The forbidden love for the book has become a motif of the memoirs and literature of the Mao years (1949-76), when banned volumes, stealthily read, offered the promise of freedom for captive minds. Kang Zhengguo’s gripping and poignant memoir, “Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China,” intelligently and fluently translated by Susan Wilf, revolves around one man’s passion for bound volumes of all kinds — classics of warfare and poetry, adventure novels, foreign fiction, and Kang’s own diligently kept diaries. Books are the cause of his political troubles, catalysts for his misadventures, his deepest solace; ultimately, they become his ticket out of China to a position as a language teacher at Yale.

attached to: Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China