Travel Writing
River Town by Peter Hessler (2001) — Hessler spent two years as a Peace Corps English teacher in the small Sichuan city of Fuling in the mid-1990s, just as the Three Gorges Dam was about to flood it. A patient, deeply observed account of a China that was already disappearing. His follow-up Oracle Bones covers history and modernity with equal intelligence, and Country Driving follows the car boom of the 2000s.
Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper by Fuchsia Dunlop (2008) — Dunlop went to Chengdu to learn to cook and wrote a memoir that is equal parts food writing, travel, and cultural immersion. The best introduction to why Sichuan food is so extraordinary.
Mr. China by Tim Clissold (2004) — A British investment banker's account of trying to do business in China in the 1990s. Funny and honest about how spectacularly wrong things can go.
History
Wild Swans by Jung Chang (1991) — Three generations of women in a single Chinese family, from the last years of the warlords through the Cultural Revolution. One of the most read books about modern China, and deservedly so.
The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang (1997) — A thorough and unflinching account of the 1937 Japanese massacre in Nanjing. Essential context if you visit the city.
The Search for Modern China by Jonathan Spence (1990) — The standard scholarly history from the late Ming dynasty to the present. Dense but authoritative.
Fiction
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (2000) — Two young men are sent to re-education in a remote mountain village during the Cultural Revolution and discover a suitcase of Western novels. Short, elegant, and moving.
Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong (2004) — A young man sent to Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution becomes fascinated by the wolves and the Mongol nomads who live alongside them. A meditation on nature, civilization, and what China has lost.
Beijing Coma by Ma Jian (2008) — A student activist shot during the Tiananmen Square massacre lies in a coma and relives the events of 1989. Harrowing and important.