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"Let China sleep, for when she awakes, she will shake the world."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
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Chinese Lessons
The Book: What the U.S. Can Learn From China: An Open-Minded Guide to Treating Our Greatest Competitor as Our Greatest Teacher
Why Read It? Mainstream media and the  US government regularly target China as a threat. By contrast, author Ann Lee asks, What can America learn from its competition? Why did China suffer so little from the global economic meltdown? What accounts for China's extraordinary growth, despite one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world? How does the Chinese political system avoid partisan rancor? From education to governance to foreign aid, Lee details the policies and practices that have made China a global power and then isolates the ways the United States can use China's enduring principles to foster much-needed change at home.
Read an excerpt from the book here and then buy the book for 30% off here.
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For review copies, please contact Cynthia Shannon.
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Chasing the Dragon
This issue of the newsletter focuses on  the lessons that we can learn in governance and economics from China. The topic is controversial because China has been criticized for various things from autocratic measures and control to human rights violations. So is there anything we can learn from China?
Actually, we can benefit greatly by studying China's principles. Here are Five Lessons We Can All Learn from China.
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In Other News
+ Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award for 2011 has been announced.
+ A self-published author spent about $1,000 on marketing and advertising for her novel and ended up selling over 400,000 copies.
+ How did it take this long? The first unauthorized book about Amazon.com is due in 2013.
+ Industry insider Thad McIlroy asks the ugly question: do we even need bookstores anymore?
+ The Library of Congress will house an archive that will contain every Twitter post ever. Yes. Ever.
+ And now we know who the most read authors on the web are.
+ A leaked document-in-progress from Hachette Book Group explains why in this age of self-publishing empowerment, publishing houses are still important.
+ E-books are not a modern phenomenon. They existed in the sixteenth century.
+ Stieg Larsson's bestselling novels about the girl who just can't stop doing damage are soon to be graphic novels.
+ It was inevitable. Yes, I'm talking about the new grammar guide for texters.
+ Your writing skills are flabby -- time to get started on Writer's Digest's Simple 12-Day Plan of Writing Exercises.
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Freebies
+ Free Excerpt from a New York Times Bestseller: The End of Normal, by Stephanie Madoff Mack. Read an excerpt here.
+ Free Software: Tackle any crossword-related challenge with the online crossword solver.
+ Free Services: A global directory of businesses looking for writers can be found at Places for Writers.
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 We would usually use this space to hype our holiday sale, but we realized that just about everyone on the planet currently has an inbox stuffed with sales emails (many for dubious items or promises of great riches). So instead, we thought we would just say Happy Holidays! We hope your holiday season is as fun and as joyful as this guy's.
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 For 48 hours, we are giving away for free the e-book edition of Winning the Global Talent Showdown, by Edward Gordon, and you can download it here. In thanks for your loyal readership, this e-book will be available as a free download exclusively for BK Communiqué subscribers. But act fast! After midnight on December 23, 2011, you're going to have to plunk down $27.95 like everyone else.
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 I'm Bonnie Kaufman, BK's Digital Community Builder and Editorial Associate. As always happens towards the end of each year, the internet was flooded with "Best of 2011" lists just a week back. I read them all and now present my list of the Best of the Best of 2011.
1. Who has the time to read lengthy pieces (called longreads) on the Web? I don't, but Sady Doyle's list may change that.
2. Entertainment writer Richard Lawson dictates what I read and view. His Best Movies of 2011 are now on my Netflix queue.
3. "Best books" lists are usually arbitrary and less than helpful, but NPR compiled one that covers all angles and tastes. Use their list as a readers' gift guide.
4. Like I said, I live by the word of Lawson, and recommend the same for you.Here are his Top TV Picks.
5. So many great new sites to explore, but where to start? This Digital Community Builder heads over to Time magazine's list of the 50 Best Websites of 2011.
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 To get a real feel for a place, there is no better source than a blog, and to get a feel for China, there's no better blog than writer and Bloomberg journalist Adam Minter's Shanghai Scrap. Adam is currently working on a book about global recycling for Bloomsbury Press. Read the blog, follow the man on Twitter, be enlightened about China.
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In the last newsletter, I posed this challenge. The first correct answer arrived from Margarita Drews in Russia. When asked for a photo of herself, she sent the image on the right, explaining that she had just celebrated a birthday and though this is not how she looks, it is how she feels. The answer can be found here.
Your next challenge can be found here.
Email me with your thoughts, rants, comments, and observations. And this being the festive season, enjoy this financial costs-and-logistics breakdown of The Twelve Days of Christmas.
And if you enjoyed that very odd game from Japan in the last issue, it's time to go full-on strange and learn how to hypnotize chickens.
JeEvAn
P.S. -- this isn't real, is it?
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This is the reason why social networking should not be put into the hands of morons: @EditorialHell.
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