The Man Awakened from Dreams by Ye Shaojun (1988) — a collection of short fiction by a Ningbo-associated writer from the Republican era that documents provincial Jiangnan life with the same sharp eye for social detail that Lu Xun applied to Shaoxing. Ye Shaojun spent time in Ningbo and the surrounding region and several stories are set in recognisable locations.
The Pity of War by Niall Ferguson (1998) — not about Ningbo specifically, but the section covering the Opium Wars and treaty port era provides the best brief account of the political and commercial context in which Ningbo was forcibly opened to foreign trade. The Treaty of Nanking's five treaty ports included Ningbo, and understanding the mechanics of that arrangement helps make sense of the Laowaitan architecture.
Red Sorghum by Mo Yan (1986) — set in Shandong rather than Ningbo, but the Ningbo merchant community that appears in Republican-era Shanghai commercial history features prominently in the broader business world Mo Yan describes. More practically, Mo Yan's unvarnished account of rural Chinese life in the mid-twentieth century is the best antidote to the heritage-prettified version of Chinese history visible in restored old towns.