From the author of Three Souls and Dragon Springs Road comes a captivating historical novel in which a convoy of student refugees travel across China, fleeing the hostilities of a brutal war with Japan “Myths are the darkest and brightest incarnations of who we are . . .” China, 1937. When Japanese bombs begin falling on the city of Nanking, nineteen-year-old Hu Lian and her classmates at … Nanking, nineteen-year-old Hu Lian and her classmates at Minghua University are ordered to flee. Lian and a convoy of students, faculty and staff must walk 1,000 miles to the safety of China’s western provinces, a journey marred by the constant threat of aerial attack. And it is not just the refugees who are at risk; Lian and her classmates have been entrusted with a priceless treasure: a 500-year-old collection of myths and folklore known as the Library of Legends.
The students’ common duty to safeguard the Library of Legends creates unexpected bonds. Lian becomes friends and forms a cautious romance with the handsome and wealthy Liu Shaoming. But after one classmate is arrested and another one is murdered, Lian realizes she must escape before a family secret puts her in danger too. Accompanied by Shao and his enigmatic maidservant, Sparrow, Lian makes her way to Shanghai in the hopes of reuniting with her mother.
During the journey, Lian learns of the connection between her two companions and a tale from the Library of Legends, The Willow Star and the Prince. This revelation comes with profound consequences, for as the ancient books travel across China, they awaken immortals and guardian spirits who embark on an exodus of their own, one that will change the country’s fate forever.
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There are many historical novels that begin in China in 1937 when the Japanese invade, but Janie Chang has found a new and fascinating story to tell about the university students and faculty who trekked hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles to escape the Japanese while preserving not just China’s best minds, but also China’s most precious books. I was entranced by the magical spirits, immortals, and fox spirits who accompany them. Janie Chang has beautifully melded history and the spirit world to create an adventurous love story for all of us readers who love books and who, in a perfect world, would do anything to save them.
I read this for a cover quote and was enthralled–THE LIBRARY OF LEGENDS is a gorgeous, poetic journey threaded with mist and magic about a group from a Chinese university who take to the road to escape the Japanese invasion of 1937 – only to discover that danger stalks them from within. Janie Chang pens pure enchantment.
Set in China in 1937, the author does a marvellous job of creating the times and the people. The idea of saving the ‘library of legends’ and saving education in the face of war and invasion is inspiring.
After closing the cover of Janie Chang’s new release, The Library of Legends, I was filled with a sense of wonder that sent me to my trusty Merriam-Webster dictionary for a way to describe what I’d just witnessed. A legend is a story that comes down to us from the past, I read, “especially one popularly regarded as historical although not verifiable.”
This confirmed my sense of the story I’d just read: Janie Chang has written a work of historical fiction that carries the resonance of a legend.
Inspired by a wartime school relocation experienced by her own father, Chang created the fictional Minghua University, whose students must flee coastal Nanking in 1937 when danger from the Japanese invasion draws near. It isn’t just the students’ own safety at risk: they are charged with relocating a five-hundred-year-old collection of Chinese myths and folklore known as the Library of Legends.
A reverence for literature makes one of the students, Lian, feel personally connected to this mission. Over the course of the thousand-mile walk inland, a harrowing journey complicated by death and intrigue and the constant threat of bombing, Lian gains a deeper appreciation of the hope offered by the tales. One in particular speaks to her romantic nature: the legend of the Willow Star and the mortal prince she’s been waiting to unite with through numerous human incarnations. Lian discusses the stories with handsome Shao and his servant, Sparrow, with whom she strikes up a special camaraderie. But when Lian learns that she has a special ability to see spirits that remain invisible to her fellow students, she shuts away her budding love for Shao as a matter of honor, as her sworn duty must first be to the immortals whose legends she reveres.
Meanwhile, Lian’s friendships are tested when a secret from Lian’s past forces her into an uncomfortable partnership with the professors on the journey. Political unrest among the students results in murder and further complications for Lian, all while she deals with uncertainties about the whereabouts and well-being of her mother, since life on the road makes communication all but impossible.
Chang’s colorful descriptions of the immortal spirits and the Library of Legends itself—“a record of all that had been wondrous in China”—promises her fans that she has not abandoned the magical realism that added such a special dimension to the Chinese settings in her previous novels, Three Souls and Dragon Springs Road. In fact, she ups the stakes: The Library of Legends will leave the reader with a refreshed awareness of the consequences of war and its crimes against culture.
We can rest in Chang’s assured hands for every step of the journey. Anchoring the story within key historic facts about the Japanese invasion is only one way she helps the reader suspend disbelief. Her evocation of the trials of the walk itself are convincing. As someone who at a similar age failed twice to walk the full 25-mile March of Dimes Walkathon, I fully sensed the toll that the thousand-mile trek was having on the bodies and spirits of these characters. I felt again those tight muscles and resolving blisters that kept my gimping for days afterward.
In the end, it’s the writing itself that imbues the story with gravitas. A simple sentence such as “Her mother had schooled her in caution” extends the story beyond the timeframe covered on its pages. “She was more skilled at deflecting than befriending” skillfully builds believable characters with the quickest of strokes. In such confident hands, even the most minor characters become warm our hearts.
The novel is so immersive that if it ends up being read as widely as it deserves, I can see it becoming part of our collective global memory, causing readers to one day say to their children, “Let me tell you the legend of a group of university students who set out on a thousand-mile trek in order to protect China’s magical spirits…”
Reading The Library of Legends represents nothing less than your chance to shoulder some of the responsibility of extending the lore surrounding China’s magical spirits.
Love and fate entangle in a tender tale of star-crossed romance and scholarship. In The Library of Legends, Janie Chang whisks the reader on a journey of a lifetime, with the transportation of a university library of rare books across China. Based on Chang’s father’s own experience as a student-in-exile, it interweaves the pressures of war with a poignant saga of love lost and gained. Vibrant, rich, and moving, The Library of Legends brings an unusual true episode in Chinese history to shimmering, heartfelt life.
What if the legends you heard all your life were true? What if war caused the immortal characters of those tales to give up on humanity? Would anyone notice? Would anyone care?
This story, based on true events in Chinese history, examines these questions. A group of college students with their professor are tasked with protecting the original collection of books containing legends of the immortals and deities protecting and living in China. Due to the war with a Japan, these immortals decide its is time to leave. The story follows one student, Lian, as she struggles to survive on the university’s trek to inland China while dealing with family secrets and the profound knowledge of the immortals’ exodus.
I thought this story was beautifully written (if a little rushed at the end). The characters were well developed. Knowing nothing of a Chinese history, I found the book to be very interesting and informative. This is a book I would definitely recommend to others!
The Library of Legends is a luminous and enthralling story set during a pivotal period in the making of modern China, and highlights the Chinese determination to preserve their culture by saving precious historical treasures at great sacrifice. The exploits of historical characters and ancient mythological beings are interwoven in a blend of wonder, courage, and suspense.
This historical novel is perfect. It incorporates true events that are not well known, but very interesting. It also integrates references to ancient Chinese religious or folk beliefs. Simply enchanting!
I love reading about Asian cultures, I’ve always been fascinated with their customs, beliefs, and lifestyles. The Library of Legends totally delves into all of that as we follow a group of students fleeing for their lives, all while trying to keep the sacred set of books safe.
As Lian flees with the other university students, she comes to rely on Liu Shaoming and Sparrow, learning the secrets of their past and the danger that comes along with that knowledge.
This is a beautifully written story that swept me away to another time and place, rich with the folklore and tales of the ancient Chinese. I definitely want to go back and read this author’s other books.
This is a luminous and lyrical book, a wonderful blend of history and mythology with characters you root for from the very first page.
In Janie Chang’s The Library of Legends, history and mysticism are perfectly entwined. When a group of Chinese students flee their university in advance of the Japanese invasion in 1937, they carry with them the priceless 500 year old collection of myths and folklore called “The Library of Legends”.
Running through this gripping tale like silver thread through a rich tapestry is another exodus — the gods are leaving earth. I found myself sighing with pleasure over Chang’s exquisite descriptions of these Immortals, who appear in their true form only to certain humans.
The students face all of the expected dangers of their pilgrimage, but another threat comes from within: there has been an infiltration of political spies determined to stamp out the spread of communism among China’s youth.
An enchanting, compelling work of historical fiction, The Library of Legends is an absolute treasure.
The premise is very good. But I thought it did not do justice to the story. Felt the characters were very predictable and by half way through my real attention was gone.
It was such a different setting than more typical WWll and pre-war settings. I enjoyed the fact that these were college students who were taking the college with them as they fled. The library of legends and the story offshoots it created were fascinating!
A great story, loaded with culture and history, just waiting to be devoured.
Wonderful story with a historical element that gives perspective to the reader.
Interesting historical fiction about a time and place not known to me.
I love books that bring to life pieces of history I was unaware of. The Library of Legends takes place in the 1930s during the Second Sino-Japanese War and highlights China’s endeavors to preserve its students and universities by having those universities move to the interior of the country. The Library of Legends is a fictionalized account of the journey of one university’s student body as it treks to central China, bringing its books and holding its classes en route. The author draws on true stories from her own family history, bringing it to life for the reader as easily as a grandparent regaling a grandchild with stories of when the grandparent was young. I started reading this book while I was waiting in line to vote and was immediately captivated, finishing it a few days later.
The setting immediately drew me into this story based on true events. Both the years leading up to WWII and the exotic location of the Chinese mainland made for an immersive reading experience. Part myth and part historical fiction the plot centers around one university’s attempt to preserve, not only its collection of rare manuscripts, but its young scholars from the invading Japanese forces. So, it begins as a perilous journey inland deep into the continent, but along the way we understand the older story of the legends of the gods who have overseen the land for generations. The mystery is that they, like the human inhabitants, are embarking on their own journey home.
Satisfying, intriguing, and recommended
The Library of Legends (who could resist that title alone?) is a gorgeously written tale of a noble wartime journey, richly told with a spellbinding combination of folklore, magic, and flawed humanity. If you love Lisa See’s work (as I do!), you absolutely must read Janie Chang.
I learned so much about Chinese history and culture. I also enjoyed the mystical interludes. It opened my mind to a whole different way of seeing the world. I definitely plan to read the other books Janie Chang has written. Fascinating.