A Kingdom of Characters by Jing Tsu (2022) — A history of the Chinese written language and the monumental effort to modernise it. Not specifically about Lijiang, but the sections on the survival of minority scripts illuminate why the Dongba pictographic script of the Naxi — still actively used by ritual specialists in Lijiang — matters so much to its practitioners. Reading it before visiting the Dongba Culture Research Institute adds considerable depth.
Rock's World edited by S.B. Sutton (2009) — Joseph Rock was an Austrian-American botanist and explorer who lived in and around Lijiang for decades in the early twentieth century, collecting plants for Harvard and photographs for National Geographic. This illustrated account of his expeditions captures the extraordinary landscape of the Naxi heartland as it was before mass tourism. His photographs of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, the Naxi people, and the remote Tibetan borderlands remain the definitive visual record of the region.
The Ancient Tea Horse Road by Jeff Fuchs (2008) — Fuchs documented his 4,000-kilometre trek along the Tea Horse Road (Cha Ma Gu Dao), the caravan route that connected Yunnan's tea country with Tibet for centuries, and along which Lijiang was a major staging post. The book is part travel narrative, part oral history — he interviews the last generation of muleteers who actually walked the route. An excellent companion for anyone exploring Lijiang's role as a trading crossroads.
Black Dragon Pool by Peter Hessler (essay in The New Yorker, 2003) — A short piece rather than a book, but Hessler's reporting on Lijiang in the aftermath of its UNESCO inscription and early mass tourism captures a moment of transition that still resonates. Available online. Hessler's River Town and Oracle Bones cover adjacent parts of China with similar acuity.