In a few words
A very accessible, often laugh-out-loud funny, always illuminating trip around one of the most fascinating countries in the world
In a few words
A very accessible, often laugh-out-loud funny, always illuminating book about one of the most fascinating countries in the world.
Modern China has seldom been better explained than by Peter Hessler in this imaginative and illuminating book, one that gives us a steering wheel-up view of the country's giddying economic and social transformation.
Tim Butcher, Author Of Blood River
Funny and brilliantly written. I have not read anything quite like it before on China.
Chris Patten
Modern China has seldom been better explained than by Peter Hessler in this imaginative and illuminating book, one that gives us a steering wheel-up view of the country's giddying economic and social transformation.
Tim Butcher, Author Of Blood River
Funny and brilliantly written. I have not read anything quite like it before on China.
Chris Patten
More about
the book
After living in China for five years, and learning the language, Peter Hessler decided to undertake an even more complicated endeavor: he acquired his Chinese driving licence. An eye-opening challenge, it enabled him to embark on an epic journey driving across this most enigmatic of countries. Over seven years, he travelled to places rarely explored by tourists, into the factories exporting their goods to the world and into the homes of their workers. Full of extraordinary encounters and details of life beyond Beijing, it is an unforgettable, unique portrait of the country that will likely shape all our lives in the century to come.
More about
the book
After living in China for five years, and learning the language, Peter Hessler decided to undertake an even more complicated endeavor: he acquired his Chinese driving licence. An eye-opening challenge, it enabled him to embark on an epic journey driving across this most enigmatic of countries. Over seven years, he travelled to places rarely explored by tourists, into the factories exporting their goods to the world and into the homes of their workers. Full of extraordinary encounters and details of life beyond Beijing, it is an unforgettable, unique portrait of the country that will likely shape all our lives in the century to come.
A masterly, learned, entertaining, kind and endlessly fascinating panorama of life in 21st-century China.
Jan Morris
An extraordinary, genre-defying book . . .Beautifully constructed . . . Hessler's reportage is vivid.
Highly entertaining, hugely informative.
[Hessler] has a sensitive eye for the sort of detail that can bring his account vividly alive even to those of us who have never been near the Far East, as well as an easy conversational style that almost makes you feel you have met him yourself.
Nicholas Bagnall
Sunday Telegraph[An] extraordinary survey of contemporary China . . . really quite unforgettable.
An extraordinary, genre-defying book . . . Beautifully constructed . . . Hessler's reportage is vivid.
A brilliant tapestry of ancient and modern China.
A masterly, learned, entertaining, kind and endlessly fascinating panorama of life in 21st-century China.
Jan Morris