The New York Times - Book Review - USA (2022-02-06)

26B1

ONE SUMMER’S EVENINGin 1916, 27-year-old Zhou

Houkun stepped up to a podium to unveil a marvel-

ous invention: a new kind of Chinese typewriter.

Zhou had recently returned home to Shanghai from

M.I.T., where a chance encounter with an American

Monotype machine had spurred him to create a Chi-

nese version. But American typewriters, with their

Flipping the Script

By Deirdre Mask

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

KINGDOM OF CHARACTERS

The Language Revolution That

Made China Modern

By Jing Tsu

Illustrated. 314 pp. Riverhead. $28.

VANILLA CHI

WHEN JIANG ZEMINsaw “Titanic,” he was extremely

impressed. Was it the film’s politics? The scuffling

between the disadvantaged proletariat below decks

and preening nobs above? Sure, James Cameron’s

blockbuster displayed a rudimentary class con-

sciousness, of the sort that a Communist leader

might be expected to note and grimly endorse. But

By James Parker

CONTINUED ON PAGE 17

RED CARPET

Hollywood, China, and the Global

Battle for Cultural Supremacy

By Erich Schwartzel

Illustrated. 400 pp. Penguin Press.

$28.

FEBRUARY 6, 2022

BODY AND SOULKaren Armstrong reviews

a book about God’s anatomy

GROUP TEXTOur February pick is ‘Black

Cake,’ a novel by Charmaine Wilkerson

PLUSMac Miller, Jason Reynolds’s reading

habits and ‘The Original Bambi’