Andrew Batson
China economy researcher in Beijing who writes about Chinese political economy, history and culture on his personal blog.
Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
A hard-boiled mystery set in an alternative 1920s America, by turns familiar and strange.
on andrewbatson.com · 16 Dec 2025
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
Stegner's last, great work is an understated, closely observed portrait of the relationship between two couples.
on andrewbatson.com · 16 Dec 2025
Disputing Disaster: A Sextet on the Great War by Perry Anderson
I also enjoyed Anderson's Disputing Disaster: A Sextet on the Great War
on andrewbatson.com · 16 Dec 2025
I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan
Perhaps the best of the various gig-worker memoirs published in recent years.
on andrewbatson.com · 16 Dec 2025
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
One of the most perfectly crafted pieces of prose I've ever read; short, basically plotless, almost unbearably intense.
on andrewbatson.com · 16 Dec 2025
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
I re-read all of Hammett's novels this year, and this, his first, held up the best.
on andrewbatson.com · 16 Dec 2025
Specimen Days by Walt Whitman
Tying them all together is Whitman's love for the American landscape and people, and his unique voice, so fresh he still seems like a contemporary.
on andrewbatson.com · 16 Dec 2025
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Twain's original is, still, the better book.
on andrewbatson.com · 16 Dec 2025
The Ebb-Tide by Robert Louis Stevenson
Stevenson's last published novel is not particularly famous but deserves to be better known.
on andrewbatson.com · 16 Dec 2025
The Indian Ideology by Perry Anderson
Out of all the reading on India I did this year to prepare for my first visit, this was my favorite: compact, punchy, and argumentative, packed with erudition and information.
on andrewbatson.com · 16 Dec 2025
The Lantern-Bearers and Other Essays by Robert Louis Stevenson
Stevenson is best known as a novelist, but I think I prefer his nonfiction: he had an interesting life and was interested in lots of things, and the sentences are marvelous and daring.
on andrewbatson.com · 16 Dec 2025
The Lumumba Plot by Stuart A. Reid
Nominally a biography of Patrice Lumumba, this book is actually a gripping, blow-by-blow account of how the Congo stumbled to independence from Belgian rule.
on andrewbatson.com · 16 Dec 2025
The Secret of Our Success by Joseph Henrich
Not every plank in his argument is convincing, and the research has evolved since the book first came out a decade ago, but the ambition is impressive and the framework holds up.
on andrewbatson.com · 16 Dec 2025
The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides
The causes and meaning of those events have been debated ever since, and Sides delivers a careful, sympathetic and engaging account of the entirety of Cook's final expedition.
on andrewbatson.com · 16 Dec 2025
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