Each winter, we read a story together.
The 2025 Winter Read is Four Treasures of the Sky by Jenny Tinghui Zhang.
Four Treasures of the Sky is held at The Community Library—in print in English and Spanish, and digitally in eBook and eAudiobook. Come check out a copy!
Four Treasures of the Sky is also available with our partner libraries in Hailey, Bellevue, and Stanley.
Find Four Treasures of the Sky in all formats at The Community Library here.
About Four Treasures of the Sky
A dazzling debut novel set against the backdrop of the Chinese Exclusion Act, about a young Chinese woman fighting to claim her place in the 1880s American West.
Daiyu never wanted to be like the tragic heroine for whom she was named, revered for her beauty and cursed with heartbreak. But when she is kidnapped and smuggled across an ocean from China to America, Daiyu must relinquish the home and future she imagined for herself.
Over the years that follow, she is forced to keep reinventing herself to survive. From a calligraphy school in Zhifu, to a San Francisco brothel, to a shop tucked into the Idaho mountains, we follow Daiyu on a desperate quest to outrun the tragedy that chases her.
As anti-Chinese sentiment sweeps across the country in a wave of unimaginable violence, Daiyu must draw on each of the selves she has been―including the ones she most wants to leave behind―in order to finally claim her own name and story.
At once a literary tour de force and a groundbreaking work of historical fiction, Four Treasures of the Sky announces Jenny Tinghui Zhang as an indelible new voice in fiction. Steeped in untold history and Chinese folklore, this novel is a spellbinding feat.
We invite you to read Four Treasures of the Sky with us this winter. Check back soon for more details on programs throughout February 2025.
About the Author
Jenny Tinghui Zhang is a Chinese-American writer and author of the internationally bestselling novel Four Treasures of the Sky, which has been translated into 12 languages and short and longlisted for the Chautauqua Prize, the Dublin Literary Award, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.
Her work has appeared in The Cut, The New York Times, Texas Highways, and The Rumpus, among others. She is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree and has received support from Yaddo, Kundiman, VONA/Voices, Tin House, and the University of Wyoming, where she completed her MFA. Her second novel Superfan is forthcoming from Flatiron Books in 2026.
Winter Winter Readers Resource
Download: Chinese Experiences in the American West | A Reader’s Resource
In the News
- The New Yorker: History’s Lessons on Anti-Immigrant Extremism (January 5, 2025)
- The New York Times: This Man Won Birthright Citizenship for All (February 10, 2025)
- Idaho Public Television: Defying Expectations: Yidan Guo
(February 21, 2025)
Exhibit: “Tracks & Traces: Reconstructing Chinese History in Southern Idaho”
Through May 2025
Foyer Exhibit. Very little known about the many Chinese residents of the Wood River Valley. After the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, combined with racial discrimination and violence, none of them remained. Tracks & Traces tells the story of their ghosts.
Tracks and Traces will be on display in The Community Library’s Foyer from late January through May 2025 as part of the Winter Read project. The exhibit features objects from the library’s Jeanne Rodger Lane Center for Regional History, alongside items borrowed from the Blaine County Historical Museum and the Idaho State Museum.
From daily objects like an iron and jars and bottles, to a Mahjong set and an abacus, these traces of the Chinese community offer windows into the everyday lives of the miners, laundry workers, farmers, and cooks who once called this region home, but of whom there very few traces remain. Learn more here.
Exhibit: “Memorial Banners” by Yidan Guo
Throughout February, Pocatello-based artist Yidan Guo’s Memorial Banners, are on display in the library’s John A. and Carole O. Moran Lecture Hall.
These two commemorative banners record the history of Chinese contributions to the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, completed in 1869. Guo wrote this history in Chinese calligraphy on traditional Asian paper. The original texts are from Iris Chang’s The Chinese in America and Gordon H. Chang’s Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad.
Programs
January 30
Kickoff and Foyer Exhibit Opening. Join us for the Winter Read Kick-off event, celebrating the Lunar New Year, enjoying light refreshments, and sharing how you can participate in this annual community-wide read! 5:30 p.m. The Community Library.
February 4
Ron James: Regional Chinese Immigrant Mining History. In person at the Stanley Community Library and on Zoom. 5:30 p.m.
Watch the recording here.
See Ron’s reading list here.
February 7
Bitter Creek with Teow Lim Goh. An ode to the buried history of the 1885 Rock Springs Massacre in Wyoming where dozens of Chinese miners were murdered. 5:00 p.m. The Community Library.
February 18
The Light of a Hundred Fires. Dr. Renae Campbell, historical archaeologist and the Director of the University of Idaho’s Asian American Comparative Collection, shares the history of Chinese experiences in Idaho’s Gold Rush Era. 5:30 p.m. The Community Library.
February 24
Mastering the Brush: A Conversation with Yidan Guo. Guo will discuss the influence of Chinese calligraphy on her drawing and painting today, and about her work to bring Chinese and Asian immigrant stories to the fore through her extraordinary artwork. 5:00 p.m. The Community Library.
February 25
Mastering the Brush: Calligraphy as Art & Storytelling. This hands-on session invites participants to explore the artistry, technique, and cultural significance of calligraphy. The workshop will begin with a demonstration and explanation of the art of calligraphy before participants will have the opportunity to practice their own brushwork. 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Sun Valley Museum of Art.
February 27
Closing Keynote with author Jenny Tinghui Zhang. Book signing with Iconoclast Books to follow. Limited seating, registration required. 5:30 p.m. The Community Library.
Book Discussions
Thursday, February 20 | 5:00-6:00 p.m. | The Community Library, led by the Winter Read Teen Interns. Register Here.
Saturday, February 22 | 11:00 a.m. | Hailey Public Library. Learn more here.
Tuesday, February 25 | 5:30 p.m. | Stanley Community Library + Zoom. Learn more here.
Winter Read Book Group: Chinese Stories in the American West
In this discussion group, led by The Community Library’s executive director Jenny Emery Davidson, we will read two books that tell stories of Chinese immigrants in the American West in the late 19th century: Four Treasures of the Sky by Jenny Tinghui Zhang, and Bitter Creek, by Teow Lim Goh, an epic poem that tells the story of the massacre of Chinese immigrants in Rock Springs, Wyoming. Both books introduce complex characters trying to navigate conflict in the American West as industry is taking hold. We see people trying to make their fortunes and to simply make their way in a landscape that is changing rapidly because of the railroad, mining, and boom town development.
The group will meet on Wednesdays from 4:00-5:00 p.m. in February in the Library’s Lecture Hall. Registration is requested to join us for the full series. Learn more and register here.
Winter Read Partners
Past Winter Reads
