Become a Beijing Expert With Kindle's Unlimited Free Books Offer

Original Anna Hartley theBeijinger

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Call it savvy marketing or compassion during a crisis, but Amazon has unlocked a pretty attractive feature recently: offering two months of access to their Kindle Unlimited service for free. The service (which usually costs the equivalent of about USD 10 per month) is available to all new subscribers and gives you access to over 1 million titles. Actually, it's more like a library subscription than a bookstore: instead of purchasing books one by one, as under a normal Kindle store, with Unlimited you pay a flat monthly fee and download and read up to 10 different titles from the collection at a time. If you want to read something new, you'll have to "return" one of your books.

To take advantage of this deal, you have to sign up before Apr 30, but you don't even need a tablet to use this service: you can download directly to iOS, Android, and Windows devices with the free Kindle apps. You can also sign up and then immediately cancel your subscription, and still enjoy the two months access.

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E-Books about Beijing and China

While not all Kindle books are available on Unlimited, there are over 1 million different titles, including bestsellers, magazines, self-help titles, kid's books, and everything in between. So... where to begin reading? It's a big wide world out there, but of course, we think the best way to spend our time is getting to know the country we call home a little better. We've rounded up some reading lists that are all about the Middle Kingdom.

Note: From our research, the vast majority of the books listed in the links below are available on the Amazon store for Kindle but be aware that availability and whether or not they are included in the Unlimited collection also depends on your device's region settings. To access the links to the lists below, click "Read more" at the bottom of this post.

The Beijinger: The Books That Caught Our Eye and Stoked Our Imaginations in 2019. Every single book on this list that we wrote at the end of last year is available on the Kindle store with the exception of Recipes From the Garden of Contentment, and Beijing Pictoral History: Beijing Ordinary Life in 70 Years.
Welcome to China: 60+ Books on China That You Should be Reading. This breaks down books into different categories, and at the time of publishing their list, every book was available on the Amazon store.
SupChina: The 100 China Books You Have to Read. If 60 isn't enough for you, SupChina has gone all the way to 100 with this very detailed, well-curated list.
Princeton University: Contemporary China: A Book List. This extremely comprehensive list by Princeton University should satisfy the most voracious reader. Just be aware that some of the more academic/niche titles may not be as readily available.
GoodReads: Popular Chinese Authors. This user-ranked list by Good Reads is a handy way to see what other readers around the world recommend.