Editor's Note：

As time flows and the seasons turn, reading too follows its own natural rhythm. In the gentle warmth of spring, it is a time for poetry of growth, to watch how words sprout and blossom upon the page. 

In the lush fullness of summer, one can immerse oneself in long narratives, letting the imagination rest in the shade. When autumn winds rise, it is fitting to pick up contemplative essays, allowing thoughts to settle like falling leaves. And in the deep snow of winter, nothing suits better than reading by the fire at night, seeking enduring warmth in the classics.

Starting with the spring, we are launching a "Four Seasons Reading List," presenting curated selections of new and outstanding works across four installments: spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

Salty Jokes by Liu Zhenyun

The book continues Liu Zhenyun's enduring creative focus on portraying "ordinary lives." With a humorous touch, the novel reflects the everyday realities of ordinary people through laughter, satire, and sharp observation, illuminating the possibility of reconciliation between individuals and the lives they lead.

Recommendation:

Salty Jokes carries forward the stories of Yanjin in Henan. With his blend of austere humor and intricate reflection, Liu weaves together the lived conditions and inner worlds of ordinary people. Liu Xiaobo, editorial director of Contemporary Literary Criticism

Dunhuang Bian by Qiu Huadong

Structured around 10 specifically numbered grottoes at the Mogao Caves, the novel unfolds with each cave forming a chapter. It adopts a nonfictional approach to depict real historical settings, while employing fiction to imagine the stories behind them. 

Recommendation:

Dunhuang Bian pioneers a new literary form, blending rigorous historical research with expansive literary imagination through a structure that juxtaposes external collage with internal  cross-verification.

Xu Chenliang, editor-in-chief of Dangdai Bimonthly

Su Dongpo in the Human World by A Lai

With the stance of both a fellow traveler and a devoted follower, A Lai "enters" the vast yet subtle inner world of Su Dongpo along the trajectory of real history. 

Recommendation:

To complete this new nonfiction work, A Lai, a winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize, spent a year retracing the final stage of Su Dongpo's long journey northward. It is not only a heartfelt tribute to a great literary figure, but also a profound dialogue between two writers across a millennium.

Li Songrui, research fellow at Chinese National Academy of Arts

Peace by Ge Shuiping

The work tells the story of a Chinese family's displacement from Northeast China to the western region, alongside the confession and self-examination of a young Japanese officer involved in the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931-45). 

Recommendation:

Through plain yet vivid depictions of daily life, Ge Shuiping reveals the most hidden, profound, and often unnoticed forms of harm that war inflicts, precisely where the value of rewriting war narratives lies in the book.

Meng Fanhua, professor at Shenyang Normal University

A Study of the River in Our Soul by Chen Danyan

Beginning with the Huangpu River, the book journeys to the waterfronts of global port cities including Macao, London, New York City, Hamburg, Tokyo, and Amsterdam. Chen Danyan walks through docks filled with shifting light, scents, and crowds. In her writing, rivers are an enduring civilizational force.

Recommendation:

In her nonfiction work, Chen transforms rivers into living devices of time and media of memory, carrying the complex aura of spatial production in Shanghai since its opening as a treaty port. 

Liu Xinyue, associate professor at Shanghai Normal University

La Souterraine by Sophie Marceau

The book uses a stream-of-consciousness style to explore the "hidden rivers" of female memory. The author moves fluidly between multiple roles - daughter, lover, mother, actress, transforming personal experience into fiction. 

Recommendation:

This is a heartfelt work by Sophie Marceau. It has 13 short stories and seven poems to reveal life's hidden currents, and its writing itself becomes a process of self-liberation for female vitality. 

Zhang Yi, president of Huacheng Publishing House

Una habitacion ajena by Alicia Giménez Bartlett

Bartlett draws extensively on the diaries, unpublished letters, and other related documents of British writer Virginia Woolf to construct a narrative bridge between fact and fiction, reexamining the  relationship between Woolf and her maid Nelly Boxall. 

Recommendation:

Through literary fiction, Bartlett brings Boxall from the shadows of historical objecthood to the center of the narrative. She responds to and completes the suspended writing plans hinted at in Woolf's diaries. 

Zhang Jingbo, professor at Shandong University of Science and Technology

Painting for My Mother by Zhao Lihong

The book is an essay collection by Zhao Lihong, chronicling his real-life experience of creating paintings for his centenarian mother after she lost the ability to speak. The book weaves together Zhao's affectionate memories of his mother's hundred-year life. 

Recommendation:

The creation of this book is itself a touching story. Zhao Lihong spent his remaining days with his mother, over 100 years old and unable to speak, painting a picture for her each day. This is one of the most moving books I have ever read.

Zhang Wei, vice chairman of the China Writers Association

Written on a Rainy Night to the North by Li Xiuwen

The book collects four works by Li Xiuwen. The collection blends classical supernatural fiction with a modern narrative. Standing between reality and legend, it explores the complexity of human nature.

Recommendation:

As a committed practitioner of literature in the new era, Li has devoted his recent years to chronicling "epics of the ordinary." In this collection, he investigates human life and social reality on the foundation of realism, while employing supernatural and legendary elements. 

Ye Liwen, professor at Wuhan University

The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro

Author Alice Munro navigates between reality and fiction to explore individual memory and family legend. The book traces the journey of the Laidlaw family, from their emigration from Scotland to Canada and their establishment there. 

Recommendation:

This late-career collection by Nobel laureate Alice Munro revisits real family history and personal growth through the lens of fiction. With a tone that is at once nostalgic and unsparing, she conducts what feels like an "archaeology of memory." 

Liu Wenfei, professor at Capital Normal University

The article was first published on the People's Daily Overseas Edition on April 9, 2026.