Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip

In the first years of China's boom, frantic dispatches from the "New China" came back almost daily, but Hessler settled there for the long haul, first with the Peace Corps and later as a New Yorker correspondent, and it shows in this patient, delightful, and often hilarious book. Hessler takes a long look at a few places—the old wall, a peasant village, and a brand-new factory city—and comes away with an oddball, deeply human, and thoroughly enjoyable report that says more about the experience of sudden change than a dozen think-tank white papers. And eight years after it appeared, as China continues to change, it's already starting to read like history.