Before entering the world of the Cultural Revolution, readers first need a map. This book is that map.The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) was one of the most turbulent periods in modern Chinese history. It changed the lives of millions of people. It also led to armed conflict in many parts of China. Yet for many readers outside China, the people, organizations, slogans, events, and battles of that time remain unfamiliar.Written as a companion to the Growing Up in Mao’s Chin...

This is a collection of ten personal essays about education, language, books, memory, and the unexpected turns of an ordinary life. From a name that carries four generations to an old photograph, from a first encounter with plagiarism to a book that travelled farther than its author knew, these stories connect the small details of one life with larger questions about learning and living. Along the way, the author reflects on English, teaching, writing, publishing, and the people and experi...

Life Took Me Somewhere Else is a collection of personal essays about teaching, learning, language, work, friendship, change, and the unexpected turns of an ordinary life.The author never planned to write this book. In fact, he never planned many of the things that eventually shaped his life. From studying English and becoming a teacher, to running a language school in China and later settling in Australia, one experience led to another. Looking back, he discovered that life often ha...

DescriptionWhat happens when AI becomes more than a tool?For me, it started with a simple question.Then another.And another.Over time, my conversations with AI became something much bigger. I began using it to edit articles, translate some texts, fix my Chinglish, organize manuscripts, and explore ideas. Sometimes I asked it to think with me. Sometimes I argued with it. Sometimes I caught it making mistakes.And sometimes, to my surprise, it helped ...

What happens when a man who has lived through more than seventy years of change begins talking with AI almost every day?is not a technical book about artificial intelligence. It is a personal story about learning, writing, publishing, memory, and thinking in the age of AI.James Daniel Lee is a retired English teacher and writer who began using ChatGPT in 2023. What started as a simple experiment gradually became a daily conversation. Along the way, AI helped him edit his writ...

Volume One: A Reader's Guide to China's Cultural RevolutionLong DescriptionBefore entering the world of the Cultural Revolution, readers first need a map. This book is that map.The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) was one of the most turbulent periods in modern Chinese history. It changed the lives of millions of people. It also led to armed conflict in many parts of China. Yet for many readers outside China, the people, organizations, slogans, events, and battles of...

Long DescriptionOne morning, a school loudspeaker changed a fourteen-year-old boy's life forever.In November 1966, schools across China closed as the Cultural Revolution spread through the country. Like millions of other students, the author believed the break would last only a few weeks. Instead, it marked the end of his normal school life and the beginning of a journey he could never have imagined.Told through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy, this memoir follo...

Prepare to journey beyond the bounds of imagination into the startling realities of history where cruelty, contagion, and collective madness eclipsed even the darkest works of fiction. In 13 Creepy Historical Events More Terrifying Than Fiction, award-winning researcher James Daniel reveals the untold stories behind humanity's most chilling episodes:The Hinterkaifeck Murders: A rural Bavarian homestead stained by betrayal and bloodshed.The Dancing Plague of...

A raven screams—and the forest answers like an army.In the black timber of British Columbia, a dictator builds his empire on fear. One man builds something worse for him: a war.Soren Tate owns the cameras. Owns the crowds. Owns the night. But he does not own the sky.From the shadows rises Bhadrakali—sapphire-eyed raven warrior—and Darling, her hellfire partner on the ground. Beside them stand a rogue operator with nothing left to lose, a daughter stolen by a tyrant,...

The purpose of this work is to explain what Gradual Awakening means and how it can be attained — and to offer a way of thinking about Awakening that is clear and understandable — so that you will know that Awakening is genuine and possible. In the earliest records we have of what the Buddha taught, the Path of Awakening is said to progress through four stages, four levels, culminating at the Fourth Level in the attainment of Nibbana (Nirvana). We call this the "Gradual Path" to distinguish...

Long DescriptionThe Cultural Revolution was entering a new stage.Political divisions grew deeper, and revolution became part of everyday life. Friends, classmates, and even families found themselves on different sides. Like millions of other Chinese, the author had no choice. He was swept into the Cultural Revolution.Told through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old middle-school student, this true memoir records a time when hope slowly gave way to uncertainty. Political de...

Careening into Gay Midlife is the journey of a man who drags into his adulthood the unfulfilled dreams of his adolescence. Though challenged with limited social skills and a tentative grip on reality, he snakes his way around betrayals and misunderstandings from one side of the United States to the other. Magical and mystical events grab our adventurer by the seat of his pants, dragging him through the tunnels of a mental institute to an AIDS hospice, kicking him into the new century and c...