David Shambaugh (Ed.): Tangled Titans: The United States and China. 2012 (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers)

A comprehensive collection of papers on U.S.-China relations. Essential reading for students of Sino-American relations.

Eric Jay Dolin: When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail. 2012 (Liveright)

Sweeping, popular history of pirates, drug runners and slave traders. Fascinating and entertaining.

Jisheng Yang: Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962. 2012 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

A necessary and essential book on Mao's communist utopia. Introduction by Roderick MacFarquhar. Banned in China.

Jeffrey A. Bader: Obama and China's Rise: An Insider's Account of America's Asia Strategy. 2012 (Brookings Institution Press)

A somewhat glorifying account of the Obama administration's China policy. Written by Obama's senior director for East Asian affairs on the National Security Council and former fellow of the Brookings Institution.

Richard Burger: Behind the Red Door: Sex in China. 2012 (Earnshaw Books)

Excellent, well written book on one of the biggest misconceptions westerners have of China. Pretty explicit for a serious analysis.

Dambisa Moyo: Winner Take All: China's Race for Resources and What It Means for the World. 2012 (Basic Books)

Moyo explains China's iron grip on the global commodities market and her shopping spree for natural resources.

Andrew J. Nathan / Andrew Scobell: China's Search for Security. 2012 (Columbia University Press)

Nathan and Scobell believe that China feels threatened and bases her foreign relations on these security concerns. Thoughtful analysis - even if the premises might be debatable.

Michael J. Silverstein / Abheek Singhi / Carol Liao / David Michael: The $10 Trillion Prize: Captivating the Newly Affluent in China and India. 2012 (Harvard Business Review Press)

Somewhat overhyped and superficial analysis of the one billion middle-class consumers China and India might have within the next ten years.

William J. Dobson: The Dictator's Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy. 2012 (Doubleday)

Today's autocrats and despots dissected.

James Fallows: China Airborne. 2012 (Pantheon)

The next big challenge for the West: China's aviation industry. More than two-thirds of all new airports under construction today are being built in China.