Get daily insights into literary history, find your next great read with our book reviews, and explore lists of award-winning books.

Get daily insights into literary history, find your next great read with our book reviews, and explore lists of award-winning books.

My Review: I initially discovered Judge Dee - this version of Judge Dee, at least - when I was looking for references to the original, historical Judge Dee after reading The Murder of Mr. Ma by John Shen Yen Nee and SJ Rozan. I was curious about Dee as a historical figure, because the context in which the name was familiar was in relation to the Judge Dee mystery series interpreted and written by Robert van Gulik in the 1950s and 1960s, (very) loosely based on the historical (7th century!) Judge Di Renjie who had migrated into 14th century Chinese mystery fiction and eventually 18th century Chinese crime fiction.

My Review: Why would you ask a whole bunch of other people, most of whom don’t know you well, or at least don’t know you well NOW, for their input into everything about yourself that you should change? Another question, why would the process to change someone start with asking people who are, mostly, at best, casual acquaintances or frenemies, how a person they may not like should change. What does that say about the society that does this? And why would a person submit themselves to it? Those are just some of the VERY thorny questions being asked in…