eric_conrad's review against another edition
5.0
I have tremendous respect and admiration for Peter Hessler. He weaves personal information with modern history and makes it resonate emotionally.
mariocomputer's review against another edition
5.0
Totally one of the best writers about China I've read.
book_nut's review against another edition
3.0
I thought it was a travel book. It's not. It's more a memoir of a foreign correspondent in China, as well as a portrait of modern China -- vignettes about people Hessler knows -- interspersed with histories of select artifacts (which I ended up skipping because I found them boring). It's an uneven book -- some parts are really fascinating, others sleep-inducing.
bell1691's review against another edition
3.0
A pretty slow read and quite repetitive. I didn't feel the need to finish it.
sjgochenour's review against another edition
5.0
I really liked this book. It presented a ton of information about modern China while keeping you interested in the stories of the different people the author met as he launched his career in journalism as a foreign correspondent.
davybaby's review against another edition
3.0
Like River Town, this book is a mixture of Chinese history and a narrative of Hessler's experiences in modern China. He forms links between the past and the present in interesting ways, with the overarching theme being oracle bones: bones used to predict the future during the Shang dynasty. An interesting book if you're interested in Chinese culture/history, but doesn't have the easy readability of River Town. However, as far as history books go, it's quite readable.
cpeterson164's review against another edition
1.0
Boy, the reviews say this is a page-turner. NOT finding it to be so. Definitely a slog so far. Maybe it will pick up as I get more into it.