JF Best Sellers of September 季風九月書榜
《廬山會議實錄》
李銳著，李南央整編／ 溪流出版社
李銳（1917–2019），中共黨史專家、毛澤東時期的親歷者與批判者。作為「彭德懷事件」的直接見證人，他在多年政治迫害後，以真實筆記和記憶撰成《廬山會議實錄》，揭開1959年那場政治風暴的重重帷幕。書中記錄會議內幕、權力鬥爭與毛澤東決策的心理轉折，既是歷史文獻，也是體制內知識分子自我省思的見證。此書讓讀者直面中國政治運作的祕密機制，理解「大躍進」悲劇的起點。
《何去何從》
佘其 ／ 壹嘉出版社
《何去何從》是一部描繪中國知識分子命運的長篇小說。以國立中夏大學為背景，故事經歷抗日戰爭至「文化大革命」核心，呈現出新一代又知識分子在戰亂與政治運動中的掙扎與沈浮。
《陳一諮回憶錄（續）》
陳一諮 ／ 博登書屋
《陳一諮回憶錄（續）》記述陳一諮自1989年被列"頭號通緝犯"流亡海外，至2011年病榻之上仍筆耕不輟的二十二年。 上篇《爲了良知和正義》（1989-1996）記錄他在巴黎、普林斯頓與哈佛 奔走籌組"民主中國陣線"，營救鮑彤、疾呼平反"六四"，並與餘英時等創設 "當代中國研究中心"。書稿細節生動，如巴黎籌款風波等片段，鋪陳人性光影，也折射海外民運的理想與局限。全書既是體製內改革者轉身爲流亡者的心路實錄，也是1989後中國政治流變、知識分子命運與全球民主潮汐的寶貴口述檔案，對研究當代中國改革史、民運史與流亡文學具有獨特史料價值及啟示意義。
《在夾縫中抵抗：從依法治國與司法抗爭的比較經驗看香港》
黎恩灝／ 春山出版
當法律成為權力的語言，司法成為政權的工具，個體如何以有限之力抵抗龐大的威權？美國喬治城大學法律學者黎恩灝以深厚的法學功底，剖析香港法治的歷史根源與制度轉折，並比較南非、美國、巴勒斯坦與臺灣的司法抗爭經驗，思索何謂真正的法治與公民勇氣。本書不僅是對香港現況的冷靜分析，更是對自由社會的誠摯呼喚——制度匱乏，並不意味價值滅絕。
《莫斯科回來的女人》
哈金／ 博登書屋
以戲劇導演孫維世為原型，哈金透過虛構與史實交織的筆法，重構一位知識女性在革命與藝術夾縫中的生命史。從莫斯科到北京，從信仰的高地到牢獄的深淵，主人公的命運折射出中國理想主義的幻滅。哈金以沉靜筆觸描寫信念與背叛、忠誠與犧牲的矛盾，呈現個體在體制壓力下的尊嚴與悲劇。這是一首獻給理想者的輓歌，也是一部關於記憶與良知的史詩。
《李慎之的檢討書（上下冊）》
李三達編 ／新世紀出版社
李慎之（1923–2003），中國自由主義思想代表人物之一，曾任中國社科院副院長。從外交官、新聞人到思想者，他一生經歷「右派」劫難與思想禁錮。《檢討書》以其自省文字與公開信件為核心，展現知識分子在極權下的靈魂拷問。這不是屈服的表白，而是一種理性與良知的重構——在不斷的自我檢討中尋找自由思想的出路。
《自由生活》
哈金 ／ 時報出版
《自由生活》描寫一個天安門事件後留美的中國家庭，在異鄉的語言、金錢與夢想之間掙扎求存。主角武男從詩人變為廚師，追尋「自由」的過程充滿痛苦與救贖。哈金以樸實筆法書寫移民的孤獨、尊嚴與信念，展現他對人性與自由的深切凝視。這是一部跨越政治與文化界限的小說，也是一曲對生命韌性與理想之光的頌歌。
《跋涉中的司法女神》
賀衛方 ／ 時代社
作為中國最具影響力的法學家之一，賀衛方以犀利筆觸直面中國法治的矛盾與困境。《跋涉中的司法女神》收錄其重要演講與評論，思考中國能否真正從「人治」邁向「法治」。書中論述激情而清醒，揭示權力與法律之間的拉鋸，呼喚理性、公正與自由。這是一部理解中國法治轉型不可或缺的思想文集，也是對時代良知的持續質問。
《紐約客》
白先勇 ／ 廣西師範出版社
白先勇以細膩筆觸描寫一群在美國追夢的中國人——在文化衝突與身份迷失之間，他們以「紐約客」的姿態隱身異鄉。從〈謫仙記〉到〈紐約客〉，這些故事充滿懷舊與幻滅的色彩，映照一代知識分子與流亡者的精神流浪。白先勇筆下的紐約，是容納漂泊靈魂的魔都，也是中國現代性的一面鏡子。
《厭女》
上野千鶴子 ／ 上海錦繡文章出版社
日本女性主義思想家上野千鶴子以犀利的分析揭示「厭女」的社會機制——從男性的蔑視到女性的自我厭惡，從親密關係到社會結構，層層剖析權力與性別的糾結。書中五個閱讀階段引導讀者從好奇、認同到自覺，最終理解女性主義的核心：意識到自身的厭女症，並與之抗爭。《厭女》是一面照見社會與自我的鏡子，為現代女性帶來深切共鳴與力量。
The Anaconda in the Chandelier: Writings on China
Perry Link · Paul Dry Books
With lucid prose and moral clarity, Perry Link threads reportage, literary close-reading, and lived experience into a portrait of contemporary China that is at once affectionate and unflinching. He exposes the “anaconda in the chandelier”—the ambient, shape-shifting pressure of authoritarian power—while preserving the humor, resilience, and everyday dignity of ordinary people. These essays explain how the West so often misread China’s political signals, and how to look again with sharper, truer eyes. A luminous companion for anyone trying to navigate the contest between democracy and autocracy, this collection insists on one anchor throughout: telling the truth.
Remembering Shanghai: A Memoir of Socialites, Scholars and Scoundrels
Isabel Sun Chao (with Claire Chao) · Girl Friday Books
Winner of 29 awards—including the Writer’s Digest Grand Prize and Rubery Book of the Year—this lavish, photo-rich memoir follows five generations of the Sun family from imperial favor to revolutionary upheaval. Isabel’s childhood among 1930s–40s Shanghai elites glows with couture, calligraphy, and café society, even as war shadows the streets. After 1949 she flees to Hong Kong, not knowing she will never see her father again. Half a century later, mother and daughter return to confront a past crowded with kidnappers and concubines, scholars and gangsters. By turns harrowing and tender, the book becomes a meditation on identity, exile, and the unreliable light of memory.
Institutional Genes
Chenggang Xu · Cambridge University Press
Economist Chenggang Xu proposes a bold framework for understanding why China’s political-economic order has proven so adaptive. “Institutional genes,” he argues—core, self-replicating design elements—merged from Soviet totalitarian blueprints and the long arc of Chinese imperial governance to produce a durable formation he terms Regionally Administered Totalitarianism. Tracing these genes from European communism through the Chinese revolution, the Great Leap, the Cultural Revolution, and reform-era improvisations, Xu shows how centralizing control coexists with devolved implementation. The result is a rigorous, concept-driven anatomy of modern Chinese power—and a sober response to Mises’s warning about the staying power of totalitarian systems.
The Peking Express: The Bandits Who Stole a Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China
In May 1923 a gleaming luxury train left Shanghai for Peking—and sped into legend. James M. Zimmerman reconstructs the audacious hijacking by Sun Mei-yao and his bandits, who seized dozens of elite passengers: an Aldrich heiress, a Mussolini-connected lawyer, journalists, merchants, diplomats. What followed was a global spectacle of ransom, propaganda, and collapsing state authority. Part caper, part political autopsy, the book reads like a real-life Murder on the Orient Express with the stakes of a revolution, illuminating a republic already buckling under warlords and foreign pressure.
Forever Hong Kong: A Global City’s Decolonization Struggle
Ching Kwan Lee · Harvard University Press
Sociologist Ching Kwan Lee offers an intimate, street-level chronicle of the 2019 Hong Kong movement—its improvised tactics, plural leadership, and moral vocabulary—set against decades of deferred decolonization. Between an encroaching party-state and global capital’s appetite for stability, Hong Kongers articulate a vision of the good society: rule of law, fair economy, civic dignity. Mixing history, ethnography, and political-economy analysis, Lee shows how colonized subjects become agents of history and why Hong Kong’s struggle reframes decolonization for the twenty-first century.
Murder in Manchuria: The True Story of a Jewish Virtuoso, Russian Fascists, a French Diplomat, and a Japanese Spy in Occupied China
Scott D. Seligman · Potomac Books
A virtuoso pianist vanishes in 1933 Harbin; days later his tortured body surfaces, and a multinational drama erupts. Scott D. Seligman braids a cold-case investigation with the social history of Manchuria’s “Wild East,” where White Russian extremists, Japanese militarists, Chinese officials, and a resourceful French vice-consul collide. The result is a propulsive narrative that restores the voice of Semyon Kaspé and the Jewish community that briefly flourished—and then fled—under gathering storms.
Woman Seated
Zhang Yueran · Riverhead Books
In Zhang Yueran’s taut, psychologically acute novel, a family at the summit of China’s elite tumbles into free fall as a corruption probe pierces the bubble of privilege. At the center sits Yu Ling, the vigilant nanny whose quiet presence has long kept the household intact—and whose own past begins to surface as fortunes flip overnight. Power, secrecy, and indebtedness accumulate like fine dust; when the air finally shifts, each character must choose what to keep and what to betray. Woman Seated is a cool-burn portrait of contemporary China’s bargains—material, moral, and intimate—and the cost of reclaiming one’s voice.
Red Roulette: An Insider’s Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today’s China
Desmond Shum · Scribner
A New York Times bestseller hailed as “the book China doesn’t want you to read,” Red Roulette is Desmond Shum’s gripping memoir of rocket-ride ascent and whiplash fall from favor inside the nexus of business and party power. With his then-wife Whitney Duan—later disappeared—Shum built mega-projects and mingled with the “red aristocracy,” until a shifting political wind turned opulence into liability. Clear-eyed and unsparing, the book doubles as a primer on how guanxi greases—and grinds—the gears of China’s political economy, and what happens when insiders outgrow their usefulness.
Indira Gandhi and the Years that Transformed India
Srinath Raghavan · Yale University Press
Indira Gandhi entered office in 1966 a compromise figure; she left history as one of the twentieth century’s most consequential leaders. Srinath Raghavan maps the arc—wars and elections, nationalizations and the Green Revolution, the Emergency’s authoritarian turn, and a violent end in 1984—showing how the 1970s became India’s hinge decade. Neither hagiography nor hatchet job, this masterful account places Gandhi within global Cold War currents and domestic social churn, tracing how she reshaped the world’s largest democracy—for better and for worse.
Who’s in Our Garden
Dr. Qixia Yu · Independently published
Two curious cats, Panzer and Noodle, patrol a backyard Eden where every rustle hints at a new friend. Designed for family reading, this bilingual picture book pairs simple Chinese and English text with playful illustrations to build vocabulary and delight early readers. As the cats investigate a zippy new visitor, children follow along through repetition, gentle humor, and nature’s small wonders. A charming pick for bedtime—and a welcoming first step into Chinese language learning.