Three Kingdoms

Set during the last reign of the Han dynasty, when the Chinese empire split into three warring kingdoms, Luo Guanzhong's historical novel has become the national epic of China. Writing some twelve hundred years after those events, the Ming dynasty author built his narrative from histories, dramas and poems about the crisis. The story looks closely at how power is exercised, how diplomacy is carried out, and how wars are planned and fought. Its influence remains wide in China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, and it holds a place in Chinese culture comparable to that of the Homeric epics in the West. A fifteenth anniversary abridged edition carries a new foreword by Moss Roberts.

Dan Lok includes it on Dan's Book Shelf, his list of the books he reads and recommends.