BOOKS

[Photo provided to China Daily]

Happy cloudy day

The book, The Cloud Collector's Handbook, written by British author Gavin Pretor-Pinney offers knowledge to observe and appreciate 46 types of clouds, gives you a way to avoid boredom during long journeys and the ability to tell when you need to carry an umbrella.

The Chinese version of the book has English terms and there's place for readers to make notes. It has more than 100 photos of clouds and the sky. Pretor-Pinney is the founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society, an organization he set up in 2004. The translators are writers on astronomy.

[Photo provided to China Daily]

 

Talk with winners

Reporters are often witness to historic moments. Shu Jinyu, author of Dialogues with the Mao Dun Prize Winners, who worked for the China Reading Weekly for almost 20 years wrote the book focusing on the winners of the country's prestigious Mao Dun Literature Prize, instituted in 1982. The book covers 31 masters that spans more than 30 years.

Shu features conversations with the writers, and an extra reporter's log gives readers the feeling of meeting the writers in person. She also spent three years doing new interviews with the authors and literary critics.

[Photo provided to China Daily]

 

Rise of colleges

Author Lin Jianhua, president of Peking University, talks about his views on refining Chinese universities and colleges in his new book, The Reform and Future of Colleges. He believes the rise of Chinese colleges is just starting and that there is a lot to study and to reform.

[Photo provided to China Daily]

 

Energy reforms

Fan Bi, author of the book, China's Market-Oriented Reform in Energy Section, has been a senior official who once worked on drafting the Government Work Report.

The book focuses on China's role and status on the world energy scene and looks at possible reforms in the electricity, coal, gas and the green and renewable energy sectors.