Title: Empire of the Sun
Author: Ballard, J.G.
ISBN: 9780743265232
Notes: The original source material for Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation—the 2008 One Film featured selection—this semiautobiographical novel by J.G. Ballard recounts the author’s experiences in a Japanese internment camp near Shanghai, China, during World War II.

Title: What Is the What
Author: Eggers, Dave
ISBN: 9781932416640
Notes: The featured selection of the 2008 One Book, One Philadelphia program, What Is the What is an epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng, who, along with thousands of other children—the so-called Lost Boys—was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom.

Title: Citizen Spielberg
Author: Friedman, Lester D
ISBN: 9780252031144
Call Number: 791.4302 SP44FR
Notes: In this comprehensive, critical study of the work of Steven Spielberg, the author discusses what it means to be a scholar of Spielberg in today’s academic film community, considering Spielberg as a modern-day auteur and offering nuanced insights into the meanings of his major films.

Title: When We Were Orphans
Author: Ishiguro, Kazuo
ISBN: 9780375724404
Notes: A British boy who is orphaned in Shanghai returns there as an adult in the late 1930s, hoping to uncover the mysterious disappearances of his mother and father.

Title: Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War
Author: Manchester, William
ISBN: 9780316501118
Call Number: 940.5483 M312G2
Notes: This memoir by celebrated biographer and historian William Manchester recounts the author’s experiences as a Marine sergeant in the South Pacific during World War II.

Title: The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe
Author: Rabe, John
ISBN: 037540211X
Call Number: 951.042 R112G
Notes: This collection of the translated diaries of John Rabe tells the story of a German businessman who saved the lives of 250,000 Chinese during the siege on Nanking. He petitioned the German Army to stop the slaughter of Chinese citizens, and is often considered the Oskar Schindler of China.

Title: Shanghai Shadows
Author: Ruby, Lois
ISBN: 9780823419609
Notes: This young adult novel spans five years in the life of a Jewish teenage girl and her family, Austrian refugees living in Japanese-occupied Shanghai during World War II.

Title: The Films of Steven Spielberg
Author: Silet, Charles L.P.
ISBN: 0810841827
Call Number: 791.4302 SP44F
Notes: This collection of critical essays brings together hard-to-find writings from film publications and journals, including Andrew Gordon’s “Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun: A Boy’s Dream of War.”

Title: Farewell, Shanghai
Author: Wagenstein, Angel
ISBN: 9781590512548
Notes: Farewell, Shanghai details the lives of German Jewish refugees in Japanese-controlled Shanghai during World War II. This novel features an ensemble cast of characters whose lives intertwine to create a compelling portrait of international history and personal hardship.