570.A48K58 1992
ISBN: 080410753X
Publication Date: 1992-04-22
The Kitchen God's Wife is a novel by Amy Tan. Like many of her works, it deals with Chinese-American female identity.
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Call Number: PS3503.U198G6 2004
ISBN: 0743272935
Publication Date: 2004-09-15
The Good Earth is a novel by Pearl S. Buck published in 1931 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1932. The novel dramatizes family life in a Chinese village before World War II.
Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck
ISBN: 155921287X
Publication Date: 2001-05-01
From the author of The Good Earth comes the story of Madame Wu, a woman whose surprising decision to retire from married life and select a concubine for her husband upsets her extended household.
Life and Death in Shanghai by Cheng Nien
ISBN: 0802145167
Publication Date: 2010-12-14
Life and Death in Shanghai is an autobiography published in November 1987 by Nien Cheng from exile in the United States which details Cheng's six-year imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution.
Wild Swans by Jung Chang
ISBN: 0743246985
Publication Date: 2003-08-05
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China is a family history that spans a century, recounting the lives of three female generations in China, by Chinese writer Jung Chang.
Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman
Call Number: DS712.S245 1987
ISBN: 0394755111
Publication Date: 1987-10-12
Iron and Silk is a 1986 autobiographical novel written by Mark Salzman. It describes his experiences in China as an English teacher and as a student of Kung Fu. The book was later made into a film of the same name.
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
ISBN: 0312428596
Publication Date: 2009-09-29
The Indian novelist, Amitav Ghosh, has completed two books in the “Ibis Trilogy,” novels about the opium trade in the 19th century and the immense personal and geo-political economic consequences of this global market system; an early parallel to the rum-tobacco-slaves triangle that provided financial incentives for the horrors of the Middle Passage.

In this case, the multi-national trade flowed between British colonial India, where the opium was produced, to ports that had been forced open to the opium trade in Southern China; and from there to England, Europe, and North America. Along with providing vivid descriptions of the character of this period with so many connections to our own times, the author makes brilliant use of the dialects of the era, especially sailor-pidgin English, from which are derived many terms and phrases still in use around the world’s international English, such as: “savvy,” “can-do,” and “no-can-do.” The two books of the trilogy currently in publication are: Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke.
New York Before Chinatown by John Kuo Wei Tchen
ISBN: 0801867940
Publication Date: 2001-08-22
A brilliant work of non-fiction about the influences of the China trade in New York and all points West in America is: New York Before Chinatown, by John Kuo Wei Tchen. It offers many insights into the development of New York as
a world-class port city. And it describes the problematic incorporation of many immigrant groups, as they move from seeming to be enticing and exotic, to becoming threatening and overwhelming, in the view of the dominant culture. The author’s description of relations between the Chinese and Irish immigrants in the port of New York is bracing and enlightening.
China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston
Call Number: E184.C5K5 1988
ISBN: 0679723285
Publication Date: 1989-04-23
The Chinese- American author, Maxine Hong Kingston, has also written brilliantly about the history of Chinese people in America. See her novel: China Men, including a chapter called: “Grandfather of the Sierra Nevada Mountains,” about the railroad builders and the camps in which they lived.
Crossroads of Continents by William W. Fitzhugh (Editor); Aron Crowell (Editor)
ISBN: 0874744350
Publication Date: 1988-09-17
For a rare visual survey of indigenous cultures and a deep insight into cultural parallels between Asia and the Americas, see: Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska Smithsonian, 1989. This is a comprehensive catalog of a landmark exhibition with loan objects from many museums in the West and from the former Soviet Union. It graphically demonstrates the complexity of the parallel cultural structures on both sides of the Pacific Rim.

Personal Collection in HCCC Libraries

The following films are in the personal collection of Professor Bellan-Boyer. Please ask her to borrow her copy if you are interested in viewing one.

“Gandhi” 1982 feature film starring Ben Kingsley, Directed by Richard Attenborough.
“In the Footsteps of the Buddha” PBS documentary
“The Last Emperor” 1987 film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.
“POV: Point of View: The Dalai Lama” PBS documentary
“Tibetan Sandpainting” 1991 video with the Namgyal Monks at the San Francisco Museum of Art
“To Live” 1994 film, directed by Zhang Yimou
“Whale Rider” 2002 film directed by Niki Caro
“Wide Angle: Inside North Korea” PBS documentary
“Worship of God in the Form of Mother Kali” 1995 independent video

Recommended Movies

“Anna and the King”

“The Bridge Over the River Kwai”

“The Color of Fear”

“Dim Sum”

“Eat, Drink, Man, Woman”

“Earth”

“Farewell, My Concubine”

“Fat Man and Little Boy”

“Fire”

“Flower Drum Song”

“Gandhi”

“The Good Earth”

“The Inn of the Sixth Happiness”

“The Jewel in the Crown” (TV Mini-Series)

“The Journey of the Bonesetter’s Daughter”

“The Joy Luck Club”

“Kashmir”

“The King and I”

“The King of Masks”

“Kundun”

“The Last Emperor”

“Latcho Drom”

“Long Life, Happiness &Prosperity”

“Lost Horizon”

“Lost in Translation”

“Madama Butterfly”

“Mississippi Masala”

“Monsoon Wedding”

“My Beautiful Launderette”

“Osama”

“Passage To India”

“Rashomon”

“Reds”

“Seven Years in Tibet”

“Shall We Dance” (1996 Japanese version)

“Shogun” (TV Mini-series)

“Sita Sings the Blues”

“Teahouse of the August Moon”

“Topsy-Turvey”

“Tora, Tora, Tora!”

“To Live”

“Water”

“Warrior”

“Whale Rider”

“The World of Susie Wong”

Religions of Asia

About this Page

Required Course Texts

Recommended Books

Recommended Films and Videos

Personal Collection in HCCC Libraries

Recommended Movies

Gabert Library

NHC Library