Saturday, June 21, 2025

Weird Tales from China

 Zhiguai: Chinese True Tales of the Paranormal and Glitches in the Matrix by Yi Izzy Yu (translated by John Yu Branscum)

Zhiguai book cover

I’ve had this book sitting on my digital shelf for some time, not sure if I was ready to read it. It seemed a little creepy and eerie, from both the cover and the title; however, I think the stories are more on the eerie side and not so terrifying. I really enjoyed the book, though, and appreciated some of the odd, uncanny, and bizarre stories that were a part of this collection. The tales are mostly recounted by the authors from others. This narrative style provided a kind of authenticity that made the book a little more eerie and uncanny. I really liked that the book provides a kind of different cultural perspective on these strange events, superstitions and beliefs. The stories were easy to read, and there’s enough context to understand and learn about some of the cultural differences. This also made me want to read some of the other writings and translations form Yi Izzy Yu to see what other kind of strange stories are out there. This wasn’t a really scary collection, but it was pretty strange.  



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