Editorial Review

This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern American success (marriage, house in the country, career) and find, instead, what she truly wanted from life. Setting out for a year to study three different aspects of her nature amid three different cultures, Gilbert explored the art of pleasure in Italy and the art of devotion in India, and then a balance between the two on the Indonesian island of Bali. By turns rapturous and rueful, this wise and funny author (whom Booklist calls "Anne Lamott’s hip, yoga-practicing, footloose younger sister") is poised to garner yet more adoring fans. ... Read more

Reviews

Great, for what it is., March 31, 2008
I find it so surprising--reading the angry, negative reviews--that the people who hated the book hated it for exactly the reasons why some steer clear away from the the spiritual-journey-memoir genre. Yes, the author is self-absorbed, yes, she seems to think of only trite stuff, yes, she seems self-indulgent with her problems. And yes, she's allowed. It is after all a book that is positioned to address these things in the author's self; who otherwise would not be searching for something more: more meaning and more appreciation in/of her life.
Here is a woman who shows all the possibly-perceived-as-lacking-substance thoughts of hers and we are throwing tomatoes at her. One thing, she obviously wasn't afraid of that. She wasn't aiming to be coming off as some deeply wise woman but a fumbling girl-woman trying to break out of what she felt was imminent disaster (had she had the baby and delayed her need to find out what she truly wants from her life she might have left not only her husband, but their child, or most probably ending up not leaving out of guilt and becoming crazy instead: exposing her family to that for years; not an uncommon reality). She is not one for anti-depressants, remember.
This memoir falls in the same category as the TV show Sex and the City (of which it was compared to in a review here). Both get trampled for being supposedly superficial, covering the silly plights of city girls who don't know what they want and yet have everything. But this book--as the TV show--actually are part of a wider story that is illiciting reactions from the public because it reflects the transition in which women in the modern world are experiencing: now that we have equality with men professionally, now that we are liberated from all the limitations being a woman dictated two generations ago, how does that affect us? From a distance, in a glance, it seems that women have all the cards to play with now. But this book and many other works by women and/or about women of this generation show that having all those cards does not mean Happiness.
There are still things in society--in regards to a woman's role--that grates. And then there are things within our Modernised, Westernized, Individualized, Ambitious selves, that are lacking.
This is what Miss Gilbert's search is about, and what she represents.
On a collective level, much of the modern world is in search of God, Spirituality (one just needs to walk through bookstores in the US and see the plethora of soul searching self help books on the shelves). This is what needs to be observed and understood as a phenomena in the West; the small voices, small cries, here and there by those who come up with the balls to share their journeys and thoughts with us--no matter how trite-sounding, how shallow-seeming--are part of a collective howl for the meaning of life.
Elizabeth Gilbert's voice is just one of many that calls for recognition as part of a chorus for something that firstly, many women are hollering about, and secondly, humanity in general--humanity in the first world--are crying for: some kind of guidance, indication, that the collective paths we fought for and chose (the best education, career ambitions realised, a certain amount of money needed to live that certain kind of magazine-lifestyle life--which is what Liz Gilbert's life is a reflection of, remember--love in the form of marriage and what society dictates) are truly the things that give us peace and happiness in the infinite sense.
Eat, Pray, Love might not be that deep, wise voice representing the deep, wise journey into the deep, wise self. But this book's packaging and tone, hell, its WORDS, never did say it was. It is a fumbling--almost child-like in its guilelessness--show of the ego's awareness and needs, and its attempt at searching for what many people from all walks of life only wish they could go out and find: THEMSELVES. SELF, being the keyword here. And in this memoir, ultimately, God, being in each of our selves.
To the people who were disappointed that the author didn't seem to give a hoot about India's poverty, they must have not read the book through: Miss Gilbert never ventured out of her ashram and the little village it is located in, after making a decision to further develop her meditation skills and thus skipping the rest of India. She also ignored Italy's corruption with her indulging in good food and focus on learning and enjoying the Italian language. Again, the critics missed the point of this memoir. It's a book about a writer, a New Yorker, a recently-divorced-woman-in-her-early-thirties' journey to heal and find spiritual strength through various means: pleasure first to recover (Italy), spiritual examination and purging (India), combining the two for balance (Bali), which would result hopefully in the kind of substance and depth and balance that so many critics mentioned she lacks.
One doesn't pick this book up to: 1. Be exposed to India's poverty and expect the author to discuss that in depth. 2. Be exposed to Italy's corruption and expect the author to discuss that in depth. 3. Be exposed to Balinese wiles and expect the author to discuss that in depth. (which she actually did in the account of the Balinese woman she raised money for to buy the land the woman needed to build a home).

Next time you pick a book up at the bookstore, call up your powers of perception before purchasing it. A book IS pretty much its cover. Did everyone really expect a book titled "Eat, Pray, Love" A Woman's Search for Everything, to be an experience of religious fervor, one that would reveal the secrets of the universe? It's a story about a girl who thought everything she thought she wanted, would bring her happiness. It didn't. It didn't for her, and possibly not for many other women. If it took this one woman to go to Italy, India, and Indonesia, to get away after a difficult and painful divorce to heal and get perspective--instead of festering and turning into a pile of flesh in depression--then by all means. Yes, she financed her travels through her book advance--after giving away the suburban home and NYC apartment to her ex-husband. And if she wrote this book for us, it's really for us to appreciate and enjoy the ride with her. Anybody else who got so upset needed only to put the book down and pick another one to their taste. If anything, that's this book's lesson: Do what makes you smile and thankful for life.

A ME-moir, not a memoir, April 25, 2009
I'm a big fan of Gilbert's earlier work (specifically 2003's The Last American Man) and I was deeply disappointed by this book. In fact, I sent it sailing across the room twice within the first hour. Gilbert's a fine writer, let there be no doubt. Her structure is great. She writes scrumptious sentences. She's an eminently likable narrator. But my complaint is more psychological rather than literary. As we learn over the course of the book, Ms. Gilbert is an enormously privileged woman, lives the glamorous writing life in NYC, owns two homes and yet is so sad and depressed about life. Get over yourself, lady! This book is the literary equivalent of like How Stella Got Her Grove Back. Only with yoga and white people.

Gilbert claims to be quite the globe-trotter but seems to have never learned the basic tenet of travel: learning about the larger world. Confronted with the rich, confounding, complicated world, she turns away and gets lost in her own navel.

What I hate even more about this book is what its incredible popularity says about us as Americans: just like Gilbert, we are giant narcissists and we never, ever stop thinking about ourselves and our own needs and cannot, even for a second, think about the lives of the less fortunate around the world. Gilbert thus becomes the American Every-Woman: 9-11 happens in her own backyard and she's so distraught over her failed marriage that it barely registers. If you think I'm being too hard on us Americans, think of it this way: her previous book The Last American Man was much, much better than Eat, Pray, Love but since it evinced none of the yoga-loving-upper-middle-class-woman-who-spouts-cheap-wisdom-like-Oprah-on-a-global-quest-for-self-actualization story elements, it barely sold 1% of what Eat, Pray, Love did. This is a sadly-revealing book about the state of our culture. And it's not just about Elizabeth Gilbert. It's all about us.

And, of course, don't miss the upcoming film adaptation, starring-you guessed it- Julia Roberts. If I have one other person recommend this book to me I'm going to to kill them.

Eat Pray Shove (It), February 16, 2008
Here is a book that either changed people's lives or irritated the bejesus out of them. Count me among the latter.

Eat Pray Love - One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert was supposed to enlighten me. It didn't.

OK -- First the positive: Overall, it is a well-written book. The author takes many complicated metaphysical concepts and makes them readable. The book is divided into sections: Eat, which is the author's journey to Italy; Pray, her pilgrimage to India and Love, where she takes a lover in Bali.

This is about a thirty-something woman looking for spirituality and happiness. She is married, but desperately unhappy for no single reason that she cannot or will not divulge. So, she leaves her husband (and, by the way, gives him all marital property out of supposed "guilt" for leaving him, making me wonder what exactly she did to warrant this)and falls right into another relationship (a-ha! adultery, perhaps?). When the rebound relationship that broke up her marriage falls apart, she now wants to find God. Of course. She claims God spoke to her on the bathroom floor, thus beginning her journey.

But not before she goes to her publisher and secures a $200,000 advance for this book. Makes you wonder, as one reviewer on Amazon pointed out, was the journey retrofitted to the book proposal?

What better way to go find God than in Italy. For four months she eats gelato, practices her Italian with a young man named Luca Spaghetti (If you are going to make up names of allegedly real people, could you find a more sterotypical name? Why not Carmine OrganGrinder?) and gains 23 pounds -- quick to point out to the readers that she was way underweight to beign with.

She learns to enjoy life and be selfish from the Italians - who by the way still find her immensely attractive, although they don't hoot and holler at her like they did 10 years previously. But she is still so damned cute. Just ask her.

On to India. At the Ashram, she learns to meditate and still broods over her lost marriage and subsequent realtionship. Probably the most boring part of the book, except for her conversations with "Richard from Texas" -- a down home, larger than life character who speaks in folksy platitudes that would make Andy Griffith proud. He also bestows our author with her nickname "Groceries" because she was emaciated from grief from crying for the millionth time over her beloved David. As one reviewer from Amazon said, "What kind of nickname is Groceries?"

I honestly believe she made these people up. Reminds me of "Go Ask Alice" -- supposedly the real story of the drug-addicted Anonymous -- until it was revealed that the protagonist was a fictitious composite of the author's psychiatric patients. Boo.

Then Bali. She ends her self-imposed celibacy with an older Brazilian man. High on orgasmic ecstasy, out of the supposed goodness of her heart, she asks her friends to send $18K in donations to help a single mother, an alleged friend of Ms. Gilbert's, who is portrayed as a con artist because she didn't buy a house in the timeframe coinciding with the termination of Ms. Gilbert's visa. I always thought that a gift should be a gift without strings attached -- especially coming from someone who supposedly found God. I wanted to ask Ms. Gilbert "What Would Jesus Do?"

My biggest problem with this tome is that this 30-something woman basically is looking for applause for running off for a year, obstensibly supported by a $200K book advance, to "find God." I'm sure millions of women would love to leave their everyday lives and travel the world to do nothing but self analyze. If she had done volunteer work, I may have felt differently. If she went through some real hardship, I could sympathize. But she was in an incompatible marriage, then dumped by the guy she left her husband for. She should perhaps speak to those battling life-threatening diseases, or raising children alone, or taking care of an elderly parent, or worried about where their next meal is coming from.

And for all of her self-realization and navel-gazing to end her dependence on men, Ms Gilbert has, as pointed out by anotherAmazon reviewer, married her Brazilian and moved to new Jersey. She could have saved Penguin Books a whole lot of money by getting in her car and going through the Lincoln Tunnel. I wonder how long before she ends up back on the bathroom floor.

Blah, blah, blah, blah...., October 24, 2007
I could not finish this book. When the author burst into sobs yet again in the middle of prayer, or a conversation, or walking down the street, or (more likely) on the floor of yet another bathroom, I gave up. This is the type of person you meet at a cocktail party and RUN in the other direction after a few minutes when she starts spewing out all her problems at you with no end in sight. Note to the author: I am your reader, not your psychotherapist. I really tried to enjoy the book and even like the author, but after slogging through a couple hundred pages of endlessly self-absorbed chatter, I was worn out and put the book in the Goodwill pile. When she writes, "I discovered my mind was not a very interesting place to be," I have to say, "Amen, sister!"

dishonest and poorly written, April 14, 2007
I've read several of the reviews posted here and though I couldn't finish this book, it seems to me that what's wrong with it is not so much the author's hollow-souled narcissism but her lack of intellectual seriousness. Someone gave me this book as a birthday present. That it has received a lot of attention is no surprise. Look at the drivel America reads. Light, shallow laughs, sex, food, not much real thought. That's the sum of this book. Feel-good rubbish that inspires not one iota of serious thought. Gilbert's slapphappy universe is one in which everything can be solved with pizza and fresh mozarella. Every paragraph contains at least one stock one-liner. This isn't literature. It's stand-up comedy of the worst kind. We've read it all before. She claims she can make friends with anyone. It's precisely that lack of discernment and depth that makes this story forgettable. The prose is laced with one cliche, one trite and cutesy obvservation after another. Some reviewer here said this book is not a book but a magazine article. Exactly right. I finally closed the book when I read that while in India she wanted to "valet park" a destitue family into a new life. It isn't just that the phrase is a silly toss-off modernism but that there's no true emotion in it. You'll never know how this woman really feels. Don't waste your money on it.

Expected more. MUCH more., March 19, 2007
This book reminded me of a quote that's served me well in life: "It's a sign of maturity when you begin to fall out of love with your own drama." The author clearly hasn't reached this stage on her path to "enlightenment"!

don't waste your time on this one, July 12, 2007
Not one interesting character. Not even the author. A horrible divorce... big deal. A love of food ... not really worth 116 pages. I had to get to page 156 to finally understand. She is in an Ashram in India having trouble silencing her mind and meditating.

"What I am alarmed to find in meditation is that my mind is actually not that interesting a place after all."

That sentence sums up the book

Glib, narcissistic and lightweight, May 14, 2007
I picked up this book on the strength of good reviews and found myself wanting to throw it at the wall. The author is a fine writer with a good sense of humor who seemed to want to write about her journey to self fullfilment, spiritual awakening and happiness. Instead she came off as a priviledged, slightly spoiled writer who needed an excuse for a writers advance so she could travel for free. She reveals herself to be a spiritual narcissist who obsessively navel gazes. While many passages are light hearted and funny and she is oh, so very clever and witty!! there was no real depth, no real meaningful questions asked or answered except for how she could get more breaks and be FULFILLED. It seemed like an extended article for SELF magazine. Instead order books by Kathleen Norris or even Anne LaMott for God's sake!

Symptomatic Of The Downfall Of Western Civilization..., October 28, 2009
Elizabeth Gilbert was a self-absorbed, married, thirty-something living the privileged existence of an affluent writer in the most powerful nation on Earth, when, suddenly - shock-horror - she realized that she wasn't happy. As a consequence, she cast aside her husband, took up with another man - with whom she still wasn't happy - and, after this relationship fell into inevitable dissolution, decided to run off around the world in order to "find herself" (one must assume that she'd already looked down the back of the sofa) after receiving a handsome advance from a publishing company to chronicle her subsequent exploits.

"Eat, Pray, Love" is pseudo-intellectual, altruistic, mother-my-dog pap of the worst kind masquerading as spiritual insight. Read between the lines and it expounds selfishness as a virtue and mindless hedonism as both philosophy and legitimate path to spiritual insight. Unsurprisingly, that great doyen of the gullible, Oprah Winfrey, loved it and made it one of her book club choices, thus unleashing it to a wider audience than Gilbert's talents as a writer would normally have ever allowed. Apparently, God help us, a big-screen version with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts is currently in the offing.

As a literary construct, Gilbert herself seems to be the contemporary living embodiment of Tom and Daisy Buchanan from "The Great Gatsby", of whom F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "They were careless people...they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness...and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

"Self-absorbed" does not begin to cover it; "self-centred" is not nearly an adequate description. One hopes that she can't really have been so completely inured to the poverty of India and Indonesia by her solipsism. If so, then she seems to be genuinely emblematic of a subset of the "sex and the city" generation of women who put their own self-gratification above all other things. Worryingly, this attitude seems to be becoming increasingly more prevalent in western society.

I will be honest, I first happened upon this book after briefly seeing some of Winfrey's interview with Gilbert on television and consequently read three quarters of the book in my local library - and was so completely incensed that I felt it my civic duty to warn you off of this book.

If you want a genuinely enjoyable book to provoke introspection, this isn't it, but may I politely suggest Tom Hodgkinson's How to Be Idle: A Loafer's Manifesto and The Freedom Manifesto: How to Free Yourself from Anxiety, Fear, Mortgages, Money, Guilt, Debt, Government, Boredom, Supermarkets, Bills, Melancholy, Pain, Depression, Work, and Waste or Lin Yutang's The Importance Of Living in it's stead; If you want a decent travelogue, may I politely suggest any Bruce Chatwin's books, and if you really want to read a writer with talent give the exponents of the Gilbertian philosophy of self-aggrandisement both barrels, then I strongly recommend Michael Bywater's Big Babies: or: Why Can't We Just Grow Up?

She teaches you how to discipline yourself not to judge someone, November 20, 2007
I hated this book but I forced myself to finish it. Putting the authors irritating voice aside, it epitomizes everything wrong with American culture today: worship of the mediocre, travel without seeing anything, polarizing of the Other and fake spirituality. That said, I learned something important about spirituality as well but I'll get to that in a minute. It has to do with learning not to judge (see above, I've become quite judgmental).

When I was dragging myself through this book, I experienced strong waves of hatred for this woman. She missed all of the poverty in those places and all complexities of the cultures she "learned about". She acted like hers was the only travel experience any of her readers have ever had with her "Let me explain what being Balinese means..." demeanor. She couldn't even accurately transcribe the Italian words in the passage of curses ("Molto migliore"???). She spoke about Italy like an annoying travel companion who has been there for five minutes, has read two things about the place and knows five words and acts like the expert and when you visit her there and after 2 days there yourself you can see that she still hasn't seen or learned a thing. She takes what she wants to see from the world and tells readers what she thinks they want to hear about it. She doesn't even give an original spin to these common travel destinations, or even any insight into the expats she does meet. Did she ever mention not liking someone? Did she ever mention any negative emotions about anyone other than "David" or her ex-husband? Did she ever mention any locals being any less than thrilled that she graced them with her presence? Did any other readers feel her jealousy seething when the sexy Brazilian Armenia walked in Wayan's shop? Of course we all did but the author, miss Spiritually Enlightened at Greeting Her Emotions must still not be able to face that one. Or maybe she can't dare mention it because that might make her readers not like her and this woman spends all her energy spinning a version of herself that everyone can like. I guess her spiritual enlightenment only works for exploring and sharing insights about her weight. Or making money off the bored, privileged American public.

Now, how about how offensive she is? Besides her condescending assumption that we are all married 35 year olds stuck in our houses who have never traveled and are relying on her to tell us how it is, she made two references where she tried to make the suffering of her love life out to be comparable that of a refugee ("we had the eyes of refugees" and counseling with the boat people revealed that their suffering too "was all" love story sagas (personally offensive to anyone touched by the world's refugee story).

Okay, I said that I learned something. Yes, I learned something. Important. I looked deeply into my hatred I felt towards this woman throughout the book. I learned that the reason I hated her so much was because I was expecting her to have something insightful to say and I was expecting to learn about the people from an anthropological, non-biased, realistic perspective. Each faux pas she made infuriated me. I wasn't seeing her for her. I was trying to project what I thought was her view of herself onto her. Basically, I was expecting her to live up to how great she tells us she is and when she didn't deliver, time after time, sentence after sentence, I felt some justified sense of triumph and anger at "catching" her, and then feeling immense frustration at not being able to expose her to the world so everyone else would see through her too. Instead, I should learn to accept the book for what it is (horrible) and accept the author as she is (whoever that is) and accept that to her it was suffering, to her it was enlightenment and it does no good to judge her for it (even though I am not spiritually enlightened enough to stop myself). Instead of hating her, I should have shut the book, written this review, and laughed about it. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Reviews

A Genuine Masterpiece, October 15, 2010
I also read the excerpts in the New Yorker and was very anxious to get the complete book. I was not disappointed. This is easily one of the best nonfiction books (or books of any kind, for that matter) I have ever read. I am always wary about using the overworked word "masterpiece," but I truly believe this is one. Frazier takes us on a wonderful journey: his gradual discovery of Russia through its literature, history and by meeting several native Russians in New York; his deciding to visit the country with Russian friends; his efforts to learn to read and speak the Russian language; and his first trip to eastern Siberia by crossing the Bering Strait from Alaska to Chukotka. The longest journey he takes is by van with two Russian guides across the entire length of Siberia in 2001, arriving at the Pacific Ocean on September 11th. He returns to Siberia in 2005, traveling from Yakutsk to the village of Oimyakon, "said to be the coldest place on earth outside Antarctica," and along the Topolinskaya Highway to the see the abandoned prison camps of Stalin's Gulag. His last visit is in 2009, when he travels by himself to Novosibirsk, Siberia's largest city. Throughout the book, Frazier's descriptions of the forests, the steppes, the taiga, the mountains, the rivers and lakes, the cities, the villages, the monuments and outposts, as well as the horrific mosquitoes and the often questionable food, are simply riveting. He meets a truly remarkable assortment of men and women from all walks of Siberian life, learning how they survive, and often thrive, in such a difficult, unforgiving place. He recounts tales of many figures, both famous and obscure, from Siberia's incredible past: Genghis Khan and the Mongol hordes, the revolutionary Decembrists of the 1820s, exiles like Dostoyevsky and those who died in the horrific Soviet prison camps, Czar Nicholas II, Rasputin, Rudolph Nureyev, and even Yul Brenner. And like all great writers of nonfiction, Frazier sees things that others would miss and makes discoveries that will take your breath away; he is always looking for the unobvious and finding the most fascinating wherever he goes. Consequently, we are treated to a unique portrait of an amazing place by one of our finest writers. Ian Frazier has written a great, great book.

Great historical journey through Siberia, October 13, 2010
i read two excerpts from this book in the New Yorker Magazine a summer or two ago and couldn't tear myself away. It's such an adventure. If you've ever read one of the great Russian novels or studied world history at all you already have an historical vision filed away in your head and this book brings it all back, richly. The spirit in which Frazier traveled to research this book and because he's written it so well you feel like a fly on his shoulder throughout the journey. i'm so happy the book is finally published, i've been waiting a long time for it. Highly recommended!

Brilliant - But PLEASE, people, review the BOOK, not Amazon!!!!, October 25, 2010
I will not try to add much to the other 5-star reviews of "Travels in Siberia" except to say that the superlatives being used here are totally justified. As a review in the San Francisco chronicle said, "'Travels in Siberia' is a masterpiece of nonfiction writing - tragic, bizarre and funny. Once again, the inimitable Frazier has managed to create a genre of his very own." This review is spot on. Readers should read this book and savor every word. It truly is one of the most beautifully written books I have ever encountered--one for the ages.

BUT, I implore people like Mr. Piro to stop giving 1-Star reviews to books because you don't like Amazon's pricing policy! Don't you realize that you are supposed to be reviewing the content of the book? If you are upset with Amazon, why are you taking it out on an author who has nothing at all to do with how Amazon sets its prices? Your anger is totally misdirected. If you are upset with Amazon, CALL them up or WRITE them and complain. To give this great book a 1-star review because you're upset with Amazon is the height of stupidity.

Gorgeously written, but flawed American viewpoint, November 12, 2010
I'm going to write my review without biasing myself by reading the others.

I lived and worked in Siberian and the Russian Far East for several years in the 1990s. Frazier has always been one of my favorite authors; he is king of detail. "On the Rez" was a phenomenal book. Missing my second home, Russia, I snatched up Travels in Siberia the instant it became available.

I'm going to start with the limitations of this book:

1. East of Chita and Yakutia, the locals uniformly call their land the "Russian Far East." They do not call it Siberia, any more than people from Idaho or California call their land the Midwest. Just like Americans have the Midwest and the West, the Russians have the corresponding landlocked Siberia and the coastal Far East. It perpetuates Westerners' geographic misnaming of the region.

2. Leaving the history of Siberia's Indigenous peoples out of the book. This is the most egregious oversight of this book, and it's particularly perplexing given Frazier's history researching and writing "On the Rez." Can you imagine an author writing on the history and the experience of the Dakotas without mentioning the Sioux? This book manages to paint Siberia and the Russian Far East as the historic battleground of Russians and the Mongols, without mentioning the couple dozen tribes - of Asian, Turkish, or European descent - that migrated to, lived in, and defined Siberia for centuries before either the Russians or the Mongols arrived. In a few of these regions, Indigenous peoples still outnumber Russians, and it is still common to hear the native languages spoken on the streets or in government offices. Frazier writes about two visits to the Republic of Buryatia without clarifying that Buryatians are Indigenous descendents of the Mongols. He then visits a bit with the Even peoples in Yakutia, but again fails to relate any information about their history, although the book has some history on the Russian colonization of the region.

3. Frazier entered Siberia with the notion that it is All About Gulags; that is a typical American lens/misperception. Siberia is a whole lot of things, and Siberians do not, nor did they ever, think of their land as Prison Land, any more than Californians currently obsess about Japanese internment camps in California. In both places the gulags are a sad and horrible history but they are far from defining the place. If you lived in Siberia for a year and listened to Russian conversation, you would never know there are any prisons there. Another stereotype of Siberia that Frazier failed to question, and ended up just perpetuating.

4. Siberia and the Far East are the very most beautiful (a) in nature and all the wilderness parks, which Frazier never seems to get off the highway to see!; and (b) in private homes, where Russians and other natives fully open their hearts and are your best friends for life. Frazier is more exposed to the (much harsher) "public life" of Russia, the train toilets and the public litter, than to its wonderful private life. Russians often said to me, "I've visited America, and it's boring there." What they often mean is that Russians, and particularly those who live east of the Urals, are a very social, hospitable, warm, fun people who know how to have a good time. Frazier for whatever reason barely gets a peak at this. And he writes about forests, but never really gets a look at how gorgeous they are in Siberia, because he is always sort of on the main drag, pushed on by two hosts from St. Petersburg who only want to drive faster rather than slowing down and actually seeing anything.

That said, this book is wonderfully written, has riveting detail, and has some truly brilliant insights into both the Russian psyche and the land that Frazier visited. Worth reading.

Travels in Siberia, October 27, 2010
`Travels in Siberia` is an excellent and up to date travel book through Siberia by American writer Ian Frazier, best known for his 1980s travel book Great Plains. Parts of the book were originally serialized in The New Yorker, which sponsored one of his five trips to Russia (those five trips making up the five main chapters of the book). There are countless older travel books about Siberia, many with the exact same title "Travels in Siberia", but things have changed rapidly since the collapse of the USSR so it's good to have a recent account. Frazier's fascination and love of Siberia is somewhat infectious, though he and his friends often wonder what the appeal is given all its problems and horrid history. Frazier is an excellent writer who focuses on the small detail, such as types of trash on the road, the types of clothes, food, restrooms, service (or lack thereof) etc.. one really gets the sense of how crude and rough it is, like a third world country. As a traveler, Frazier is ironically not very adventurous, given how dangerous Siberia can be, it is a safe pedestrian journey. The most daring thing he did was jump out of the car and snap a picture of a prison from afar. When his Russian guides went off to party with the locals, he would stay at camp alone inside the tent. Perhaps because his Russian language skills were very basic it limited his comfort level in new situations. We learn a lot about his guide Sergei, an archetypal Russian who had an amazing ability to fix any vehicle problem with a nail, wire and roadside refuse. In the end I think it's a good book because it covers so much territory and Frazier's eye for simple but revealing detail combined with his excellent writing and humor keep it always interesting and fun to read.

The best book of the year - More like a great Russian novel, November 1, 2010
I have read a number of the year's so-called "best" books, and there are quite a few very good ones, both fiction and nonfiction. But Ian Frazier's "Travels In Siberia," in my opinion, stands head and shoulders above the rest. Frazier somehow has captured the size and scope of this enormous place and describes it with a force equal to one of the great Russian writers--I do not exaggerate!--yet with a totally American sensibility. Since a number of other reviews have concentrated on the amazing experiences and adventures and the fascinating people he encounters, I would like to focus on another aspect: the absolutely brilliant writing. What I have always admired about Frazier, in both his humor pieces and his nonfiction and reporting work, is how effortless his writing seems to be. I am sure, like all great writers, he works incredibly hard at each sentence. But it never shows. His descriptions and metaphors are truly fresh, original and unexpected, yet they always work. A couple of examples: "On the Barabinsk Steppe . . . stretches of real forest often appeared here and there, intruding into the flatland like the paws of a giant dog asleep just the other side of the horizon." And this passage about his arrival back in the US shortly after 9/11: "I smelled diesel fuel, bus exhaust, and a whiff of Jamaica Bay not far off. The speedy channel changing in my head slowed to a stop, and all the ordinary JFK Airport surroundings seemed to settle on my shoulders like an old coat. In my gratitude I did not fall to my knees and kiss the ground. But for a moment I did squat down and touch the warm, black, grainy, pebbly asphalt with the fingers of one hand."

"Travels in Siberia" brims with observations and insights that are simply overwhelming. I do hope people will read this book, as they'll be in for one of the great literary experiences of their lives.

Great history lesson, but shaky travel book, December 5, 2010
I truly enjoyed reading this book. I am learning Russian and took my own first trip to the country this year; there is so much to learn and discover about Russia and I appreciated Frazier's interesting, concise and occasionally humorous lessons on the country's history, culture and geography. Indeed, I found myself laughing out loud at several passages - a valued experience during a good read for me!

Nonetheless, as much as I appreciate seeing an author's sense of humor and personality shine through a narrative like this, I found parts of Frazier's discourse to be simply grating and tinged with a familiarly uncomfortable, unmistakable East Coast self-importance. As many times as Frazier may call himself a Midwesterner in the text, his worldview is clearly that of an affluent New Yorker. This is perfectly evidenced by his reference to his guide/trip organizer/translator/mechanic throughout Siberia as his `driver'. It took a native Russian teacher later to point out to him that he should call the talented person who shepherded him (and his expensive fishing rods) across thousands of miles of Siberia his `colleague' instead (also worth pointing out that in addition to this man's guide credentials, he's the head of the robotics lab at St. Petersburg State University, hardly a `driver' qualification).

Frazier goes on to display a latent sexism in a passage about the beauty of post-soviet-era Russian women. He marvels at the `beautiful women walking everywhere' in Krasnoyarsk, recalling a negative Cold War American stereotype of Russian female appearance and questioning its origins. In his quest to figure out how Russian women apparently became beautiful, he examines historical male perceptions of Russian women (including that of John Quincy Adams), questions a Russian male friend and then finally agrees with the theory of an American male economist that compares Russian female beauty to a commodity crop. Not once does he ask Russian female friends about this apparent phenomenon; had he taken this simple and evident approach, he might have heard numerous, more logical explanations, including the simple reason of the sudden availability of Western fashions after the fall of Communism.

In general, and as other reviewers on Amazon have pointed out, Frazier's attitude and approach keeps him tied to a high-way or zipped up in a one-man tent for good portion of his travels. As his Russian `drivers' go into towns and villages in the evening and get to know the local people and culture, letting the flow of the journey lead them to new experiences and friends, the author remains a somewhat hesitant observer. His obstinate request to see a Siberian prison causes an obvious cultural disconnect and tension between himself and the Russian guides; once again baring his East Coast mind-set, he seems to believe that the simple act of paying them to show him a prison should override their evident discomfort with exploring this aspect of Russian history.

On the whole, I liked this book. My repeated bouts of irritation with the author's personality, however, chip two stars off of my rating.

Well researched, but a little off-putting...., December 14, 2010
I enjoyed all the research included in this massive history of Siberia. Frazier did a great job with a lot of information. The book is fact-filled, very detailed, and generally written in an entertaining style. Good map showing the location of towns he visited -- although I'd recommend that readers refer to maps that show the geography from the "top" of the globe instead. His map seriously distorts the northeastern part of Siberia.

Prior reviewers have covered the strong aspects of the book better than I can. But the some things were a little off-putting.

For instance, it made me squirm when he too-frequently compared himself to fellow-travelers and his hired tour guides, with himself coming off as the better person. That's not something nonfiction readers enjoy in an author.

And he missed out on a lot of the culture of the country by sanctimoniously avoiding the consumption of vodka or people drinking it. Hey, he's in Russia! What about When in Rome, do as the Romans do? Not that he needed to be a strong imbiber, but imagine all the good stories, camaraderie and experiences he missed out on! It's like a foreigner writing about rural America and refusing to attend a potluck, whether he ate the food or not.

Too: I'll bet his married tour guides didn't much appreciate him tattling on them and their escapades. Imagine the stories Frazier could've told if he'd occasionally accompanied them! Maybe he did... Would love to read a book with their version of the long journeys with him.

He very briefly mentions a few people he encountered who were exploring Siberia without paid hand-holders. Those are the kind of stories I'd recommend and will be looking for next. Also, like a previous reviewer noted, I wish he'd included more about the many ethnic groups in Siberia. And why couldn't he have found or taken better photographs?

Finally, the book needed a good editor. Got tedious by the end. Doubt if I'll read any prior books of Frazier's.

More History Book Than Travelogue, December 14, 2010
Ian Frazier's Travels In Siberia is a lengthy tome about not just Mr. Frazier's travels in Russia but a history of the country including Genghis Khan, the Decembrists, Stalin, Lenin and everyone in between. The book is extremely well written and you can feel Mr. Frazier's genuine love of the country coming through, but I felt a little shorted by the passages on his actual travels in Siberia. The first thing you think about when you think of Siberia is that it is a cold desolate place, but on his first trip he goes in the summer. While he does rectify this by going back and travelling through Siberia in the winter that trip seems more like an afterthought in the book. On his first trip, he spends much of his time sitting back in the camp his two travelling companions set up in various campgrounds, roadsides, etc. while they go out and experience the towns. It would have felt more like a travel book if Mr. Frazier had joined the two on their excursions into town and written about the locals instead of the many museums he visited. That being said, Mr. Frazier deserves credit for an extremely well written book especially his story of how he ended his first journey through Siberia on 9/11/01 and his resulting trip back to his home in New Jersey. It was quite compelling and the most heartfelt portion of the book.

Been there, done that, December 3, 2010
In a previous life, ie before marriage, I spent a good amount of time in the wilds of Siberia/China working for a timber company. In the 5 or so years since my travels I often wondered just what it was about this desolute, cold and sometimes downright ugly part of the world that I found strangely compelling. Now I know it is the love of russia that Ian talks of often in this book. While I mainly flew, the author does a wonderful job of bringing back memories of just what it is like to see the real Russia, and the real Russians.

I really liked this book, a great combination of humor, tribulation and history... from a part of the globe still a faceless wasteland to many. Also a good insight into the vast difference between the rule the world mindset in Moscow versus the simeply make it until tomorrow of the 1960's era of the countryside. ... Read more

Editorial Review

From the bestselling author of Oracle Bones and River Town comes the final book in his award-winning trilogy, on the human side of the economic revolution in China.

In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled the country, tracking how the automobile and improved roads were transforming China. Hessler writes movingly of the average people—farmers, migrant workers, entrepreneurs—who have reshaped the nation during one of the most critical periods in its modern history.

Country Driving begins with Hessler's 7,000-mile trip across northern China, following the Great Wall, from the East China Sea to the Tibetan plateau. He investigates a historically important rural region being abandoned, as young people migrate to jobs in the southeast. Next Hessler spends six years in Sancha, a small farming village in the mountains north of Beijing, which changes dramatically after the local road is paved and the capital's auto boom brings new tourism. Finally, he turns his attention to urban China, researching development over a period of more than two years in Lishui, a small southeastern city where officials hope that a new government-built expressway will transform a farm region into a major industrial center.

Peter Hessler, whom The Wall Street Journal calls "one of the Western world's most thoughtful writers on modern China," deftly illuminates the vast, shifting landscape of a traditionally rural nation that, having once built walls against foreigners, is now building roads and factory towns that look to the outside world.

Reviews

Peter Hessler Does It Again, February 16, 2010
Mr. Hessler's 3rd book on China continues his tradition of excellent writing and reporting. His tales of his travels driving through China are illuminating, as are his village and factory narratives. He truly provides insight into a time, people and place in China that most of us will never meet, see or experience. His previous books, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (P.S.) and Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China (P.S.), have become must-reads for anyone who wants to learn about modern China and this book might be his best yet.

His humor, insight and empathy are as extraordinary as his ability to pack so much information into such a compelling narrative. I pre-ordered the book and once it arrived I couldn't put it down until I finished it. If you are trying to understand China for work, study, travel or just personal interest - this should be right at the top of your reading list. You won't be disappointed.

Useful insights into modern China, February 21, 2010
As a long time "New Yorker" reader, it's been a joy to follow Peter Hessler's discovery of the complexities of modern China in a series of his articles published over the past 12 or so years. This is probably his best book on China, and I found it fascinating.

Hessler was born in 1969 in Missouri and became a Peace Corps volunteer assigned to China. He learned the language well and does not rely on interpreters unlike other journalists. As a result, his writing has a very attractive conversational style.

Like many other "New Yorker" writers, Hessler publishes much of his work first in the magazine and later in a book: his first, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, covered education and cultural matters; and his second, Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present, focused on ancient history.

Hessler's third book starts out as a road trip roughly paralleling the Great Wall, on superhighways, local paved roads, and dirt paths. An experienced driver himself, among many other things he had to contend with Chinese drivers who had recently learned to drive as adults and who rarely spent much time learning the principles of safe driving.

Hessler learned about the Chinese highway system, of course, driving alone in his rental cars, but he also learned about a pervasive business development culture. His book breaks into three sections: highway development in section one, retail development in a village in section two and industrial development in larger and growing cities in section three.

In the village of Sancha, which became a suburb of Beijing because of better roads, Hessler buys a house. He becomes especially friendly with a couple who open a restaurant to serve the increasing number of tourists.

The third section describes factory development in Lishui, a small city becoming a manufacturing center; it specializes in a small ring used in making bras.

Hessler is a wonderful traveller; his website describes a bit of how he got started:

"... I saw little of the world outside of America, until 1992, when I received a scholarship to attend graduate school at Oxford. That was really the start of my international experiences -- I lived cheaply at Oxford and picked up odd jobs and the occasional freelance writing gig, and this allowed me to travel extensively in Europe and Asia. During those two years I visited something like 30 countries -- Oxford was very generous with its vacation time, and I traveled cheaply, using rail-passes and camping a lot. I finished in '94 and decided to go home around the world -- an unplanned trip that started in Prague and continued by land and boat all the way to Thailand, via Russia and China. After returning from that trip, I freelanced and took other trips, including a long hike across Switzerland -- in the summer of '95 I received a grant to hike across the country, and I spent two months camping and hiking in the mountains, from the French border to the Italian border."

His books on China are wonderful examples of how well he becomes a part of the societies he visits and how well he brings his experiences alive. I look forward to reading more of his "New Yorker" pieces -- they may reach the heights of the experiences in this fine travelogue.

Robert C. Ross 2010

Glimpse into everyday life in China, February 15, 2010
Well written observation of the impact of the Chinese Economic boom on the nation's citizens. This book is three stories - it is not just a travelogue of driving around the country.

Mr. Hessler's writing is tight and descriptive. He takes a non-judgmental attitude throughout the narratives and allows the reader a clear look at the country's current zeitgeist. The book held my interest and I'd happily purchase further writings from this author on the subject matter.

Excellent Insights Into China!, February 16, 2010
Country Driving" consists of three narratives intended to convey how China is changing with the building of new roads. While the book accomplishes little in that regard, it does help readers understand Chinese culture, how that culture is developed at school, and the idiosyncrasies of life in China. The book begins with Hessler acquiring a Chinese driver's license in 2001 after living and touring in China for five years teaching English, serving as a free-lance reporter, and learning to read and speak Chinese.

Obtaining a driver's license is no mean feat for Chinese citizens - requirements include a medical checkup, passing a written exam, and completing a driving course and extensive driving test. (These requirements are greatly lessened for those already licensed in other nations.) Unfortunately, the driving courses and regulations have little connection to safety - seat belts, turn signals, and children's car seats are not required, and despite having only one-fifth the number of vehicles for about the same geographic area as the U.S., China has twice the number of traffic fatalities. A lesser problem is that maps do not label most roads, lack a marked scale or distances between towns, and the indicated roads sometimes turn into creek beds. Nonetheless, almost 1,000 new drivers register each day in Beijing alone. Hessler always rented the vehicles he used, probably because autos owned by foreigners have a distinctive license plate that would reveal when he was traveling outside his residence area - guaranteeing special police attention.

Hessler's first narrative summarized his driving over 7,000 miles across northern China following the Great Wall, built during the Ming Dynasty - 1368-1644, from the East China Sea to the Tibetan plateau in a rented Chinese-made Jeep Cherokee ($30/day). (Hessler was required to immediately leave the Tibetan area - it is forbidden to foreigners.) Many days he traveled less than 100 miles, taking time to tour and visit with locals, and usually camping out to avoid small-town hotels because they often reported him to local police. (Foreign journalists were required to apply to local authorities before arriving - Hessler rarely did so because he lacked a set itinerary and the process invariably led to more questioning.) Truckers' dorms were an alternative because they normally lacked the police registration forms. Besides rarely seen portions of the Great Wall, Hessler also observed numerous remains of signal towers also built during the Ming dynasty - the remains were over 20' high, made of tamped earth, and had been used to send military communications using fires, lanterns, smoke signals, and flags. Some of the Great Wall has been denuded of its brick facing - used as a 'free' resource and also a target of Cultural Revolution efforts to obliterate China's feudal past; this is no longer allowed. The less-traveled roads often were covered with grain piles during harvest time - an illegal practice that provided free threshing by passing vehicle tires. Occasionally Hessler's travel was interrupted by stops at roadside funerals that lasted up to 7 days. (Most deceased Chinese are cremated, except in outlying areas.)

The second, and most appealing, segment of "Country Driving" covers the six years beginning in 2001 that were spent in Sancha, a small walnut farming village in the mountains north of Beijing that had shrunk from a population of 300 in 1970 to less than 150. (About 90 million Chinese migrated from the countryside by 2001, primarily to new factory towns on the southeastern coast; these numbers grew to an estimated 130 million by 2008.) Here he rents a 3-room house ($40/month) amidst a community with an average GDP of $250/capita and 17 Communist Party members. Party membership requires a formal application, followed by meetings, interviews, evaluations, and self-criticisms that can take six months, or more - only about 5% are members, and some join primarily (eg. his neighbor, in 2004) to add business contacts and leverage with local officials. While there, Hessler becomes close to his neighbors and their young son (Wei Jia - only child in the village) and part of the community routines.

Hessler's reporting on the 'local' boarding school, 30-some miles away, is particularly interesting. Report cards are 30+ pages long - the evaluations begin using a 20-item list titled "Elementary School Rules of Daily Behavior." Examples: 1)"Be interested in national events, respect the national flag, respect the national emblem, know how to sing the national anthem." (Many rural villagers, however, don't even know the name of the current premier.) 2)"Cherish the honor of the group and be a responsible member of the group." Etc. Physical measurements are also included - height, weight, eyesight, hearing, lung capacity. At the end of the 2nd-grade and other report cards are a series of unfinished faces where children draw either a smiley, straight, or frowning face in response to self-evaluation questions such as "participates in labor for the collective welfare."

Hessler's education perspectives continue, reporting almost never meeting a parent without educational aspirations for his/her child - unlike America. Everything revolves around memorization and repetition (sometimes with no context - eg. memorizing instructions for Microsoft FrontPage XP), though their mathematics texts are far more advanced than their equivalents in the U.S. There is no ability grouping. Returning to Wei Jia, his education begins inauspiciously. Wei's kindergarten year (staying at his grandparents in another village) begins with him declaring "This place is no good!" - understandable since he had never been with a group of children before, and the school was in such poor condition it was closed the next year. Regardless, Wei's first school year quickly ended because of ITP (a bleeding disorder) that necessitated a trip to a Beijing children's hospital for gamma globulin treatment. Fortunately, despite the staff's aloofness and requiring payment in advance (Wei's parents had insurance that paid after-the-fact), Wei fully recovered, though one wonders what would have happened without access to Hessler's rented auto and advice from foreign medical sources. (The 'good news' is that China is now expanding health care and insurance for all.)

Wei's second year (first grade) in school, however, was as bad, if not worse. Homework was mostly ignored, he wandered around the room during class, didn't eat all his food, and even failed to stand at attention during an address by the principal. Wei's parents made it quite clear to him that they were very upset, and followed up regularly. Second grade brought a total turnaround - Wei led the class in mathematics, did his homework, ate all his food, and was appointed Politeness Monitor (reports on bad behavior and deducts points accordingly). Chinese classrooms also have Homework Monitors, Hygiene Monitors, and Class Monitors - the latter helps the teacher organize fellow students; in addition, each dorm room has student Room and Vice-Room Monitors to ensure cleaning is carried out. Peer discipline also takes place when misbehaving children are required to stand in front of the class and be criticized by both the teacher and the other students. Finally, parent-teacher conferences are a group exercise - all parents attend together and listen to the teacher's critique of each student, with the bad ones receiving the most attention. Beginning with the 5th grade, class/dorm monitor positions are elected - Wei, however, declined to run, declaring that it was 'too much bother.'

Other interesting China education factoids: Before 1949 80% of the population was illiterate; now UNICEF reports a 99% literacy rate among youth. Nine years of education (free) is required - passing a test is required to attend high-school or vocational school, and tuition is charged. Its higher-education system was devastated during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, though is now rebuilding. The proportion of college-age youth enrolled in higher-education is 20%.

Smoking among men is pervasive, and exchanging cigarettes is part of social relations. There are over 400 brands of Chinese cigarettes - all state-owned and with varying status levels, 50 cable channels cost less than $20/year, nobody knocks when they visit a neighbor in Sancha, the village chief is elected by all via secret ballot and need not be a party member (he/she is outranked by the Party Secretary, however), the town's propaganda speakers blare out news each morning about government initiatives, and by 2006 the town's GDP/capita had risen to $800 as a result of tourism from Beijing generated by the road being paved (now about a two-hour drive from Beijing). Wei's father gained more than most by starting a restaurant that served fresh fish kept in a tank, and adding several rental rooms. The money for these ventures originally came from his personal savings and loans from relatives; later, after joining the Party he was also able to get government grants and loans. Credit cards are rare. Obtaining bank loans requires village approval. Construction workers cost $3/day in 2001, $6/day in 2006.

The biggest used-car market in Beijing has about 20,000 cars for sale, and most sellers are individuals paying 25 cents/hour to park their car there. Approved religions include Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam; Catholics, however, are not allowed to recognize the authority of the pope - avoids conflicts of leadership.

The final segment of "Country Driving" covers two years in Lishui - a newly built manufacturing small town in southeastern China. Starting wages were about 47 cents/hour, though those persistent and with prior 'claimed' background could get more. (Many lied about both their age and experience.) Per capita GDP was about $1,460 in 2006 - much higher than rural areas, and illustrative of the tension within China over equality of economic opportunity. About half the town's revenue came from taxes, and the rest from land 'sales' that involved changing permitted use from agriculture to industrial. (Land status in China is confusing - as best I understand, it can't be sold, but it can be leased). Considerable corruption occurs through officials forcing occupants to give up tenancy for below-market reimbursement, then turning the site over to others at much higher rates associated with new 'zoning' and collecting a hefty 'fee.' A side effect of obtaining sizable revenues through rezoning is that towns become overly reliant on growth for stable revenues - the central government is attempting to change this.

Readers learn near the end that Hessler received a number of photo radar tickets for speeding, that local police invest in the individual photo-radar machines for a share of the revenues, and that they were strategically placed to maximize revenues.

Bottom-Line: "Country Driving" provides good insight into rural life in China, and especially how its education system encourages achievement and fitting into adult society. On the other hand, Hessler's failure to include even a single photo is quite aggravating because it is easy to become interested in some of his characters. The 'good news' is a little Internet research re Sancha, Wei Jia, and Lishui corrects that omission - I was particularly delighted to find photos of Wei Jia in his subsequent early teen-age years guiding Olympic tourists outside his village.

Thoroughly enjoyable read, May 10, 2010
I don't remember ever giving a book five stars but this was such a pleasure to read that I could not resist. The book is divided into three parts. First, he drives a route along the Great Wall travelling into some remote parts of the north west. His account is funny and informative in places and always written in an easy, engaging style. However, this was the weakest and least interesting part of the book. It lacked the people contact which made the rest of the book so interesting. The second part takes place in a rural village outside of Beijing. The main focus is a single family - husband, wife, and five year old son. There is lots happening in their lives - opportunities to better their lives come and go, village politics, Party politics, schooling of the son, problems of economic success as the family businesses grow. The author rented a house in the village for at least a couple of years and visited afterward so the story covers about five years. The author speaks fluent mandarin and becomes very close to the family. A great story, well written. The third part takes place in a development zone and describes building, staffing, and operation of a new factory. Once again the author manages to insert himself into their world and he tells a gentle and humorous story of growth and development in China. I think he captures the character and nuances of the new China really well.

I think that this book appealed to me, in part, because I know little about China. I was not looking for something focused on economics, politics, or history. I bought it because I was told that it was well written, a pleasure to read, and told some good stories of China in the new millenium.

Complaints? I would have loved it if he had better maps.

Hilarious and terrifying, in a way, June 8, 2010
Peter Hessler wrote an excellent book about the hazards of driving in China and while doing so he became a close observer about the (micro)-economic development in China. I found his book hilarious because the many anecdotes he tells should make you laugh out loud. What I found terrifying about this tale are the author's observations about economic life in China. This book should be compulsory reading for a lot of people in the west, if only to understand what is really going on in China.

Part One of the Book deals with Hessler's road trip along the wall and back. Given that foreigners are not supposed to leave Beijing Municipality, this is quite a feat. I couldn't decide whether the many questions he quotes from the Chinese driving exam are for real or if he made them up. I have no idea if it is allowed to bring small amounts of explosive material into a taxi but I would instinctively answer "Yes". Hessler tells many stories about the Chinese style of driving and if you have been to China none of these will be unfamiliar to you. I read somewhere that Peter Hessler was terrified of the Chinese style of driving. I would wager that the Americans were probably more terrified of him, when he re-joined traffic in the US.

In Part Two, Hessler rents a house in some village north of Beijing and it is incredible to observe through his eyes how the place develops with his "Family" developing from a level of poverty hardly any of us would be able to imagine into "the entrepreneur" of the village. One might be inclined to believe that this development was exceptional but as you read on it becomes quite clear that this sort of thing is happening all over China. In Part Three, Hessler writes about a development zone in Southern Zhejiang in general and about a bra ring production plant in particular. And again it is incredible to observe how this development takes place.

All told I found this book a real page turner and I can only highly recommend it.

Beautifully done., February 23, 2010
This might be the strongest yet of Hessler's three books on life in contemporary China. "Country Driving" is a masterpiece of travelogue and cultural analysis. Hessler is doing for 21st century China what Tocqueville did for 19th century America. If cultural cataclysm were a sport, Hessler would be its Red Smith.

The writing, while lean, is descriptive and compelling. By "embedding" himself among working-class Chinese in multiple urban and rural locales, Hessler avoids the pitfalls, suffered in comparable works, of relying on the views and experiences of the elite or the avant garde of an emerging society. His work is in the spirit of David Remnick's landmark "Lenin's Tomb," on the fall of the Soviet Union. Little wonder that The New Yorker, where Remnick is now the editor, has been so supportive.

Written with wit and empathy, devoid of any shred of judgmentalism, "Country Driving" is a roadmap through the chaotic psychic wilderness of a society that is literally plunging from the 8th century into the 21st, in a compressed span of mere months. The strange, the impossible, the ingenious, the unthinkable and the inexplicable all meld into a vertiginous portrait of a nation that's not quite sure where it's headed, but is hurtling forward at 140 mph.

I sincerely hope Peter Hessler's notebook is not yet empty.

Social commentary with a twist of dry wit, May 3, 2010
Hessler's excellent China travel journal was really fun. His clear, warmhearted writing serves as serious social commentary, but it also carries an understated sense of irony and dry wit. Starting with the title, "Country Driving," the American past-time takes on an entirely different meaning in Hessler's rural China. He captures a string of insightful and respectful conversations with a wide range of rural and urban Chinese men and women. The informal exchanges help illuminate the very different Eastern and Western cultures and class distinctions. I hope Hessler keeps traveling and writing.

Insight into life in China, June 2, 2010
Having been to China earlier this year I was interested to read what this author discovered from living in China for several years. As a Chinese language (Mandarin) speaker the author was able to interact with many people from many parts of China and the insights are great indeed. Peter Hessler writes with great sensitivity but also great humor and insight. He has a journalists eye for detail but also an appreciation and understanding of history.The result is a fascinating book which takes us into the lives of individuals and families.We care about these people, their careers ,their jobs and their dreams. To sum up , an engrossing book which keeps you reading.

Well done..., May 22, 2010
This was a very informative and entertaining book. My favorite part is the author's time spent in the developing village of Sancha a few hours outside of Beijing. Peter is perfectly positioned to be a witness to the largest economic and industrial development in human history. ... Read more

Editorial Review

When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10,1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin the perilous descent from 29,028 feet (roughly the cruising altitude of an Airbus jetliner), twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly to the top, unaware that the sky had begun to roil with clouds...

Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed Outside journalist and author of the bestselling Into the Wild. Taking the reader step by step from Katmandu to the mountain's deadly pinnacle, Krakauer has his readers shaking on the edge of their seat. Beyond the terrors of this account, however, he also peers deeply into the myth of the world's tallest mountain. What is is about Everest that has compelled so many poeple--including himself--to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense?

Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.


From the Paperback edition. ... Read more

Reviews

A Classic Tale, July 28, 2002
I first read "Into Thin Air" right after it was first published five years ago. It haunted me at the time, and it continues to do so today. By now, the story has been told so many times and by so many different people that it hard to remember that Krakauer's original account is the one that made it famous to begin with. Were it not for his incredible abilities as a storyteller, it is doubtful that anyone outside the world of mountaineering would remember what happened at the peak of Everest in that fateful May of 1996.

Krakauer's account is so compelling because it reads like a book length confession, which it is in a sense. The author worked through his very considerable feelings of survivor's guilt in the book's pages. His descriptions and not inconsiderable opinions have become legendary. For example, how many people read of AOL Chairman Robert Pittman's recent outster from the company and remembered him as the husband of Sandra Hill Pittman, who personified the rich amature climber who buys their way to the top of the world's tallest peak and who has no business being there? Krakauer's descriptions of Mrs. Pittman on the mountain are an example of his simple but devastating observations.

Krakauer's highly readable prose make the book read like fiction, probably another reason why it was so popular. He signed on for the Everest climb intending to write a standard mountaineering magazine article. That he chose the fateful May 1996 climb is simply a rare case of someone being at the wrong place at precisely the right time. Though it caused him plenty of personal torment, it also allowed him to write a story for the ages.

Overall, "Into Thin Air" fantastic storytelling make it one of the best non-fiction books published in the last decade or so.

AN UNFORGETTABLE ADVENTURE - MOVING,SHOCKING,REAL, August 18, 1997
Having never understood why people climb mountains, and after seeing Beck Weathers on television last year, I bought INTO THIN AIR in order to gain more insight. Krakauer delivered.

Have some time on your hands, because once you begin reading Jon's story depicting the turn of events throughout his journey on Everest in the Spring of '96, you won't be able to stop reading until you've read the last word in his book. This account of summitting Everest is a page turner even though the outcome is old news. It will leave you wanting to know more about other attempts made on Everest, both failed and successful.

For those who don't understand why on earth anyone would want to do something as dangerous as climbing "Into Thin Air" on rock and ice ... this book answers that curiosity. Because Jon introduces his readers to the backgrounds and personalities of the main characters in his book, we can better comprehend the different reasons people spend thousands of dollars and two or more months of their lives in "hell" on a mountain - freezing and injured - 'just to get to the top'. We learn through Krakauer why they continue their ascent even though the conditions are pure torture and more life threatening with each step; why they don't give it up once they've lost feeling in their extremities, separated their ribs, lost their vision, can no longer breathe due to oxygen depleted air, why they don't turn back even when they see the dead who've attempted to reach the summit on prior expeditions. You'll understand because of Krakauer's talent as a writer ... his ability to replay his emotions, his thoughts, his experiences, and his opinions through writing.

You'll feel the frigid wind, the snow, the ice, the pain, the desperation, the sorrow, the regrets. The "if only's" will torture your soul just as they have and continue to torture Jon's.

He writes in such a way you will have no choice other than to join him on that mountain. You'll meet and get to know the members and guides of Rob Hall's team as well as Scott Fischer, his guides, and some of his team members whom you will respect even though you may not like. Unfortunately, not everyone on the mountain was a "good guy" ... you'll be livid thanks to the danger the teams encounter due to the inexperience, egos, arrogance, and ruthlessness of the few "bad apples".

For the survivors, Jon's book is an avenue in which fathers, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, and other loved ones are portrayed as the heroes they were. Although some of the deceased's relatives were upset with Krakauer, it will seem unjust because of the respectful way in which he depicts his fellow mountaineers and the Sherpas.

Page by Page Suspense, June 19, 2004
Even if you already know the story of the deadly Mt. Everest expeditions of 1996, you will appreciate Jon Krakauer's own first person account of the Adventure Consultants and the Mountain Madness groups. Both of these expeditions were led by well-seasoned Everest climbers---Rob Hall from New Zealand and Scott Fischer from the States--and had the aid of expert guides, Sherpas from Nepal and "outsiders". But we soon find that even these experienced people are not immune from the human frailties of greed, denial and self-serving. Those Achilles' heels will cause both expeditions to completely fall apart. At the same time, human error combined with the unforgiving terrors of high altitude climbing sets the scene for heroism in many of the climbers and crew.

Krakauer, a journalist who signed on with Hall's expedition to do a story for Outside magazine, doesn't disappoint as weaver of a tale. I took the book everywhere with me while reading it, always eager to find out what would happen next.

If a book that explores deftly our desire to reach an unreachable summit appeals to you....especially when that book does not shy away from the tragedy caused when the desire to reach it undoes common sense and humanity....I highly recommend "Into Thin Air."

How to tell the truth at 29,000 feet, November 20, 2007
By and large, the negative reviews posted here have little to do with the quality of this book and almost everything to do with the presumed character of the writer, Jon Krakauer. Similarly, those who dislike Krakauer's Into the Wild tend to focus their judgment of the book's worth on their own feelings regarding the essay's subject, Christopher McCandless, the young man who traveled the Western United States and Mexico for two years before perishing in Alaska. I read Krakauer differently. I am not interested in Krakauer's liberal politics, his emotional instability, and variable maturity. I am not interested in whether he portrays the absolute truth in his account of the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster for the simple fact that I don't believe the truth can be told. Writing is a very poor substitute for a frostbitten finger or a hypoxic head. All we have is Krakauer's writing, so let's look at what he does as a writer.

Krakauer is a sensationalist journalist, and since he reports on dangerous and near-death experiences regularly, he really can't help being grandiose and spectacular. The subject of his writing demands that he ratchet up the emotional power of his style and word choice. And let's be honest--don't we, as readers, demand it of him as well? Don't we want a voyeuristic and graphic account, where the size, the shape, and the smell of death seem to lift from the pages? Who wants to read about a mountain climbing disaster sans the emotion and the ego it takes to put one's self unnecessarily into such perilous situations?

Perhaps some readers want a quiet truth about what happened on the mountain, but this is to ask the impossible since every climber is guaranteed to have a different story and different perceptions of similar experiences--none of which are altogether true and none of which are altogether lies. And when he/she goes to tell about it, pieces of reality will inevitably be missed and left forgotten on the mountain. Emotions will well up and color an event with bias. Egos will peek from behind a boulder and whisper truths and nonsense.

No writer can make sense of all of that, but Krakauer has tried, and largely succeeded, to give the reader an idea of what it was like on Mt. Everest in late spring 1996. He may or may not have retraced every path exactly, but he acts as a good guide. He welcomes the reader to disagree with him and simultaneously makes a bold and convincing case. He admits a myriad of his own mistakes and points out the mistakes of others. I'm impressed mostly with the balanced feel of his account. For example, much is made of Krakauer's portrayal of Anatoli Boukreev's actions on the mountain. Those who read Krakauer as blaming Boukreev for the deaths of some climbers must not have closely read the many times Krakauer praises Boukreev's numerous heroic actions. By telling of both the shameful and heroic actions of Boukreev--all told from Krakauer's self-admitted hypoxic state--I find that Krakauer achieves a kind of truth about both Boukreev and himself.

In the end, for me, the book is about how truth changes states: It's solid and reliable when you start to climb Mt. Everest. And then you climb too high, and the truth becomes slippery and liquid; you're not quite sure and you're not quite in doubt. And then sometimes, the truth changes to a gas, a gyre of contradictions--the terrible beauty of chaos, which you'll never completely remember or entirely forget.

Thrilling and Unforgettable, August 7, 2000
I found Into Thin Air, as well as Krakauer's excellent Into the Wild, to be two of the most gripping, emotional, unforgettable reads of my life. Into Thin Air tells a fascinating story of hardship, tragedy, heroism and perhaps lack of respect for nature, and unlike virtually all books of the genre the author was there, suffering through the storm and watching his comrades fall. Sebastian Junger, in his compelling book The Perfect Storm, pieced together information to try and imagine what it was like on the Andrea Gail out in the North Atlantic. Krakauer was actually on the summit of Everest in May 1996, and he takes the reader on one helluva ride.

Most of you who have gotten this far in the reviews knows the basic premise. Krakauer was sent to Everest by Outside magazine to join New Zealand guide Ron Hall's expeedition in the spring of 1996. He was there to write an expose about how anyone who is reasonably in shape, has some (and not a lot) of climbing experience, and who can fork over more than $60,000 could be taken to the summit of Everest while Sherpas and yaks carried most of your supplies, cooked your meals, and carried you when you collapsed. One climber even brought an espresso machine. He also wanted to comment on how Everest has become a virtual junk yard, with empty oxygen cannisters strewn all over the face of the mountain.

What he found changed his life forever. Krakauer was caught up in a deadly storm, that appeared virtually "out of thin air", leaving members of his and other teams stranded on the summit and on Hillary Step (a ledge just below the summit) with little chance of making it down. The story is gripping, suspenseful and ultimately deeply moving. The reader may think humans, especially those with pregnant wives at home, have no business at the summit of Everest, but you cannot help being deeply moved as you read about Rob Hall talking to his wife on the other side of the world, via satellite phone, to discuss the name of their unborn child while Hall is stranded on the mountain. The book kept me up nights as few others ever have.

A point about the "feud" with Anatoli Boukreev is worth mentioning, since, in my opinion, this has been blown out of proportion by others. Krakauer recognizes that each climber has his own way of doing things, but he took some shots at the Mountain Madness expedition led by Scott Fischer, and at his guide Boukreev in particular, for climbing without supplemental oxygen and for descending ahead of the group's clients. I think he made some good points there. Boukreev was no doubt a great climber, and his death in an avalanche the next year makes the whole debate a little pointless, but I think a client if I were to fork over $60,000 I have the right to expect that the guide will be out on the mountain with me as I descend, not warming up in the hut drinking tea. Boukreev is credited by Krakauer with a heroic trip back up the mountain during a blizzard to reach Fischer, and he may have been told earlier by Fischer to descend (we'll never know for sure), but those tactics are surely open to debate. Some reviewers here on Amazon have taken personal shots at Krakauer's actions during the storm, but he was no paid guide, and he rightfully takes some blame himself in his book for abandoning Beck Weathers and for giving some false info to the family of one of his guides, Andy Harris that added to the confusion in those first days of the incident.

In any event, if you want to get caught up in the whole Krakauer v. Boukreev debate, be my guest - you can read both of their accounts of what happened on that fateful trip. For my money, Krakauer's account is the definitive, well-written story, which should at the very least be used as a starting point for anyone interested in the 1996 Everest tragedy. And for most people (like myself) with little or no interest in climbing, read Into Thin Air on its own as a gripping, unforgettable account of a very public tragedy which you will not soon forget.

Getting up is easy, the hard part is getting down, May 30, 2007
Jon Krakauer takes you for a front seat ride up the deadly slopes of Mount Everest, during the notoriously deadly expedition of May 1996. Barely escaping the mountain with his own life, journalist Krakauer remembers the team members and friends left on the mountain. Four out of eleven members died on the fatal mountain.

Inch by weary inch, step by shivering step, Krakauer takes us on his journey up Everest and introduces us to the members of his team. This book is so well written that you can feel the oxygen depravation and the cold, and are left feeling the personal loss of lives you come to know and care about as fully fleshed out people.

He brings to life the real concerns of guided ascents up Everest, the use of oxygen by guides, the inexperience of people who pay mega-bucks to be escorted to the world's highest peak, the state of mind that thin air brings to the human mind, and the accomplishments and follies of those who attempt such an extra-ordinary feat.

The book includes a map, eight pages of glossy black and white photos, some dark pictures leading into every chapter, blurbs from different publications that lead each chapter, a bibliography, and an extensive postscript answering some outstanding issues that arose in DeWalt's account of the same ascent called 'The Climb'.

This is one of the best non-fiction books I've read in a long time. The story is compelling and the telling is honest. Krakauer speaks of his survival guilt with open poignancy and candor. He passes over his own hardships and applauds the heroism of those who helped to save many of the stranded members of the climbing parties. He reports on bottlenecks high up on the mountain, particularly on the Hillary Step, that cause costly delays and could mean the difference between life and death at such altitudes. If you're looking for an exciting, heart pounding non-fiction read then look no further. I highly recommend this book. Enjoy!

ENGROSSING AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING, February 6, 2000
Jon Krakauer's narrative of the 1996 disaster on Mt. Everest is excellently written and extremely engrossing. Although the events are true, the book reads like a top action/adventure thriller, keeping us turning pages until the end. This is definitely a first-person account, though, and Krakauer makes sure the attention is centered on him, as he alternately extolls his virtues and reveals his faults. I felt extremely saddened when reading this book and I think we must look closely at how and why this tragedy happened. I cannot help but fault, in part, the two guides, Hall and Fischer. Both were experienced climbers and both had previously been on Everest. As guides, these men were running a business for profit and were desirous of satisfied customers--that meant making the summit. But these two men had also accepted the responsibility of caring for their clients' safety, as well as for the safety of those in expeditions not their own. The fact that they ignored self-imposed turn-around times simply cannot be forgiven. Ultimately, however, each person must take responsibility for his or her own actions. Technically, Everest is an easy climb, but the physical demands are enormous. The bulk of climbers were untrained, unfamiliar with their equipment, and simply not in the top physical condition needed to withstand the rigors of high-altitude climbing, a fact of which they certainly must have been aware. And if they weren't, then certainly Hall and Fischer were. Many of the previous reviewers have faulted the climbers for turning their backs on Beck Wethers and Yasuko Namba, but once you have actually engaged in high-altitude climbing, as I have done, you know Everest is not the place to become your brother's keeper. No one should have died and had Hall and Fischer turned around, as they should have, in all probability no one would have. Into Thin Air is a fascinating tale and one that poses many thought-provoking questions each man and woman must answer, not only on Everest, but in the course of his or her day-to-day life.

Riveting - But Tread Cautiously Through It, May 13, 2005
This account ignited a long distilled passion for the mountains, and renewed interest in the Outdoors. Krakauer (the name itself conjures up courage and strength)writes with immediacy and more important, from firsthand experience. He's a hardcore adventurer, he's lived it, and is one of those rare, original people able to express what is often inexplicable. This book was easy to read in one or two sittings, and tremendously compelling (leading me to read Into The Wild and other books related to the 1996 Everest incidents).

I was also one of those chagrined to discover, after having loved and being incredibly excited by this book, that for all its accuracy, there are some areas that should not be read without circumspection. Although the book mostly avoids The Blame Game, it lapses into this once focus moves to the Head Climber of Mountain Madness, the heroic but inarticulate Boukreev. Krakauer's facts are interspersed with some opinions, and a few of these opinions, especially those of Boukreev (who died in 1997, in an avalanche on Annapurna 1, instead of remaining in America to receive one of the highest awards for mountaineering bravery) - some of these opinions are distasteful.

While I am merely a reader, and I respect and admire the talents of these men in the mountains a great deal, I do wonder what prompted Krakauer to pursue his character assissination of Boukreev. Krakauer has dogged determination in his writing as much as he does in his climbing, but also a stubbornness, and in writing Into Thin Air (which he did incredibly quickly after the fact) seems to strive to be seen as the one and only leading authority, acknowledging that it is not perfect, but nevertheless the complete'the best'and total story of that 1996 climb. This is unfortunate, because Krakauer himself was on the mountain, and his own perceptions were not 100%. He does succeed in communicating his experience with profundity. He fails though, in a few of his many interpretations, including of some of his own mishaps, and thus, has opened the door to a raging debate on 'what really happened', including, for example, what happened to Andy Harris, his encounter on the Kangshung Face, and important conversations he was not privy to close to the summit.

His 'Postscript' response to The Climb goes to great lengths, and like the rest of the book, turns out to be well worded, but does not hide what eventually are borne out to be a few inaccuracies (inadequacies?). His experience on Everest is not his best mountaineering experience (he was at one point assisted by 2 guides), and Boukreev fared far far better. Actions, should at the end of such events, speak louder than Krakauer's (or anyone else's) words, and Boukreev's actions do. Krakauer's behaviour on that day was quite limited by comparison.

Krakauer needs to be more gracious to a man who helped insure the safety of every one of the members on his team (all but the leader survived,) with no permanent damage, while 4 members of Krakauer's team died, and at least one survivor had severe and permanent damage. The idea should not be to blame people in mountains, when things go wrong, but to recognise the right things that happen that save lives.

Krakauer's own account of his meeting with Beck Weathers also differs from Weather's own version. Krakauer actually resisted Weather's desperate plea for assistance, although Krakauer paints a more gracious picture of himself in his story. The point though, is not to point fingers, and Boukreev puts it perfectly when he says 'each is responsible for his own ambition' on the mountain. Thus, others should not be blamed when things go wrong, but hopefully, will have the wherwithal to respond in these extreme circumstances. The reality in the Death Zone is one person who breaks down, slows down, and needs assistance causes a domino effect, it leads to an exponential increase in the risks to the lives of others, as valuable resources of energy and oxygen and time get used up.

We live in world of soundbites, of show, and of course the 1996 Incident has been written about, and made into a television show.

Into Thin Air powerfully communicates the meaning and drama of that high world. It's most important defects though, are not recognising the astonishing courage of a man who stood up through the storm that day while it seemed everyone else, including the sherpas, whimpered in their tents. Few understand what happened, and Into Thin Air sadly perpetuates that mystification as far as it communicates Broukeev's role. Read The Climb after Into Thin Air, for more perspective. It's equally engrossing, well written, but a far more genuine account.

Impossible to put down!, June 5, 2003
Perhaps timing is everything, but don't tell that to Jon Krakauer, an outdoors writer and mountain climber who was offered the opportunity of a lifetime to climb Mount Everest; only to find himself in the middle of the most notable catastrophe to ever strike the mountain. With the 50th anniversary of the successful assent by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, there is renewed interest in Chomolungma (the Tibetan name for the mountain. Previous to the second half of the twentieth century, Everest was a forbidden monolith that crushed anyone who attempted to scale it's heights. But with it's invincibility shattered by Hillary and Norgay, Everest began to shed some of it's mystery, and bit by bit, the appearance (but just the appearance) of it's lethality. By the 90's, the primary requisite for a summit attempt was a bank account large enough to pay for an experienced guide. New problems like the litter of discarded oxygen canisters became a threat to the mountain, as the climbing ranks swelled with serious amateurs anxious to achieve various ego firsts like "first woman over 60," "first Lithuanian" to summit Everest, along with the highest mountains on each of the continents.

Outside magazine sent Krakauer on an expedition with Rob Hall, one of the most experienced of the new crop of guides, whose business it was to get climbers to the summit. Even with modern equipment and climbing techniques that's still a daunting task, not for the faint of heart or the expanded of waistline. However the professional mountaineers of Hillary's generation were being followed on Hall's expedition by a postal employee, a New York socialite and others. They were joined on the mountain by various teams, some so inexperienced as to be comical. Among the other teams was one led by Scott Fisher, another guide that was making a name for his ability to get people to the top and in a bit of braggadocio had even claimed that he had "found a golden staircase to the summit."

Krakauer outlines all of the minutia regarding preparation and execution of an Everest climb. You can almost find yourself wheezing as he describes what existence is like above the elevation that is known as the Death Zone. And he recounts in harrowing detail the storm that hit while Hall and Fisher's teams were near or below the summit, and the efforts of the others to rescue them. I had mixed feelings when I read of the final conversation between Rob Hall, as he sat helpless and dying on the mountain, and his pregnant wife back in New Zealand. Here is a man and woman exchanging their final words, both fully aware of his fate, and yet we mortals who will likely never be tested in this way are privy to his private thoughts and her quiet despair.

Moving from the role of dispassionate observer, into a deeper role of survivor, Krakauer anguishes over what he could have done differently, of the mistakes he believes he made and how he will ever reconcile his grief. Yes, he stood on the summit. Yes, he survived and returned home. But he has no satisfaction about conquering the mountain. And he questions why anyone else would even attempt it.

Seeking a state of grace, July 21, 2008
I remember the spring of 1996 and the Everest disasters very well. I was stuck in traffic when a writer named Jon Krakauer was briefly interviewed on NPR when he first returned as one of the survivors of a deadly climb. I had never given mountaineering or Everest much thought but the drama, and especially Krakauer's traumatized voice, inspired a curiosity I've only now actually pursued by reading this book.

If you have ever been at a popular tourist spot when several buses pulled up and disgorged different tours, you have the picture of what mountaineering on Everest had become by 1996. The golden era of exploration and mountaineering on Everest was over. Commercial expeditions charging $65,000 a head would take up clients who could pay, not necessarily those who were vetted mountaineers. Base Camp was a cross between a vanity fair and a scout jubilee. Krakauer, a practiced climber who was commissioned by Outside Magazine to write about the experience, had signed on with an ethical and highly skilled outfit. There was, to the climbers, little warning that anything could go wrong. Across the next several weeks, the climbers moved slowly up the mountain, becoming acclimated. Perhaps the first clue of the reality of Everest was encountering dead bodies from previous years that had simply been left behind. The 1996 groups kept going. The ravages of altitude sickness, the increasing consumption of oxygen canisters, and the physical punishment should have been more flags. The day scheduled for achieving the summit became a train wreck of bad choices, rejection of basic guidelines such as turn around times, altitude sickness, and the surprise of a subzero storm that suddenly grabbed the top of the world with hurricane force. The scramble for survival meant, in some cases, abandoning people for dead on the mountain, people who had become comrades on the ropes. Krakauer documents incredible stories of heroism and survival, as well as the death toll and permanent physical injuries incurred by some.

Krakauer is an astonishing writer who does a good job of sorting out a confusing series of events. Realizing the limitations of one person's memory in the midst of a traumatic experience that has bequeathed a sense of guilt, he went back and interviewed other survivors to get at the truth. Although he never imposes overarching themes on the narrative, his story illustrates classic conflicts as humans are seen tempting mortality on the grandest scale on earth. The more they push their human capacities, the more the mountain seems determined to push the climbers down into their very flawed human place. In the end, this is not so much a tour of a mountain as it is an exploration of humanity. There are a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks pointing fingers at those who survived, and some are pointed weakly at Krakauer, but I found this to be very evenly handled.
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Editorial Review

Reviews

A Post 9-11 Travelogue Through Afghanistan, June 10, 2006
Mr. Stewart has written an entertaining account of his walk across Afghanistan in 2002. The country was in shambles, the Taliban had just fallen and the Twin Towers had fallen a few months ago. As a nation, Afghanistan doesn't exist -- just a collection of warlords ruling their fiefdoms and encroaching each other's territories. So Mr. Stewart enters the county from Iran without a visa as if he was climbing Mount Everest -- because it was there.

The author is a superb storyteller and once the book has started, the reader will not be able to put it down. His writing style is conversational, as if he just arrived home and is telling you of his recent adventures. Why Harvest Books did not put this book out in hardback is beyond me. The reader should be aware that his next travel book "The Prince of the Marshes," will be out in August, 2006 where Mr. Stewart decided to move on to a less dangerous country than Afghanistan -- he went to Iraq.

Understated Humor with Sadness at the Core, June 25, 2006
Writing with the understated humor in the best of Magnus Mills' novels (Restraint of Beasts, All Quiet on the Orient Express), Stewart accounts his long, arduous trek on foot through the brutal landscape of Afghanistan. Thought to be a spy, he is often accompanied by mysterious "guards" hired by the new government to supervise Stewart's meanderings. The conflict between Stewart and these guards provides much of the book's humor. But then about a third into the book, Stewart is offered a dog, a huge bear-like creature who is described as wise and weary. The dog, whom Stewart names "Babur," has been abused and neglected all his life and Stewart adopts him and determines to take Babur with him back to Scotland. For me, Stewart's tender relationship with the endearing dog Babur is the heart of the book. It will make you weep. This storyline alone makes the book worth reading. Of course, this book is much more than a man meets dog story. It is a firsthand account of the grotequeries that seethe within a country in a state of violent upheaval.

THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR JOURNEY MR STEWART, November 25, 2006
"Someone in Kabul told me a crazy Scotsman walked from Herat to Kabul right after the fall of the Taliban"

Thanks for the book. For it was indeed a journey of great spirit and determination. Mr. Stewart was well prepared for this trip with vitamins and various medications he knew would be necessary to successfully complete this challenge; ibuprofen, antibiotics, just name it and he had it; sharing with the villagers he met on his way when they saw what he had and begged him.

Well written, well told. I was truly impressed with how hospitable the people of Afghanistan were; those whom he encountered and offered him rest and meals and at times water to wash with, at their various humble abodes where he was invited to stay for the night. Even through they understood little English, Mr. Stewart was able to communicate to them by speaking Persian. I love reading about anything in the Eastern and Asian side of the world, so I was with him all the way. I felt like I was alongside him as he climbed those steep slopes and when he walked on the flat valleys. I drank tea with Mr. Stewart from glass cups, ate stale bread with him and soup, and enjoyed the rest at the end of the day, sleeping on a carpet or just on the floor.

The attention given to him was enormous as he persevered onwards. My main concern was just before he got to Kabul when he had to travel through the deep powdery snow which was known to cause frostbite, making it necessary to amputate limbs for some in the past. I held my breath as he and his dog companion Babur made it out of the snow covered mountains, and alas into another bright day. God bless you Rory Stewart. I will soon be starting Prince of the Marshes, which sounds like another winner; but to those of you out there looking for a Christmas gift or other, buy The Places In Between first, for you won't be disappointed. An excellent gift, especially for travellers!!!
Reviewed by Heather Marshall Negahdar (SUGAR-CANE 25/11/06)

Humanistic Profile of Afghanistan with an Adventurer's Spirit and an Anthropologist's Eye, June 17, 2006
Walking across central Asia without ruminating at length about the political and military crossfire would seem like an odd diversionary tactic by a writer any less assured than Rory Stewart. However, the Scottish author manages to evoke a powerful sense of what Afghanistan was like during his arduous, often moving trek through the wartorn country in 2002. Unlike Chris Ayres' humorous adventure of being embedded with the troops in Iraq in his blistering account, "War Reporting for Cowards", the then-29-year old Stewart is more straightforward with a true adventurer's spirit and an anthropologist's eye, as he set out on his own with his wooden staff through the central mountain range to Kabul. His immersion into the country was obviously aided incalculably by his fluency in Dari, which is the Afghan dialect of Persian, and his in-depth knowledge of the cultural custom and history of the country.

There is not a whit of romanticism in the author's vision, as he shares his experiences with people who have been grouped categorically by the news media with the hard-line Taliban. The most impressive aspect of the book is his ability to provide unique, almost idiosyncratic personalities to everyone he meets from the warlord Ismail Khan to his three Afghan traveling partners to a gregarious village headman to a war-beaten dog who becomes Stewart's constant companion. He names him Babur after the 16th-century Muslim emperor who traveled across Afghanistan to found the Mughal dynasty of India. Carrying the emperor's autobiography, the author draws compelling parallels with his own experiences and describes the Afghan people with becalming respect and admiration even if the ongoing threat of violence has hardened some of their sensibilities.

In a somewhat lighter vein, Stewart provides helpful travel tips for anyone who finds themselves in a fear-based Muslim nation, for example, assessing the likelihood of open land being mined if one sees sheep droppings, or the art of slicing a donkey's nostrils to allow easier breathing for the animal. Almost gratefully, he remains relatively agnostic when it comes to the U.S.-led invasion or the ongoing Iraqi conflict, but he cannot help but vent of some of his frustrations at the bureaucracy that has compromised efforts toward redevelopment. This is an insightful and eminently readable profile of a country whose true spirit has been hidden ironically by the excessive media coverage of the military-based carnage.

Mr. Rory's travelogue is a window to Afghan history, and an accurate depiction of its people, January 1, 2007
This book is essentially a travelogue of Rory Stewart's walk across most of Afghanistan, from Herat (near the Iranian border) and Kabul in early 2002, immediately after the fall of the Taliban.

I spent a year deployed in Afghanistan with the US Army, working daily with a battalion of Afghan National Army soldiers. While I didn't visit all same the places Mr. Stewart did, I could see some of his story within my own. We patrolled all over northeastern Afghanistan, meeting many Afghan leaders along the way and visiting sites of cultural signifigance. I found Rory's description of Afghan customs and culture to be spot-on with my own experiences.

However, I was more impressed by the knowledge the author clearly has of Afghanistan and southern Asia. This is by no means a history book. Mr. Stewart does not beat you over the head with his knowledge of history. Rather, it comes out in glimpes and glances in the form of topical references and tangents. As a student of history, I found these to be gems pepppered throughout the text. If only there was a text as readable as this on Afghan history; I'd love to read it.

My only complaint with the book would be that I feel some understanding of Afghanistan is necessary as a prerequisite to get maximum enjoyment from this book. Nonetheles, that would not stop me from recommending this book to anyone with an interest in Afghanistan or in traveling in troubled parts of the world. His style is easy to follow, self-effacing, yet intellectually stimulating.

Audio and book versions, January 9, 2007
The book was first published as a hardcover by Picador in England on 4 June 2004 (ISBN 0330486330). A second revised edition was published as a paperback in England on 1 April 2005 (ISBN 0330486349). On May 8 2006 a further revised American paperback edition was published by Harvest Books (ISBN 0156031566). An audio recording was made in 2006 narrated by Rory Stewart while he was in Kabul and published by Recorded Books (ISBN 1428116702) based on the Harvest Books edition. I believe all three books have seen slight improvements with each new edition.

The audibook version is highly recommend as a supplement to the text. It is narrated by Rory (from a studio in Kabul) and his pronunciations of Afghan names and places are priceless, as well as his overall character and tone.

Comments: Scottish author and historian Stewart walked across some of the most difficult mountain terrain in Afghanistan in the early winter months of 2002 right after 9/11 (and lived to tell about it). He saw a land of contrasts: a culture based on feudal-like systems living in mud huts -- but with modern weapons and vehicles. Villages were people never traveled more than a few miles from home their whole life -- but had seen international forces from the USSR, USA, NATO and elsewhere pass through. People who were one step away from starvation willingly giving food to a passing stranger -- then shooting at him for sport and fun the next.

Afghanistan has always been resistant to understanding, but Rory, by traveling and living with the mountain tribe people who account for most of the countries population, comes as close as any to pulling back the curtain and revealing the character of the country in their own words and actions. A classic of travel literature, anthropology.

Travels with Babur..., January 11, 2007
... in search of Afghanistan. Stewart's odyssey, and description thereof, through the heart of Afghanistan is utterly amazing. What prompts a 30-something-year-old man to undertake such a journey by himself? Unfortunately, the reader never quite figures out why he is doing this. Wanderlust? Insatiable curiosity about a war-torn nation? Hatred of Scottish winters? Who knows. But, fortunately, there is so much else to like about this book that that hole does not diminish the overall effect. Stewart describes a nation, a people, and an existence that is hard for most Western readers to understand. The book has a several emotional peaks, including Stewart's description of the amazing Jam minaret, the sadness over what has been lost with the Taliban's destruction of the Bamiyan buddhas, two or three quite dangerous encounters within small villages, and, finally, a sad and ironic ending. Stewart is a wonderful, descriptive author. This book would have merited a fifth star had Stewart turned some of that observance on himself and described what motivated him to take this astounding trip.

An incredible journey..., July 1, 2007
I wanted to read more about Afghanistan after reading a number of books about this country, so I picked up Rory Stewart's The Places In Between. This is an incredible tale about his journey, walking across Afghanistan from Herat to Kabul in 2002.

Afghanistan was not Stewart's first journey on foot. The amazing part of his trek is not that he traveled between these two cities, but that he did it through the mountains during the winter. In this respect, he was traveling in the footsteps of the Emperor Babur of Mughal India, from whose journals he liberally quotes. Stewart wanted to stay away from "roads. Journalists, aid workers and tourists." The sights that he saw were not much different from what Babur saw in the 1500s. The other reason Stewart chose to walk through Afghanistan is that he considered it the "missing section of my walk, the place in between the deserts and the Himalayas, between Persian, Hellenic, and Hindu culture, between Islam and Buddhism, between mystical and militant Islam. I wanted to see where these cultures merged into one another and touched the global world."

During Stewart's journey, he depended on the generosity of strangers to provide him with food and shelter. Most of them lived a very poor existence with homes made of mud bricks, with dirt floors and no electricity or running water. Many times, food was simply tea and bread. But throughout, Stewart heard their fascinating stories. Many of them fought the Russians, the Taliban, or each other. He was also able to discover how so many civilizations converged in this beautiful but desolate country along what were the Spice Road and the Silk Road.

Stewart took a drawing pad with him, and The Places In Between is filled with interesting drawings of the places he visited, the people he met and some of the objects he saw. It is also filled with photographs of his travels as well as maps of each leg of his journey. Many people thought that Rory Stewart was bold, brave, and/or downright crazy to make this trip. But for whatever reason, his readers are richer for his efforts.

A tale only a well-educated brave idiot could write, March 6, 2007
When I first heard of this book I thought that walking across Afghanistan was one of the most dangerous ways of travel I could think of. After reading the book, I discovered I was entirely correct.

Due to the author's bravery/stupidity an amazing book appears. I found his writing to be rich, descriptive, but balanced. The people of Afghanistan are not irrational Islamic terrorists, but neither are they a helpful, friendly, and trustworthy bunch, who always look out for the needs of a stranger.

While the author meets his share of noble people, he also runs into thieves, liars, and thugs. He includes enough historical context to make the story relevant while still keeping the book a travel work at its core. The author is a talented observer with a gift for clear, but engaging prose. I am glad he wrote this book, since I felt as if I made the journey, without every having to walk an inch into Afghanistan

Further Perspective on Afghanistan, January 22, 2007
I picked up this book after reading "The Kite Runner," which gave an interesting perspective on Taliban-Afghanistan. This is written by a Scot who walked from Herat to Kabul post-9/11. This is a great read, and gives you a perspective on Afghanistan that most articles/books have not given. The geographical center of this nation is very poor and very un-educated, and sadly does not really understand their own history. Afghanistan is a country that is divided by many different factions and histories, and will be a country that will be very difficuly to unite. Within this look at this country is a story of a somewhat-crazy Scot who is essentially doing the unthinkable. Mr. Stewart makes this read enjoyable with his humor and his unbreakable courage that gets him through this trip. I suggest this read 100%. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Lonely Planet is the expert on India. Our 13th edition eases you through the spicy diversity of India - from the thrilling bustle of Delhi's bazaars, to the laid-back beaches of Goa, the serene beauty of Himalayan Sikkim, and the majesty of Jaisalmer's ancient fort.

Lonely Planet guides are written by experts who get to the heart of every destination they visit. This fully updated edition is packed with accurate, practical and honest advice, designed to give you the information you need to make the most of your trip.

In This Guide:

Bonus activities chapter detailing camel treks, watersports and yoga
Tasty color feature reveals the best local food
Festive special section on India's most magical celebrations
... Read more

Reviews

Doesn't make India sound too great!, December 29, 2001
I just returned from a month in India, traveling with both the Lonely Planet (9th ed.) and Rough Guide (3rd ed.) If you are considering a long trip across the breadth of India, I would strongly suggest taking BOTH books. The Lonely Planet is great for practical details (train times, phone numbers, etc.) but spends too much space reviewing individual restaurants and hotels. Even though the book tops out over 1000 pages, the sections devoted to actually explaining the sights and the wonderful culture and history of India are very short.

In contrast, the Rough Guide spends much more space discussing the background and culture of individual locations, and is packed with lots of interesting details not found in the Lonely Planet. The RG spends less space on restaurant/hotel reviews, which was perfectly fine - I'd rather know more about the places I'm visiting than worry how much chicken shahjani costs at some particular restaurant.

The tone and approach of the books are different too - the RG takes a much more optimistic, romantic view of India, while the LP is often so terse and cynical that it doesn't really inspire you to visit many wonderful places.

Get the LP for the listings. Get the RG to appreciate the beauty of India.

Best guidebook, even for experienced India travelers, November 28, 2001
When Lonely Planet India first appeared in 1981, it raised the standard for all India guidebooks in the comprehensiveness of locations covered and the detailed information useful to independent travelers, especially those on lower budgets. Twenty years later, it remains the guidebook I personally rely upon most, despite my familiarity with India from extensive travels since 1980 researching my historical novels such as India Treasures. I first learned about that wonderful nonprofit home-stay organization Servas from a Lonely Planet guide, which led to many of our best experiences in India, including lasting friendships. Although my wife and I aren't backpackers, and we're probably mid-range in terms of the amount we spend on accommodations and food, the book is extremely helpful. It's the most up to date and highly detailed regarding such information as transportation options within India, the scams travelers can encounter, and a wealth of other tips too numerous to get into in a brief review.

Given the India guidebook's thickness and weight, I've found it convenient to cut it into sections and only take the parts with me for the regions I plan to visit. It's still desirable to get supplemental maps for any city or region one plans to spend much time in, as the maps in the book are usually pretty minimal in terms of detail. And other guidebooks do indeed have useful information this one doesn't (browse the travel shelves in your favorite bookstore to find the additional guides most suitable for your own interests and style of travel). I also advocate reading the better novels set in India, to experience insights into daily life that guidebooks can only hint at.

No single guidebook on India can be all things to all persons for all occasions, but this one surely comes the closest, especially for travelers who don't have their arrangements taken care of on organized tours.

AS MUCH ABOUT TOURISM IN INDIA AS CAN BE PACKED INTO A BOOK, July 23, 2006
It is almost a crime to try to fit a great country such as India into a one volume guidebook. However, being such the understandable proposition -- tourists are unlikely to want to carry many guides -- this guidebook does a very nice job of putting it all together.

There are very interesting historical section which are often deeper than what one would get from a local tourist guide. It covers all the major attractions (at least in the places I visited) and gives the tourist a good idea about the culture, history and socio-economic conditions of the places being visited. The list of hotels, restaurants and places to go out at night is quite current, as of July 2006.

It is the only guidebook I used in India, so I cannot compare, but this is quite a good guide that is unlikely to let you down.

Good basic introduction to India, March 17, 2005
Having grown up in India I thought I could wing it when we went for an extended stay in India. We were going to be living in Bombay, now called Mumbai...a city that I had never lived in, but had visited briefly 15 years ago. But, once we landed in India and started exploring Bombay, we got suggestions and opinions from various people. Some of these suggestions were good, and some not so good. It was then that I decided to reach out and buy a copy of Lonely Planet India. (I believe India was the first country Lonely Planet people wrote about.)

I had previously used Lonely Guide editions to different countries, and found their guide books very useful. I thought their book on India might help me in discovering Bombay and other parts of India.

After having used the book for a while, I have mixed opinions about the book. I think the mixed opinion stems from two reasons: one India is too vast a country for one book to capture everything, and two having grown up in India my expectations maybe a little bit more demanding of the book.

The strength of the book is that it provides a good basic introduction to the country, and a broad overview of the history and culture along with a laundry lists of do and don'ts that are very useful things to remember. For instance, they do an excellent job of providing information on various modes of transportation and how to reach your destination.

With referfence to Bombay the book provides a good thumbnail sketch of the city and some good basic information on what to do, where to eat etc etc. However, the information provided on the city is confined mostly to the southern tip (referred to as "town" by the local denizens) of this vast sprawling city. They miss out on some interesting things about other parts of Bombay, and the new eating joints etc etc. What they have failed to capture is the changing and dynamic nature to Bombay.

I would recommend this book to those who are visiting India for the first time. If you need more information you might want to buy a couple of travel magazines that are available in news stands or pick up any one of those handy travel brochures. And if you have any friends who have travelled to India do ask them for suggestions.

the hippie's bible for India, September 2, 1999
It's both amazing and pathetic how many rucksack travelers to India follow every word of this book as if it were some holy scripture. So many travelers spend their all of their time with their noses in this book, trying to fill every last moment following each and every step recommended by the book. In the meantime, all too often, they fail to experience India itself. Such devotion to a travel guide is a bizarre phenomenon. Without a doubt, this book is an indispensible guide for those who truly need assistance in knowing on which Bombay street corner they should tie their shoe laces. There's too much chit chat and lame humour in this book (although, granted, it evidently appeals to some). To the book's credit, there are some nice city layouts and state maps. However, for travelers who prefer information without all of the weak attempts at humor and for those who prefer to make their own opinions rather than to blindly follow someone else's words, I would wholeheartedly recommend Robert Bradnock's India Handbook. I've traveled India with both books, and clearly Bradnock's is, in my opinion, the superior of the two.

An excellent accomplishment, heavy but well worth it, July 30, 2002
This edition of "Lonely Planet India" is better than the previous one, which was very very good itself. Despite the immensity of India and the numberless topics and regions that therefore have to be covered, the authors have done an excellent job indeed. Some weaknesses are inevitable, and this is perhaps why this is not one of LP's masterpieces, but it is indeed inevitable for travel guidebooks to be the better, the smaller the region they cover - this is why this book should perhaps be complemented with the individual LP guides to different Indian regions. But in itself, this book does cover most of what a visitor will need or want to know. And in a place that is chaotic and tough for foreigners like India, this may indeed be an essential tool for the less experienced travellers. The coverage of places to stay and eat is absolutely excellent, not just for the major cities but also for minor towns and sites (the authors would indeed seem to have been on every single square foot of land in India !). The section on permits and other legal matters is of immense value to anyone, and well up-to-date. And of course, the sections and special chapters on history, culture, religion, are extremely well written, great for the traveller and the armchair reader alike. Even though the best discoveries are those a traveller will make herself / himself, this guidebook is surely a great tool and help in anyone's discovery of this wonderful land. All in all, a masterpiece despite its limitations. A weakness is of course that things being as they are in India, information is subject to change, and some may have become out-of-date by the time this book was printed. But this is of course inevitable, and it simply means that - as in any country - a traveller should not rely on only a guidebook, but make a considerable effort to grasp as much as possible of current circumstances on her / his own.

A very good collection of information, June 22, 1999
I happen to be an Indian and bought this book to have a better idea of my country.I am impressed by the coverage of the book. It covers a lot of ground and the collection of maps is really good... from the Golconda Fort to Kanyakumari city.

There is the element of humour in the writings.... makes it all the more interesting.

As others have written, prices change.. esp in a country like India. The hotel rates etc. have risen. Be aware of that fact.

A great buy.

No one guide has it all...., September 20, 2003
One should never rely on just one source for a major adventure, as any trip to India is, and this very complete guide is no exception. This guide has excellent information on the history, culture and people of India, and the color section on Sacred India is a nice touch. It has lots of very practical information on what to bring, what you can and can't photograph, what to read before you go, how to avoid "cultural misunderstandings." It's helpful for preparing people for the assault Westerners often experience--ask for directions and you have a friend/guide for life, often accompanied by a very aggressive demand for money. The health and safety information is also pretty good--except that they say that tap water in cities is OK to drink--ignore this advice! I find this guide limited in its retaurant and hotel selections, especially if you're not a low-budget or student traveller. Also, information changes constantly--internet cafes spring up and close overnight, new restaurants and hotels open up every day, and the political situation bears watching up until the day you leave. And of course no guide book has really good maps. But why limit yourself--the internet is chock full of information on this wonderful, confusing, fascinating country!

It's not about the book., December 10, 2006
A couple months ago I decided to go travelling. I wasn't really sure where to, I just needed a change. In the end I decided on India, because I've never been, and I'd always heard what a great place it was to go.

I didn't take much; a backpack, some clothes, and the Lonely Planet Guide to India. To be honest, I didn't even start reading it until I got on the plane. What I discovered was that it wasn't just something you read once, it's something to have with you the whole time.

Whatever your plans, the chances are you're going to lose your way or make mistakes or just change your mind, and that's where this book is essential. It's like The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy - no matter what need you're in, it has an answer for you. Maps, essential sites, local customs, everything you need to get by in this incredible country.

At first, I wasn't sure if I could manage by myself. You realise how much you rely on other people for so much. I found myself retreating, thinking about home, wanting to go back. But then I'd pick up the Lonely Planet, and find something to do, somewhere to go. And soon I was relying on it less and less, and after a while, hardly at all. Before I knew it, I'd been gone two months and hadn't thought about home in weeks. The book isn't India, it's a way in.

Over the course of my time away, the only thing I came back with that I took with me was this book; everything else I left behind; I realised in the end nothing else really mattered.

madam ,everything is possible in India..., March 23, 2006
Although we found this guide book very helpful for trains, buses and places to go to, We've been to many places where the book only lists the big hotels and not the nice and cozy guest houses We've eventually found on our own. Many travelers that We've met on the road were looking for the same thing: nice guest houses and not big huge hotels.Also there are fast changes in India that Lonely planet should be informed about. We did for some of these changes but it was ignored. This new one did not have any of the changes we wrote to them about. ... Read more

Editorial Review

A century ago, outsiders saw China as a place where nothing ever changes. Today the country has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. In Oracle Bones, Peter Hessler explores the human side of China's transformation, viewing modern-day China and its growing links to the Western world through the lives of a handful of ordinary people. In a narrative that gracefully moves between the ancient and the present, the East and the West, Hessler captures the soul of a country that is undergoing a momentous change before our eyes.

Reviews

Don't miss this book., August 6, 2007
Having read and enjoyed Hessler's first book, and because I am an ESOL teacher, I looked forward to receiving this one. Since I am not a history buff, the book provided me a good overview of the past of an emerging world power without ever becoming tedious with names and dates. The ancient past is covered, and the major eras of the twentieth century are presented from different points of view, so that a feel for the lives of modern Chinese people emerges without "studying" the main events which shaped their lives. The description (above, by the publisher) of the book is totally apt; it weaves past and present with stories of interesting, ordinary people, including one who emigrates to the U.S. I read many books and have a high literary standard. Hessler meets it. He is an informed, well-researched story-teller with a true artist's eye and ear. His attention to detail delights. While he does not aim for poetry, he writes with a graceful precision that is almost poetic. I found every part of this book fascinating. One caveat: nothing here is wasted, so pay attention to each character; the reappearances of many characters give the book rare depth and fullness. You may be disappointed only if you have already studied China extensively; I am fairly well-informed in general but wanted to learn more about this country. Oracle Bones provided both information and insight. I found it to be one of the most satisfying books I have ever read in any category.

A brilliant commentary on modern China, November 4, 2007
Nothing particular in Peter Hessler's middle-American Missouri background particularly fits him to be a brilliant commentator on modern China. In college at Princeton and later at Oxford he studied English and creative writing, focusing largely on fiction. His first contact with China was a trans-Siberian train trip in 1994, which ignited an interest in travel writing. When he arrived in the Yangtze River town of Fuling two years later as a volunteer English teacher for the Peace Corps, he spoke no Chinese. By the time Oracle Bones was published in 2006, Hessler, who has lived in Beijing since leaving the Peace Corps, had become an accomplished Chinese speaker with a wide-ranging knowledge of both traditional and modern Chinese society. And yes, he is a brilliant commentator on modern China. This book picks up where his first book, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (P.S.), leaves off.

Oracle Bones is loosely built around a trio of narrative themes that spin out independently: the lives of several of his students after they leave school and enter the Chinese workforce; the struggle of his Uighur friend Polat, a Muslim dissident, to succeed first in Beijing and then in the United States; and his research into the life of Chen Mengjia, an oracle bone scholar who committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution.

Hessler's life in China is organized loosely around clipping articles for the Wall Street Journal, writing news and features for the Boston Globe, and writing articles for the New Yorker, in all three cases about China. The cost of living is so low in Beijing compared to the US that he has plenty of money to travel around the country visiting former students, camping out at the Great Wall (and getting arrested in the process), journeying in Xinjiang, the home territory of the Uighur Muslim minority, flying to Taiwan to visit a retired professor who studied oracle bones with Chen Mengjia during the Kuomintang period, and even visiting the set of a Chinese Western movie on the north rim of the Tarim Basin, at the edge of the Flaming Mountains. Periodically Hessler flies back to the States to visit family and later his Uighur friend Polat who is living in Washington, DC after receiving asylum from the US government.

The book follows several recurrent themes related to the study of modern China, notably, the changes in Chinese society since Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening, particularly the migration of young people from the countryside to overnight factory cities such as Shenzhen (in the Pearl River area) and the growing gap between the perspectives of the young and the old. In Hessler's narrative we see educated young people abandoning families and traditional lifestyles for the more lucrative, faster-paced life of the new cities. Among middle-aged people Hessler finds the ghosts of the Rightist denunciations of the 50s and the Cultural Revolution of the 60s lurking just beneath the surface. The very old recall traditional China in the unstable years under the Kuomintang.

It's my hope that Peter Hessler will continue his Chinese narrative in another, yet-unwritten book. The Chinese story is changing yearly now, and Hessler's perceptive eyes and ears are recording all of it. I eagerly await his next installment.

Another instant classic from a masterful author, December 31, 2007
You've read my review of his first book. (Or not...) Six years later, here's another, and he remains one of my role models as an author and as a person. He's back in China, as a freelance journalist rather than a teacher this time, and that's every bit as illegal as it sounds. The man was born to write, and would be doing so no matter where he lived or what he did there. Yet again, he's met some extremely interesting people and told their stories well. He was able to travel among cities and villages, rich and poor, Han and minority. The book spans three years, plus two additional years of research, and you'll see just as much technological and infrastructure progress in the book as I did in my time in China. Two more years for publication, and that's just fine. I'm a recent NaNoWriMo winner -- my first time trying -- but I know that truly great literature takes a bit longer. Like me, Hessler is drawn to Uyghurs, outsiders, small towns, and Muslim food in China. But again, that doesn't matter. You'll care about anything he writes, because that's part of his gift. Humor, insight, intelligence, honesty, and that rare ability to touch both your heart and your mind. Some fascinating tales from China's past, many of which were new to me, give it a timeless quality as well. I don't want him to write faster, because that can't be done. I want more authors to aspire to this level of quality, because I read them much faster than Hessler writes them. Five stars out of five, another keeper, and all the other superlatives I roll out on rare and special occasions. I'm glad I didn't wait for the paperback. I'm not so glad it sat on my bookshelf unread for so long, because this could've been my second or third reading instead of my first.

Lacks the Empathy and Intimacy of River Town, May 5, 2006
In 2001, Peter Hessler introduced us to the Yangtze River town of Fuling. Hessler had traveled there in the mid-1990's as one of the first Peace Corps volunteers admitted to China, and he arrived naive, wide-eyed, uneducated about Chinese language and culture, and generally lost. In his first book, RIVER TOWN, he recounted his two years teaching English at a small college to young people studying to be English teachers in China. Hessler led us through his cultural awakening to Chinese life, academic bureaucracy and the constant infusion of Communist Party ideology, and the awakening of his students' lives to adulthood and the possibilities of the outside world. As Hessler jogs around the countryside (only foreigners jog in China) and gradually learns to read and speak Chinese language, he opens the world of interior China to his readers. By all accounts, RIVER TOWN is a master work, a personal and intimate account of both the author's education as well as that of his students, made all the more poignant by the fact that most of Hessler's Fuling is now underwater thanks to the enormous reservoir that rose behind the gates of the Three Gorges Dam.

Now comes ORACLE BONES. No longer the starry-eyed China neophyte, Hessler has graduated to the grimy world of journalism. Whether serving as an aricle clipper in Beijing for the New York Times, freelancing for the Boston Globe or Wall Street Journal or National Geographic, or penning feature stories for The New Yorker, Hessler is now on the endless prowl for "the sellable angle." As he travels the country looking for stories about the Rape of Nanking, the entrepreneurial success of Wenzhou businessmen, the money-trading Uighurs of Xinjiang Province, or the death of Beijing hutongs, he accumulates contacts and disparate story lines, bits and pieces of the old and new China. Along the way, external events impinge on his life and on China - the accidental American bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, 9/11, the airplane incident over Hainan Island -- but they pass like snowfalls, leaving only a general impression of a winter.

Without much to connect these stories, Hessler zeroes in on the discovery and study of oracle bones, bits of turtle shell discovered in Anyang that represent some of China's earliest written language and may also provide insight into one of China's early but little understood dynasties, the Shang. A series of interludes that Hessler labels "Artifacts" tell the story of the oracle bones: their discovery, their removal to Taiwan by Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang, and their study and analysis by (mostly) Chinese scholars, many of whom suffered unfortunate and even tragic repercussions during the Cultural Revolution as a result of their work and their positions with respect to Chinese history and language.

Unfortunately, the end result simply doesn't work very well. ORACLE BONES alternates between personal stories of four of his former Fuling students' young adult lives (including a married couple with the remarkable adopted English names William Jefferson Foster and Nancy Drew), featurettes about a Uighur emigrant to America named Polat, the Chinese movie star Jiang Wen, and the Changchun Corn Industry Development Zone, brief riffs on external and political events, and, of course, the archaeological and socio-anthropological story of the oracle bones. At its best, the book traces the lives of Hessler's former students as they struggle to find their place in the Chinese economy. Their stories are touching and informative, but regrettably underdrawn. At the other end of the scale, the discourses on Chinese language structures and the politics of traditional versus simplified Chinese characters are likely to be a tedious slog for all but the most die-hard Sinophiles. In between, bits and pieces of the story are intriguing and even colorful; Hessler's story of Jiang Wen, for example, is fascinating and well told.

Still, the whole is less than the sum of its 458 pages of parts. ORACLE BONES feels as scattered as a field of artifacts; Hessler's own insecurities about this may have been inadvertently revealed in the Index, where names like Emily and Nancy Drew are followed by the explanatory note "(author's former student)." Remarkably, the author's own name is not only included in the Index (a first in my experience), but it is actually followed by "(author)," as if we (or he) might not be sure. Worse, like all artifacts and human remains, almost everything feels distant and cold and dead. It is hardly surprising that the New York Times chose the famed China historian Jonathan Spence to review this book - it is as much a history book as a contemporary description of China.

Hessler's writing is professionally reportorial but (with the exception of his former students' voices) detached, lacking the warmth and intimacy that Hessler so beautifully demonstrated in RIVER TOWN. Perhaps it is a consequence of Hessler's own experiences - no longer the China neophyte fascinated by everything he sees and learns, now it's all just business. One would hope that Mr. Hessler will return to his "China roots" in Fuling, tracing the arc of his former students's lives and the new Fuling that had to be rebuilt on higher ground. That story, and the web of wanderings and travels and experiences that would go with it, would tell a far warmer and more evocative story of where China is going today and tomorrow.

Beautifully drawn, May 6, 2006
This is a deeply engaging book about China. The title refers to the objects, animal shell and bone, that bear tiny inscriptions that count as the oldest record of writing in Asia, and as China's most ancient history.They are shards, really, offering small clues to what life was like more than 3,000 years ago. They are all that remain, the only artifacts that did not disintegrate over time, as bamboo, wood and paper inevitably did.

Listening attentively to archaeologists who weigh these oracle bones, Peter Hessler then conveys their sense of wonder and lets it inform his own exploration of contemporary China. In fact, Hessler uses archaeology as scaffolding for this adroit narrative. The search for clues, the buried nature of history, the attempts by rulers to instill order, the chaos that actually reigns are the dynamics of life in China today, just as they have been for centuries.

Hessler quotes a historian who wrote that although China has "a far longer past than the West ... the past and history are not the same thing. Here in China's past there was no narrative but only stories." Hessler clearly agrees. And he goes beyond the usual ways of evaluating so complex a culture. Instead, his focus wanders intelligently and settles into corners of China that we don't ordinarily read about. He writes with quiet power, which glues stories into a coherent whole. He sifts the morass of China's society and winnows it to the stories that resonate.

If "River Town" was a compelling account of his experience teaching English in a small city in central Sichuan province, in "Oracle Bones," he expands his horizon, mulling China's past as he examines its present. He hangs out with a money changer from Xinjiang, and his portrayal of their friendship is a gutsy way to open the book. He travels the country as a freelance writer, visiting archaeological sites for National Geographic. He keeps in touch with former students, whose tales are starkly revealing. He works for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing, clipping news stories about China from other newspapers and living in a back alley where Westerners usually cannot stay legally. Residency rules, like so much else in China, are in flux.

China's emerging economic power has prompted many Western writers to employ fantastical or alarmist views of the country as a gold mine or a fire-breathing dragon, neither of them realistic. Hessler's writing is refreshingly free of breathless superlatives. He admits being a lousy deadline journalist, preferring to look past the daily trivia that makes headlines for the deeper phenomena and to make note of the accidental nature of history."The past is under construction," Hessler writes. "It lies under houses, beneath highways, below building sites. Usually it reappears by chance - somebody digs, something turns up. In the end, luck discovers most artifacts in China."

His narrative is littered with intriguing observations and answers to his incisive questions. Tea drinking, for instance, is often assumed to be as old as China itself. Yet Hessler discovers that Chinese people thought of tea as a drink for barbarians until the Tang Dynasty. Hessler reveals little about himself. He seems to thrive on what he calls the "floating life" of a writer, observing contemporary China with detachment. The power of his storytelling would be even stronger if his own personality emerged in it. Yet Hessler has achieved something quite special in "Oracle Bones," conveying the idiosyncrasies of China in a way that makes its people palpably human and distinctly memorable.

A terrific view of China from a point of view of a yanguezhi, July 23, 2006
It is a bit disconcerting for a person of Chinese descent to learn about himself and his culture from a yanguezhi (foreign devil). Yet this is exactly what happened when I read Oracle Bones.

This is an extremely fine book, full of subtle observations and exquisite narratives of matters great and small. Like Pankaj Mishra's An End to Suffering, Peter Hessler attempts many things in this moveable feast. This is a travel journal, a small peek at how Hessler was able to parlay a stint in the Peace Corp teaching English in China to a freelance gig writing for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and The New Yorker. Mostly this is a expansive look and humanistic rumination on how the globalization of the free market has touched the lives of common people of China, as exemplified by a number of Hessler's English students. Hessler used the story of his Uighur friend Polat to give us a view of every day street life in Beijing as well as the life of an oppressed asylum seeker in the US.

This style can easily become clumsy and ponderous, but Hessler does a masterful job of keeping the narrative interesting and colorful enough to lead the reader along through the turbulence of the serial form without losing each of the intricate interweaving threads.

The key to Hessler's success with this form is his usage of the archeological history of the Oracle Bones in China as the rhythm section to his narrative. Much like a steady drum beat in a good song, the rhythm soon overtakes much of the decorative accompaniment and dominates the song. The story of the archeology serves as a solid counterpoint for Hessler's riffing on globalization, on the ever-changing business environment in China, and on the peculiar yet inscrutable reactions of the Chinese government to all these changes. As the story evolves, the story of the Oracle Bones and the scholar who deciphered them comes around to dominate the narrative. The story wends itself around all the previous threads and makes the juxtaposing lines of inquiry reasonable. The story of the scholar, his wife, his family, and his wife's family, and his various colleagues - friends or foe- is transcendental in its universality. The latter part of the book, majority of which is devoted to the story of the Oracle Bone scholar has the impact of a fine mystery novel and it gives the reader the punch in the gut that one rarely gets when reading a travelogue or a book of history, or an autobiographical portrait.

This book was thoroughly enjoyable; it was concomitantly informative and soothing to the soul. The writing was superb, rhythmic, and transformational in its structure and meaning.

Endearing portrait of the impact of China's changes on her people, November 14, 2007
China is undergoing an unprecedented (in scale), historic, monumental transformation as the country sloughs off the shackles of communism and various failed political ideological witch hunts, and focuses instead on modernizing and industrializing, to raise hundreds of millions of people out of the poverty of subsistence farming. Reading the newspapers in the United States, one catches only the briefest glimpses of what is really happening and what it means to people inside and outside China. And if one pays attention to the words of the top politicians of the U.S. and China, and the key political issues that the two countries tussle over, one is likely to completely miss the true nature of China's transformation.

In "Oracle Bones", Peter Hessler has done a remarkable job capturing and communicating the impact of China's changes on her people, in an endearing, highly readable narrative. Hessler focuses on a few individuals from "the masses", rather than "the elites": a money changer/trader, a few teachers, factory workers, a taxi driver, plus some archeologists and others working to understand and preserve China's past. The stories of what these people experience as China undergoes its latest transformation (as well as prior ones) put China's changes into a human context, and explain in emotional and personal terms what could never be adequately captured by a list of statistics. Occasionally the words or actions of the political leaders intrude into the stories, and one gets a strong sense of just how disconnected the leaders are from day-to-day life. China's latest transformation, while initiated by a few key actions from the top leaders, is truly an all-encompassing grass roots change in behavior, attitudes and values.

Hessler has a great vantage point to bring these stories of average Chinese folks to English readers. He speaks Chinese, and taught English in China for two years (an experience captured in his previous book, "River Town"). For the years that Oracle Bones covers, he was primarily a free-lance writer based in Beijing and traveling throughout the country. With few attachments to other people or institutions, he is free to pursue his stories wherever they take him. He practices longitudinal narrative fiction, meaning that he follows the storyline of various people over a multi-year period. Interwoven with the present day stories are stories about various historical artifacts, sites and the people exploring them, which convey the high degree of importance the Chinese place on their history and culture.

I highly recommend "Oracle Bones" to anyone interested in learning about the impact that China's present-day changes are having on the people of that country.

Excellent take on history, May 3, 2006

Oracle Bones is an exciting and interesting narrative approach to history.

Instead of dragging us through centuries of kings, emperors, and battles, the author tells us stories of individual people, their struggles and triumphs. We know what kinds of food they eat, beer they drink, languages they speak, and what kinds of jobs they might have. From within the context of their city and circumstances, we are then shown the greater sweep of history - the deeper history of their region. From their individual circumstance, we then move out to the long and complex Chinese history backdrop from which they emerge.

Unlike some other Chinese scholars that I have read whose work is weighted down by unreadable academic writing, this author can tell a story with informed authority. He is a terrific writer that has the rare ability to weave history and story within the same narrative.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in world history and contemporary world culture.

A disappointment after "River Town", June 1, 2006
Oracle Bones retains many of the ingredients that made Hessler's earlier work "River Town" such a success: the effortless prose, the dry humour, the incisive mind, the kind heart. But in Oracle bones, Hessler struggles with structure.

Hessler uses the story of one man (a scholar of ancient Chinese inscriptions) as the line on which to peg recycled research for articles that Hessler has published elsewhere, along with progress reports on his former students. Late in the day, the author appears to recognise the awkwardness of this contrivance; but by then he is into his penultimate chapter and well past the point of no return:

"It's all connected: menus and bootlegs, history and movies, language and archaeology. Texts create meaning, regardless of how arbitrary the process may seem."

Few will dislike Oracle Bones (though I suspect many will skip some of the interwoven chapters about Chen Menjia; you can have too much of a good thing). But whereas River Town is still fresh in my mind a couple of years after reading it, much of Oracle Bones will have faded in a couple of weeks. What will remain, though, are the flashes of dry humour. These even carry into the author's Acknowledgments: "John DeFrancis gave me excellent guidance.... I've never known another ninety-four-year-old who responds so quickly to e-mails about morphemes".

Hessler doubtless has the self-awareness to recognise that Oracle Bones shows him going a little stale in his present environment. Let's hope he finds renewed vigour in pastures new.

The Warp & Weft of Chinese and Uighur Lives, April 7, 2008
It's refreshing to find a book on China by a journalist with some knowledge of and, even better, an interest in really learning about sinological matters. Since the end of the Cultural Revolution, Western journalists have written their books on China: at first largely from the perspective of being the rare Westerner in a newly opened up China, and then over time with increasing emphasis on his or her observations of China's political and economic situation--invariably in the context of the reporter's personal experiences in China.

ORACLE BONES, too, is personal, not that we get to know Peter Hessler very well (though a "Postscript" titled "Meet Peter Hessler" presents a short autobiographical sketch), but in the sense that we experience China through his "I"s. Unlike many earlier books by journalists, though, there isn't much focus on leadership politics here; instead the warp of the fabric of this book is perspectives on Chinese (and Uighur) culture and history.

If that is the warp, the weft principally follows the story of Chen Mengjia, a renowned scholar of "oracle bones" (scapulae and tortoise shells inscribed with writing and used in divination practices a few thousand years ago). Chen Mengjia was branded a rightist in the late 1950s, and he subsequently committed suicide at the onset of the Cultural Revolution. In the course of Hessler's journeys--not all related to Chen--the writer learns pieces of Chen's story (only a little of which is consistent) and a whole lot more about 20th century Chinese and Western sinological history. It's refreshing to find Hessler's views so well informed; you'll find nothing here, for instance, about the so-called Chinese "ideograph" that sullies so many books that refer to the Chinese writing system.

Hessler, now a Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker magazine, was once a Peace Corps volunteer English teacher in China, an experience that he describes in his earlier book, RIVER TOWN. He devotes a good part of this book weaving in descriptions of his encounters with his former students and of their post-education lives. Hessler also discusses the life of a Uighur that he befriends in China, and who subsequently travels to the U.S. and successfully seeks asylum. In these stories, Hessler doesn't flinch from the terrible realities of Communist China, and they are often brutal; at the same time, though, the U.S. (specifically, Washington, D.C.) doesn't get off easily in the depiction of the everyday difficulties that confront Hessler's Uighur friend, including racism and robbery.

Hessler's style gives the appearance of effortlessness when you just know how much work must have gone into the book. His keen observations often express subtle truths, such as when he comments, "There is always something sad about furniture in a museum" (p. 384) and his empathy conveys genuineness, e.g., when he confronts a scholar with a personal criticism of Chen Mengjia that the now old man felt forced to write when he was a youth (p. 390). You want to continue hanging out with Hessler and see what more he learns. It's a disappointment then when, even at some 450-plus pages, the book quietly ends.
... Read more

Editorial Review

DK Eyewitness Travel's full-color guidebooks to hundreds of destinations around the world truly show you what others only tell you. They have become renowned for their visual excellence, which includes unparalleled photography, 3-D mapping, and specially commissioned cutaway illustrations.

DK Eyewitness Travel Guides are the only guides that work equally well for inspiration, as a planning tool, a practical resource while traveling, and a keepsake following any trip.

Each guide is packed with the up-to-date, reliable destination information every traveler needs, including extensive hotel and restaurant listings, themed itineraries, lush photography, and numerous maps. ... Read more

Reviews

Good intro guide, October 14, 2006
I used two tour books to plan my trip to China: Eyewitness for the general details of the itinerary, and Lonely Planet for the logistical details. The Eyewitness guide has a massive amount of beautiful photographs and illustrations that help give the traveler an idea of the sights he or she can choose from, which is very important--unless you have a year or so to spare, planning a trip to China is as much about choosing what NOT to see as it is choosing what to see. I could also see this being the perfect guide for the more casual traveler; someone in a tour group or someone accompanying a designated "navigator."

That being said, if you are traveling solo (that is, not in a tour group or other organized group of some kind) you will also want to have a more "details-heavy" guide such as the Lonely Planet, which is full of details Eyewitness does not have, including bilingual maps and place names, as well as more and deeper descriptions of sightseeing locations, hotels, restaurants, and nightlife.

All tour books have their strengths and weaknesses, and although the lesser amount of logistical details is the main drawback of Eyewitness China, the large number of helpful photos and illustrations is its main strength. Although solo travelers will need a little more than this, for the casual or group traveler this guide alone would probably be more than enough to enjoy your trip to the Middle Kingdom.

good guide book, recommended over Lonely Planet, November 28, 2006
This is actually my fourth DK guide book. Prior to DK Eyewitness China, I've used Eyewitness Great Britain, Eyewitness London, and Eyewitness Paris on my previous backpacking/business trips. Never had any problems with any of the aforementioned titles. So this year, my wife and I decided to use the DK Eyewitness China for our 3.5 week vacation in the Middle Kingdom. We have also brought a copy of Lonely Planet, figuring it would give us more information over the image-intensive DK guide. The decision to bring along the Lonely Planet guide turned out to be a mistake and an extra pound or two that we didn't really need in our suitcase. The few times we attempted to use the Lonely Planet guide for information on various cities, we found exactly none of the information we needed. Instead, we got an earful of ramblings intended for college backpacking kids. DK guide, on the other hand, provided very easy to use maps and no-nonsense information. If you're exploring a major site, DK's 3d pictorial coverage is especially helpful in term of quickly orienting yourself. Sure, this book doesn't cover everything. Frankly, overall, Lonely Planet probably does offer more information - if you have the patience to read through all the horrible writings to get to the point. But if you want a highly usable and well-designed tour book that's lean and mean, this one is for you. Recommended.

4.5 Stars... Great introductory guide, April 8, 2007
In preparing for a recent business trip to China (my first time going there), I asked one of my (Chinese national) colleagues for a few suggested books that provide a good overview of China, both from the historical perspective as well as the "touristy" perspective, and this is the book that was recommended to me.

I've had "China (Eyewitness Travel Guides)" (672 pages) for a couple of months, and found it fascinating reading but really didn't want to judge it until I had a chance to put it to the test while traveling in China. Well, I am here to tell you that the book performed great from that perspective as well. But before we get to that, let me point out that the first 70 pages of the book, providing a general overview and a summary of China's 5000 year history are nothing short of essential, and one of the things that set this book apart from many other China travel guides.

The real test of the book came for me when I was in some of the not so obvious places on my trip. Yes, we all have heard about and know some things of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, but what about places like Xi'An (in Shaanxi Province) and Xiamen (in Fujian Province), which I happened to visit. The information provided by this book is just excellent, and helped me prepare, both mentally and otherwise, for my trip. I agree that the "Where to Stay" and "Where to Eat" sections in the back of the book are not the best parts of the book, and frankly I did not use them for my trip, although I did find the practical tips such as "Do's and Don'ts of Eating Etiquette" quite helpful. Not only does this book make a great travel guide, but it is on top of that available here on Amazon for 40% off of the book's cover price. You can't go wrong with this.

Good eyewitness guide, January 18, 2007
I am a graduate student in US but came from China. This book has a lot of vivid pictures and illustrations. I bought this book because I want to know what China is from the point of view of the US tourists. Although I had been in China for 27 years before I came to US, I only visited limited places that the book covered. I think this book is very nice and interesting because it contains some personal experiences of the author(s). However, in the first chapter, I still found some misunderstandings or incorrect information about marriage of people from 1949 to 1980's. Anyway, these are not related to eyewitness guide to travel. But as a travel guide, it is great!

Unexpectedly the perfect guide book for planning a trip, April 10, 2007
I've been a devoted fan of Let's Go (back in the 80's), transitioned to Lonely Planet (the 90's) and experimented with Rough Guides and Moon books for all my world travels. I shunned the glossy photo-rich books as being too short on valuable content and too heavy and thick to carry. But after reading all the site reviews, I bought this along with Rough Guide (also highly praised), and wow, I am a total convert. I am actually halfway through reading it cover-to-cover, and the photos are invaluable in helping us decide where to spend our free time in China. You won't be disappointed.

great, August 1, 2006
The book has a little heft to it (as in weight not dialogue) but the photos and insightful captions make it worth the carrying. It is more an intro guide than a map for an experienced Asian traveler. Much more an introduction and overview of the biggie tourist attrations (w/good pictures and great basic synopsis)than a treasure map to some hole in the wall establishment or practical contact information for reservations. It offers a great addition to any scrapbook. We took it on a group excurision and ended up passing it around to several others who showed great interest in browsing the pages and ultimately lent it to a couple of travalers who spent weeks following this text's advice for their day trips.

Excellent China Travel Resource, January 9, 2007
This guide proved to be an excellent resource for our trip to mainland China (Dec, 06). As a first-time traveler, I appreciated the tips on customs, eating, bathroom facilities, tipping, etc. The street guide for Beijing was extremely useful. The history section and timeline were interesting reading on the flight home. Our son, who is living in Yunnan Province, used to guide to plan some future trips of his own.

The best we got, October 10, 2005
Although China is one of the most popular destination today, amazingly there is very little good reference book about it.
This is one of the good one; a continuing great series of DK.
However, perhaps because China is so large, each province only have a small coverage about them. Won't satisfy the thirst of a comprehensive information on China.

Useful book, but kind of outdated!, August 23, 2005
This is a book trying to fit 5,000 years of history. It succeeds in doing that and gives every first timers a lot of details about the places they are visiting. However, the pictures they use cannot compare with other DK series books, they are old (some from the 70s) and therefore not showing the real country as it is now.
So get your camera and go to see it yourself.

EYE WITNESS TRAVEL GUIDES, January 9, 2007
DK Publishing produces one of the very best travel guides: Best paper, best directions, photography, maps, etc. The only minus is that they are heavy to carry with you when trekking around the world. But that is what you have to endure for high quality. And I always have mine with me.

Also, their specialized editions on music, art, etc. are also great! ... Read more

Editorial Review

In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the complex processes of understanding that take place when one is immersed in a radically different society.

Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.

Reviews

Thoughtful account of an American's life in China, March 26, 2003
In his concluding remarks of River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, Peter Hessler points us to the nub of his experience in China:

"I had never had any idealistic illusions about my Peace Corps 'service' in China; I wasn't there to save anybody or leave an indelible mark on the town. If anything, I was glad that during my two years in Fuling I hadn't built anything, or organized anything, or made any great changes to the place. I had been a teacher, and in my spare time I had tried to learn as much as possible about the city and its people. That was the extent of my work, and I was comfortable with those roles and I recognized their limitations."

In fall 1996, Peter Hessler, at the age of 26, took a Peace Corps assignment that relocated him to a small town in the Sichuan province of China. Many natives let alone a young American who made his inaugural entrance into the country did not know and hear of Fuling. It's a former coal-mining town that is bounded by the Yangtze and the Wu. Chongqing and the Three Gorges are just hours away by boats. The book chronicles, in a rather casual but detailed way, Peter's teaching experience at the Fuling Education College and his life and anecdotes in town. Interwoven into Peter's diary are descriptions of local landmarks and customs. This book is by far the most passionate and yet accurate and objective account written any foreigners. Peter really does possess a keen sense of his surroundings. Throughout his crisp, interesting prose and attention to details, the Chinese 'laobaixing' (common people) become alive as if we are actually interacting with them.

I am in awe of how far Peter has gone in making meticulous observations of the Chinese culture and its people. A lot of what he mentions in this book is often overlooked by foreigners. To cite some examples:

1)Cultural shock: Wherever Peter goes in town, he often gathers a crowd looking dagger at him, saying 'hello', calling name and following him. To his surprises later on, he realizes the town has never had a foreign visitor for at least 50 years. It is a mixed bag of xenophobia and curiosity for foreigners. No soon than Peter arrived in town than he realized that foreigners are usually treated differently in daily necessities and accommodation. Certain inns were forbidden to accommodate foreigners due to the untidiness. Foreigners often had to pay a higher fare for the steamboats.

2)Teaching style: Learning Chinese was excruciatingly painful for Peter (and for many Americans I'm sure). The Mandarin comes with 4 intonations and the thousands of characters have complicated strokes and dots. Suffice it to say that the slightest mispronunciation or missing a stroke in writing will reap a harsh admonishment from Peter's native Chinese teacher. 'Budui' is the devil word meaning 'wrong'. As Peter has pointed out, the Chinese teaching style is significantly different from the western methods. If a student is wrong, she needed to be corrected (or rebuked) immediately without any quibbling or softening. It is the very strict standard that motivates Peter to determinedly show his teacher he is 'dui' (right). His bitter encounter with the Chinese way enables him to finally relate to his Chinese-American peers, who go to school and become accustomed to the American system of gentle correction. But the Chinese parents expect more-unless you get straight A's, you haven't achieved anything yet! Hey, I can relate to this Peter!

3)Hong Kong handover: Little did I know about how the mainland Chinese made such a big deal about the turn-of-the-century event in 1997 until I read Peter's account. His students have been drilled on the shamefulness of history, of how the Britain defeated the Chinese in Opium War, of how China was coerced to cease the fragrant city for 150 years. I knew about how the Chinese (especially the Party leaders) awaited the moment when the five-star red flag ascend to full staff in Hong Kong but shamefulness? The magnitude of the colony's return to motherland simply overwhelmed Peter (and myself): the handover lapel pin, the handover umbrella, and the handover rubber flip-flops!

4)Chinese collectivism: This is something that not only amazes but also puzzles me and Peter has nailed it to the root. The Chinese people are often nonchalant, indifferent, and apathetic to politics, crisis or crimes. Well, according to Peter, 'as long as a pickpocket [or whatever] did not affect you personally, or affect somebody in your family, it was not your business.' So this is the usual Chinese mind-my-own-business attitude. This attitude is so implanted inveterately into the Chinese due to decades of isolation (from media and geography) and political control. I think Peter really brings it home. The consequence is a strictly standardized education system, common beliefs among the people, common reactions toward political issues, and an unchallenging submission to authority.

River Town is indeed one of the best books I've ever read for years. Peter is not only an on-looking 'waiguoren' (foreigner) but he has found his identity among the Chinese. He befriended the owner of the restaurant and his family. He established daily and weekly routines which include newspaper reading at the teahouse and chatting with the teahouse 'xiaojie' (girls), hiking up to the mountaintop, visiting the vendors at a local park, and hanging out with his students after class. During the summer vacation, he took an excursion to the Great Wall in Shanxi and Urmuqi in Xinjiang. The prose is vivid, crisp, and gripping. I really appreciate how he approaches the people and culture with an honesty-to have gone so far as some of the moments of candor become unpleasant. This is a page-turner, the kind of book that you don't want to end so soon. 5.0 stars.

From a Chinese point of view, February 12, 2001
Humane and observant. I was thoroughly impressed by the author's willingness to share his life with the ordinary Chinese, for I know it is difficult to do.

Exactly because of that, many of his poignant remarks and analyses did not bother me at all. In fact, I envy him, for I cannot observe in the same way as he did, simply because I am a Chinese. I know he is so right on the numbness of the people who could quickly gather into a crowd over any stanger's suffering, so right about the linguistic violence to women done by the Chinese language, and so right about the senseless macho baijiu culture among men. I could have made the remarks, too, but I know they would lack the same sad humaneness. I do not have his detachment and therefore his penetrativeness.

There was a haunting scene of Father Li's conversing in Latin with the author's own father, while the author was standing by and watching. Like the book itself, this scene shows that any barrier between peoples and men is either false or self-imposed or downright intellectual sloth. I really respect Peter Hessler!

An honest, engaging, amusing portrait of contemporary China, September 20, 2002
Modern China is a place ripe with ironies, and among the greatest of them is them is that the Chinese have no sense of irony. It takes an understanding outsider to appreciate these ironic idiosyncracies that Chinese themselves are so oblivious to, and a gifted and sensative writer to portray them without resorting to caricature or mockery.

River Town is the most honest and insightful portrayal I have read of China in the late 1990s. Although it takes a small town in Sichuan as its focus, most of Hessler's astute observations are applicable to the rest the country, from metropolis to village. The book is not so much a travelogue as a 'socialogue'.

Personally, having lived elsewhere in China during the same periods that the book describes in Fuling, I found myself nodding in agreement throughout the book, and laughing aloud in many a section. Hessler's characterizations, both of China and of how a Westerner changes after a few years in China, are dead on.

River Town is the best book available for getting a sense of what China is like, on the most basic level, and explains why we who live here simultaneously love and despise the place. If you are an old China Hand, you will love this book. If you are a total novice to the subject, you couldn't find a more accurate and enjoyable introduction.

Excellent book! Funny, accurate, even-handed., February 19, 2001
River Town is the best book I've read about China in a _long_ _long_ time. Having lived and traveled extensively in China, I can say that Hessler's descriptions are wonderfully accurate -- not only does he explain the physical features of the countryside well, he shows the complexity of being a _yangguizi_ in China, and how one's "foreign-ness" colors all of one's experiences.

Hessler's self-mocking tone when he talks with locals about cheating foreigners, his interactions with _xiaojie_, and his students (especially Mo's last name) are hilariously accurate. His dealings with authority and China's past are insightful and balanced.

I strongly recommend this book - those who have been to China will be flooded with memories, and those who haven't will learn about an important part of China from a perspective that is rarely seen.

Very engrossing...the best book I've read in awhile, February 20, 2002
As a young Chinese-American who has traveled in China, River Town has quickly become one of my favorite books. Peter Hessler is both thoughtful and descriptive of his experiences as a PCV in China. I especially loved the parts of the book in which he talked about his students...he really brings them to life. It's easy to see that they changed his life as much as he impacted theirs.

I also found Hessler's acclimation to his environment particularly fascinating. His reactions to new and sometimes delicate cultural situations reflects his laidback attitude, but is also telling of how willing he was to be apart of Fuling culture and society. He is also brutally honest, even with his own shortcomings in the face of his new experiences.

It's true, he does come to the book with a Westerner's perspective, but then again, what do you expect? His love for China, however, and his willingness to engage the people in Fuling...to take on a Chinese identity, speaks louder than any detached political analysis could. He simply writes about his reflections, and I appreciate the honesty.

I plan to give this book to all my friends who have moved to and travelled in China. It's definitely one of the best books I have read in a loooong time.

River Town, January 21, 2001
This book was an incredible eye-opener about Chinese culture. A sprinkling of wit binds together a string of vignettes which lay bare the society of this remote, interior, Chinese city. Hessler's personality rings through the pages as he draws you into his world and his experiences.

This is a must read for anyone who wants to travel in Asia or who wishes to understand the role that China will have in the coming century.

Simply a fabulous book.

A Rare Perspective, February 6, 2002
This is not an easy book to discuss because it does so many things so well. On the surface, it is the story of a young Peace Corps volunteer, named Peter Hessler, who goes to China to teach English literature to college students. The town where the college is located is known as Fuling. It is in the remote province of Sichuan along the Yangtze River. Hessler and his partner, Admam Meier, are the first foreigners to be seen in the town in 50 years. This alone would make Hessler's situation a little unusual, but the fact that both he and Meier immediately begin to question and indirectly challenge the roles they have been assigned, means that Hessler's experiences develop into real adventures.

Hessler's first year in Fuling is characterized by culture shock, disillusionment and a stubborn refusal to give up on his goal of learning to read and speak Chinese. He is shocked by the brainwashing of his students, by their intelligence and insightfulness when they are dealing with subjects that they don't have preprogrammed responses to. He struggles with the isolation imposed on him by the rest of the faculty, and begins to make forays into the hills just to get away from the regemented college routine, pollution and crowding.

In his second year, his Chinese improves and he begins to make friends in Fuling. He is still frustrated by attempts to control what he teaches, still struggles to understand his students' behavior, but he has begun to find his way in this strange new land. He makes friends with two of the professors, is befriended by a family in town and by a few of the people who have stopped to talk with him. On his breaks he travels to other parts of China. He hikes back into the hills for a second year and talks to the farmers.

But for all his understanding and insight, Hessler is never really happy in Fuling. His health is poor, he is disturbed by events at the school, by the fact that all his mail is opened before he receives it, by the political climate of the town and most especially by an alarming encounter with a group of angry townspeople. This last incident seems to crystallize many things for him, and he is ready to leave as the last few weeks of his term come to an end.

What makes this book special is Hessler's ability to capture the essence of Fuling - its sights, smells, people and overall character- and his willingness to share his inner process. We are there with him during drinking matches sponsored by the head of the English Department, and are introduced to each of his students. We watch as he struggles to understand their responses, and feel his frustation as he struggles with Chinese. Likewise we can see and smell the food at his favorite noodles shop, applaude his victory in a local cross country race and know his feelngs of anger and helplessness when he learns that one of his students has died.

If you have ever wondered what is is like to live in a foreign country, to try to cope with a culture that is radically different from your own; if you have wondered about China and its people, then this is a wonderful place to start your exploration. When you put down River Town you will feel that you have been there too.

The rewards and frustrations of trying to understand China, June 27, 2001
Peter Hessler's "River Town" ranks among my favorite three books about China, the other two being Mark Salzman's "Iron and Silk" and Simon Winchester's "The River at the Center of the World".

More than the other two books, "River Town" is the story of a love-hate relationship with China. In my experience, this is the mode of existence that is predominant among expatriates in this country. What is quite unusual about Peter Hessler is the determination with which he tries to see China through Chinese eyes (quite unlike W. Somerset Maugham in "On a Chinese Screen"). He learns the language, he travels hard-seater, takes the slow-boats on the Yangtze, goes hiking among the rice fields, talks with the locals. He takes note of what he sees, and he takes notes. Lots of notes. They become the basis for the abundance of details about everyday life in the city and the college where he teaches.

The book is an impressive document of Hessler's love for the country, and at the same time, beneath the armor of his love, there is the anger and frustration he feels about not being accepted as the well-meaning, open-minded individual that he is (almost like a missionary whose good intentions are not valued). He works admirably hard at understanding the people, the culture, and the land, but the majority of Chinese do not change their idea of who he is, and very few change their behavior towards him. His frustration at being treated as a wai guo ren (the summary term for a person from a foreign country), as opposed to being treated as an individual, is palpable.

I am confident that this book will find readers years from now. For the time being it provides the most comprehensive picture of city life in the rural hinterland of a country in transition. Hessler has witnessed a very traditional China that is about to disappear in the process of the economic modernization, just like parts of the river town are about to be submerged in the lake created by the Three Gorges Dam. He is not sentimental about the old customs and traditions, but there is a whiff of nostalgia and a sense of loss in his book.

River Town is a memoir with an ambition to be more. It is not as original, crisp and witty as Salzman's memoir, and not as erudite as Winchester's travel book. Its ambition is to be poetic and realistic at the same time. Poetic in its depiction of the land, realistic when describing life in Fuling. This makes for a somewhat uneven mixture, and I think the book would have gained if Hessler had kept his talent for poetic evocation apart from his talent for reporting. He is very good at both, no doubt. My feeling was simply that the book would have been even better, albeit shorter, if he had concentrated on just one of his strengths.

River Town has the potential to become a classic China memoir. Peter Hessler is a gifted observer, and a person who has great empathy with the Chinese people. He is someone who tries to understand the country from the bottom up. Very admirable.

A Review of River Town, Two Years on the Yangtze., May 17, 2005
During his two years spent as a volunteer teacher at the Fuling Teachers College, Peter Hessler learns much about modern Chinese culture. He takes the Chinese name He Wei, and immerses himself in the local Fuling culture as much as possible. He keeps and open mind while observing every day life around him while keeping a detailed journal which he later uses to write and publish River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze in 2001.

It is hard to imagine a place like Fuling, a remote town in the Sichuan province of China. It is amazing how different it is compared to the suburban America that surrounds us. The experience Hessler describes often sounds like something that could have occurred decades ago, not something that happened within the last ten years. This contemporaneous nature of the novel makes it all the more intriguing.

Fuling is a place where no American had been for over fifty years until Peter Hessler and Adam Meier arrived in 1996 as Peace Corps volunteers. It is also a place where the term Peace Corps has such a negative connotation that it was changed to U.S.-China Friendship Volunteers.

When Hessler first arrives in Fuling his status as an outsider is painfully awkward. He does not know the language. His uncommon physical appearance draws unwanted attention everywhere he goes. Neither he nor Adam know or understand the social norms or taboos and both make frequent blunders.

Yet, Hessler is undaunted by his "waiguoren" status. He does not allow the locals' taunts, or the administration's isolationist policies deter him. Instead, he bravely and eagerly sets out to learn all things Chinese.

First, and foremost he must learn the language. Naturally, both Hessler's and the reader's understanding of Fuling parallels his progress with the language. As he becomes more fluent he is able to communicate with local people outside of the college. He prefers the company of the working class and discovers much about everyday Chinese life through these people. It is as if a veil is slowly lifted from the city around him as he forges new friendships and gains experiences.

He talks to as many people as possible and one of the most interesting topics is that of the building of the Three Gorges Dam. At the time of Hessler's visit, the proposed dam is to be the largest in the world. To make way for the reservoir behind the dam, the massive project will flood a huge area of land. The dam will drastically impact everything: environment, local ecology, economics, historical sites, as well as where people live and work. He tells how there are signs everywhere marking where the future water level will be in a few years. In total, all along the Yangtze River 1,352 villages will be submerged (Hessler, River Town 103).

Yet, when Hessler asks people their opinion on the project, few seem to know exactly what will happen and none seem worried about the impending changes. A project like the Three Gorges Dam in the United States would have spawned constant protest, debate, and controversy. Yet, the Chinese continued to go about their daily lives and put their trust in whatever the government has planned. Hessler questions people's faith in the project, and the feasibility of the government's promise to build a 150 foot dike around the town. Especially, since there was no sign of a dike when he left Fuling in 1998 with the reservoir was scheduled to start rising in 2003 (Hessler, River Town 102).

Several years later Hessler returned to the Fuling teachers college to give a lecture on why he wrote the book. While there he found much progress had been made including a new dike (Hessler, Time). So it seems faith of the residents of Fuling was not unwarranted.

Overall, River Town is a fascinating and fast read, and I am not surprised by the cover's statement that is a "New York Times Bestseller". It does an excellent job at capturing Fuling at a specific moment in time as well as provides glimpses of Chinese cultural as a whole. Being the same age as Hessler during his time in Fuling I could not help but wonder how I would fair in a similar situation. One can only admire Hessler and the other Peace Corps volunteers for their willingness to throw themselves into such a completely foreign world. I would love to read a follow up book, since according to the credits Hessler choose to stay in China and now lives in Beijing.

"gambei" to Hessler, March 20, 2005
I spent three years in China on the Yangtze River (Wuhan), overlapping one of those years with Hessler. It has been five years since I left but the memories remain fresh and intense. I read Hessler's account of his two-year teaching stint in the smaller town of Fuling, with delight and astonishment. It was as though someone had read my own journals and put into words what I never could. His ability to evoke the Chinese character and nuances and place his subjects in authentic surroundings is an amazing feat given the complexities of Chinese life. There are no sterotypes here. I had so many similar experiences and conversations with my own students, it defies logic. Yet such is the nature of a country that idealizes uniformity of thought and practice. Hessler is a hero for mastering the language in so short a time for the sake of clarity and understanding those around him. His two-year linguistic journey and the revelations they unfold, are the heart of this book and the one area I so miserably failed in. My regrets are tempered by his success and the fact I now have a brilliantly written book to hand someone when they ask about my experiences in China. ... Read more

Editorial Review

In the Steps of Jesus presents a visually stimulating tour of the places Jesus visited and ministered in during his time on earth as recorded in the Gospels. Each location is addressed separately and includes such cities as Capernaum, Nazareth, and Jerusalem. Full color photos bring to life the ancient world of the Bible few will ever be able to visit in person. With every page, the reader will gain greater insight into the history, geography, and unique features of these historic places. A must-have reference book for those interested in the study of the New Testament and the life of Christ. ... Read more

Reviews

Great guide to the Holy Land, March 20, 2008
Peter Walker takes the reader on both a historical and modern day tour of the Holy Land. This work is full of helpful maps and pictures of the land in which Jesus traveled, beginning in Bethlehem with the birth of Jesus and from there to Nazareth. There is a key days chart for each location discussed and the important all of the important events that have happened there throughout history. The focus is obviously on the time of Jesus, but each section has a section about today (e.g. Bethlehem Today). The author also give instructions and tips to anyone who is going to be taking a trip to Israel. Other locations that are included at the Jordan River, The Judean Desert, Galilee and its villages, Samaria, Caesarea Philippi, Jericho, Bethany, the Mount of Olives, the Temple, Jerusalem, Golgotha, and Emmaus. If you have read N. T. Wright's book "The Way of the Lord" and enjoyed it, then you will like this book as well. Walker seems to have been inspired, at least somewhat by Wright's work.

If you read one christian book make it this one, May 29, 2008
If you read one other Christian Book outside of the bible it needs to be this book. This book is excellent!!!!!It is a mix of standard bible commentary, some bible archeology, and a travel book all mixed up in one. The author also uses some references about the bible stories from ancient texts like Josephus and others. The book has a liberal amount of photo graphs of the bible sites as they are today. Reading this book will give you a feeling of actually visiting the Holy Land. (Actually visiting the site is also a must do thing for anyone) Looking at the faith stories from a modern perspective with a little commentary and history mixed gives you a new look. The truth of the gospel will stand out from reading this book like a sore thumb after you hit it with a hammer. Actually looking at the site as it is today makes you see the event as a real thing and not just literature. This book won't convert anyone but if you are a believer you will love the book.

An Outstanding Holy Land Reference, November 5, 2009
This resource is outstanding because it brings together information from various areas to make the Holy Land understandable, across a range of information, both current and historical. You always have the feeling that you are there! If you study a region, or even a city, there are the important historical dates before, during and after Jesus life time. If you view a region, it is through the integrated perspective of historical and modern maps, current photos and art, and significant biblical quotations and stories to go with the event under consideration. What makes the book so terrific is that while refecting many academic disciplines in the presentation, the text is very readable and understandable. This is one of those books that you think of as a classic. I wish I had access to this resource prior to my first trip to the Holy Land many years ago, however, I think it will be relevant any time to prepare for a trip, or to renew old memories.

Good on it`s own way, January 7, 2010
This book wants to be a guide for Christian pilgrims. Since I visited
the places which are depicted in the book, I come to the judgment that
the author did this very well, spirited and originally. Besides Peter
Walker surprises with extraordinairy interpretations of the scriptural
testimonies of the New Testament which cannot be found in usual guide
books. His style of writing conveys pleasant containment. Here the
author not just reported about historic events and local specialities,
rather he reasoned beyond the conventionel and traditional. This makes
the book to a lucky pull for every Irsael traveller, who knew Israel
only from the Bible. The pictorial material completes this felicitous
work properly. Travelling widens the horizon. This book does it also!
Highly recommended!
picted in the book, I come to the judgment that
the author did this very well, spirited and originally. Besides Peter
Walker surprises with extraordinairy interpretations of the scriptural
testimonies of the New Testament which cannot be found in usual guide
books. His style of writing conveys pleasant containment. Here the
author not just reported about historic events and local specialities,
rather he reasoned beyond the conventionel and traditional. This makes
the book to a lucky pull for every Irsael traveller, who knew Israel
only from the Bible. The pictorial material completes this felicitous
work properly. Travelling widens the horizon. This book does it also!
Highly recommended!

Walking where Jesus walked, November 9, 2010
Having been to Israel twice and going back in a few months, I would recommend this book. It provides good background to the events that took place in the Bible as well as what a traveler could expect today. The pictures alone, including the aerial views, are incredible. If you are a believer and you've never been to the Holy Land, this book is the next best thing. But I am betting someone who has never been and is reading this book will begin to look for ways to go. The best part for me is the sections in each chapter called "(Name of chapter) today," for here the author gives practical advice about seeing the most important places. There are also several places where he gives advice on seeing the most you can in that arena with limited time (i.e. a weekend). I certainly wouldn't follow his advice place by place, but he certainly gives some good ideas. This is definitely a book you will want along with some of the guidebooks if you plan to go to Israel; it is vital to learn as much as you can before you go. ... Read more

Editorial Review

A riveting true-life tale of newspaper noir and Japanese organized crime from an American investigative journalist.
�
Jake Adelstein is the only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police Press Club, where for twelve years he covered the dark side of Japan: extortion, murder, human trafficking, fiscal corruption, and of course, the yakuza. But when his final scoop exposed a scandal that reverberated all the way from the neon soaked streets of Tokyo to the polished Halls of the FBI and resulted in a death threat for him and his family, Adelstein decided to step down. Then, he fought back. In Tokyo Vice he delivers an unprecedented look at Japanese culture and searing memoir about his rise from cub reporter to seasoned journalist with a price on his head. ... Read more

Reviews

Imagine you're at a bar..., October 13, 2009
with a pitcher of beer, sort of watching the game. A novelist and a reporter sit down on either side of you. They want to make you a deal: they get to have some of your beer and in exchange, each of them will take turns telling you incredibly good stories.

At first you're a little worried because, well, who are these guys drinking your beer?

Within a couple minutes, you are not worried anymore. You are ordering another pitcher. And then another one. These guys are two of the best storytellers you've ever met, and the drunker they get, the more they appear to be trying to outdo each other. The stories they are telling you are as engaging as they are strange and unbelievable.

Now imagine that both of these guys, the novelist and the reporter, are actually the same guy, and the stories they are telling are all true. That's what reading this book is like.

The subject matter is the obvious initial draw to this book. Mr. Adelstein's relays his years of experience as a reporter for the Yomiuri Shinbun with efficiency, clarity and wit, while at the same time managing to convey some of the structure and texture of a number of complex institutions and sub-cultures (the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, other prefectural police departments in Japan, crime reporters for the Yomiuri and, of course, the yakuza).

Beyond the fascinating subject matter, however, I could and would and will recommend this book solely for the quality of writing. Mr. Adelstein works expertly at the level of the sentence and the vignette. He doesn't accumulate detail, but instead precisely curates it, giving just enough to put you right there with him. Any less detail and the narrative would be flat, lifeless. Any more detail would drag it down, make it feel like a reading assignment. Instead, Mr. Adelstein's prose has a tactile quality to it. It is measured and balanced and paced in such a way that you live the story with him. I would buy this storyteller an ongoing supply of beer just to keep listening to him tell stories.

The nail that sticks up, gets hammered down..., October 29, 2009
Or, in Jake Adelstein's case, it doesn't -- thankfully, because American readers now finally have access to a book that chronicles the real Japan, free of stereotypes and even more well-rounded and nuanced as any of the 'foreigner abroad' books we are accustomed to reading from Americans who head off to the more culturally-familiar terrain of Europe.

Full disclosure: I lived in Tokyo for parts of early 80s before finally leaving in 1985, before Adelstein arrived to study at Sophia University. Like him, I began my journalistic career there, although it was as a copy editor at the English-language Japan Times rather than as a reporter for a Japanese daily. Even in 1985, being a 'gaijin' (foreigner) and a female would have put paid to any such plans, even if my decidedly unfluent Japanese hadn't. Adelstein, however, benefited from the passage of time, his language skills and his gender and landed a job at the Yomiuri newspaper, one of the country's largest. Automatically an unusual person in Japan's extraordinarily homogenous society (at the time I lived there, at least, there was no space on a driver's license for hair or eye color -- because it was assumed that all would be the same...), Adelstein ended up covering another kind group of misfits in Japan: the country's yakuza, or organized criminals.

It's a fascinating world, part of Japanese popular culture as much as the Mafia is here, and yet virtually unrecognized outside of the country. Along with writing about the yakuza, Adelstein does a fabulous job of raising the curtain on the lives of ordinary Japanese, finally debunking all the stereotypes. Japanese men gawk at the pictures in Madonna's "Sex"; the male reporters openly read porn magazines in the workspace. Social life revolves around getting drunk; the job of a police reporter like Adelstein includes paying evening calls to the homes of his detective friends. Adelstein shows how phenomena like the hostess clubs are fueled by "alienation, boredom and loneliness."

That said, this is a very uneven book. The first half, in particular, seems to be the story of a foreigner who gets himself a job at a Japanese newspaper, thinks to himself, "wow, this is cool and different and maybe I'll write a book about it, too, because not many people have done what I've done." The glimpse behind the scenes of a Japanese newspaper were interesting enough, but after a while the long paragraphs, one after another, of people talking became wearying. So did Adelstein's self-congratulatory air: Getting words of praise from a colleague is "a good feeling"; another story is "a nice little scoop", or "our investigative reporting had the gratifying result of spurring the Saitama police into arresting the people responsible for the bank failure." Yawn. And I could have done without the insights into his sex life, as when he leaves his 'girlfriend' hanging on in the love hotel room they have rented by the hour in order to deal with an editor. "Honorable me, I knew I owed her. So I turned my beeper off for the first time in months." At times, he sounds almost smug.

And yet, just as I was about to give up on the book, it took off and turned into an extraordinary chronicle, revealing in the process an entirely different narrator, someone passionate and thoughtful enough about the world he sees around him to be willing to stand up and be counted. He becomes the nail that sticks up and must be hammered down, in the Japanese saying used of people who place their independent thoughts above smooth social relationships. And the people who wanted to do the hammering were Japan's yakuza, as Adelstein's beat takes him into an investigation of sexual slavery and abuse in Japan's hostess bars, 'soaplands' and brothels. What had been almost flippant before (see Jake Adelstein as a male host!) becomes deadly serious, and I ended up reading late into the night to discover what happened, just as I would have done with a great thriller. The catch, of course, is that the crimes and abuses committed by the yakuza, for which the police are unable or unwilling to prosecute them, were and remain real. Adelstein points out the difficulty of prosecuting human trafficking offenses in a country where the victims are promptly deported -- and then the police and law enforcement officials point out that they have no complaining witnesses! He points to the impact of the casual racism and sexism on law enforcement, from attitudes to Koreans of Japanese descent to the women who arrive in Japan to work as hostesses. And ultimately, he puts his life on the line -- literally -- in an effort to expose some of these abuses.

The heroes of Adelstein's book come from across the board -- this is not smart gaijin hero versus thick-witted racist Japanese, or evil Yakuza versus courageous journalists. Some of the most poignant and heartfelt parts of this ultimately very moving book are those devoted to one of his closest friends, a Japanese police detective, and to an Australian bar girl who becomes a friend of sorts. And ultimately Adelstein sheds that self-satisfied foreigner abroad persona, recognizing that his all-too-human failures as a person and a reporter meant that "I'd endangered every person I cared about, liked, loved, or simply knew. (They had become) potential leverage for (the yakuza target of his investigations) who had no qualms about using people like cannon fodder." It's a cry from the heart, and the story of Adelstein's investigations and efforts to get his worked published make this book a 'must read'.

I'd like to think that the Japanese fascination with what other nations think about them would mean that this book will be translated into Japanese and have a wide audience there. Given the difficulty Adelstein had in finding a Japanese publisher for his journalistic scoops about the yakuza's worst crimes, I'm not sure it will happen. Moreover, the home truths that Adelstein tells -- from a position inside Japanese society, not from the usual gaijin perspective of having one foot in Tokyo's expat community -- about everything from the ugly realities underlying the hostess bar culture and the treatment of a female fellow reporter and friend at the Yomiuri, to the horrors of human trafficking, may prove hard for them to digest. In any event, it's a fascinating read that I'd recommend to anyone with an interest in Japan or thinking of going to live or work there.

A few other recommendations: For more insight into the dysfunctional part of Japanese society (if not the criminal element), try Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation (Vintage Departures) or Alex Kerr's Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan. Some dark comedy and brilliant film-making comes from Juzo Itami, who, it appears, may have been murdered by yakuza rather than committing suicide. Many probably are familiar with Tampopo; just as good, IMO, is A Taxing Woman; the sequel, A Taxing Woman's Return, is still available only on VHS. Both are great and hilarious examples of a crusading tax inspector battling her own bureaucracy and the criminal elements who happen to be evading their taxes. I can't recommend either film strongly enough.

holy japan!, October 13, 2009
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book -- most stories about Westerners moving to Japan are simple, ego-driven pieces of "finding yourself" trash.

I gotta say, though, that Tokyo Vice, while it might have fallen into this category, DOESN'T. Jake Adelstein knows his stuff, and the audience can figure that out in the first lines. This is no "ohmygosh-Japan-is-different-because-everyone-is-ASIAN-and-speaks-JAPANESE!" Instead, this is layer upon layer of real information, texture that I don't think anyone could pick up unless they were actually immersed in a culture, and written from a place far past the wide-eyed excitement of a first-time visitor.

The book has an interesting, engaging narrative, that stands on its own even without all the depth of knowledge the author brings. And, though the subject seems like it's straight out of fiction, it's not. I know more about the Japanese newspaper industry, the Tokyo Police Department, and the seedier aspects of life in Japan now than I ever have. And that's saying something.

Frankly, this book could have been a piece of garden variety, semi-racist, often lurid, pulp fiction. Instead, it's a thoughtful look back on an experience no one else on this earth has had.

Read it.

Remarkable story, imperfect book, January 30, 2010
Japan is not entirely the land of Zen gardens and precision cameras as most Americans born after WWII tend to believe. It is a nation with a major dark side, openly racist and sexist, with a wide public tolerance of perversions such as child pornography. Japanese 'salarymen' in suits stand on their lunch hour reading comic books about teenage schoolgirls. This is also the country that was equalled only by Nazi Germany in their wartime cruelties against civilians and prisoners. But the Japanese above all believe in social cohesion, and these regrettable parts of human behavior are regarded as inevitable, so why not provide for them in a socially integrated way? Thus it is not surprising that organized crime is considered just another part of daily life, with office buildings and business cards (!) for the so-called yakuza.

Tokyo Vice is the autobiographical story of Jake Adelstein, a middle-class boy from the American Midwest who grew up attracted to Japanese culture and language, and how he learned about all this first hand. Adelstein relocated to Japan in his teens to study Buddhism and go to college, and stayed. Amazingly, he eventually managed to be hired as a reporter for the largest Japanese daily newspaper, writing and working entirely in the Japanese language for twelve years. He served on the crime beat, becoming an expert on the seamy underside of Japanese life.

Eventually however, Adelstein went beyond his objective reporter role and stood up as an advocate and crusader, especially on behalf of foreign women whom he discovered being trafficked into sexual slavery in Japan. He was appalled to find that these crimes were ignored by the Japanese establishment; the victims were women, prostitutes and foreigners and therefore triply of no importance. This also led him to understand how organized crime works in Japan, including evidence of corruption at high levels in the government.

His crusade has had some effect; through investigative journalism and contacts with the US government he eventually shamed Japan into beginning to respond to these problems. Also Adelstein uncovered the story of top yakuza who found ways to receive needed liver transplants at American hospitals ahead of long waiting lists - an investigation which led to him and his family receiving serious death threats.

It's not a pretty story. The most upsetting episode concerns a beautiful Australian woman working as a prostitute in Tokyo who became a close friend and informant of Adelstein. When she attempted to help him investigate the trafficking, she disappeared - with credible evidence she was tortured to death by the yakusa. The book is about fairly recent events so we cannot expect the full story. Nevertheless it disturbed me that Adelstein seems not to fully accept that this was the direct result of his association with her.

A riveting story but not well written. There are tedious dialogs, off sentences, many cliches. Puzzling because Adelstein is a professional writer; in May of 2008 he published a straightforward essay in the Washington Post (still on the Internet) summarizing the story succintly. But this book length version has been turned into something like a Mickey Spillane novel-noir, with way too many tedious conversations with Japanese cops smoking way too many cigarettes. Perhaps the author received some bad advice from his publisher and editors, who wanted him to jazz up his account with more 'vivid' personalities? I also would have appreciated more in the way of third party context - quotes from the Japanese newspaper articles or government documentation which would show some reality besides the author's.

Finally, Adelstein has a peculiar, almost coy attitude in writing about one key element - himself. Even though his personal life is intertwined with the story at every level, he leaves out more than he tells. He marries a Japanese woman but does not talk about her or how they met. He becomes personally involved with his informants but does not explain. It is understandable for him to protect his sources, but I liked it less when he seemed to be protecting himself.

Bottom line: A gripping insight into contemporary Japan. One must admire Adelstein for his courage in acting on his outrage and for his ongoing campaign to shine a light on abuses in Japanese society. But the book could have been more cleanly written and the author could have been more open about his personal saga.

TOKYO VICE, October 13, 2009
The book was pretty great. It was really interesting to read about a Midwestern Jew who moves to Japan and assimilates himself into the culture so well. It's hilarious reading about how he can never blend in, even though it would be advantageous for an investigative report.

I loved reading about the cultural differences and seeing how business is done in Japan. Life, love and the perception of men is interesting, especially compared to America.

The brotherhood that was shown between Jake and his friends was endearing. These reporters all have each others backs. The friendships that were formed were the best part of the story. You could tell that Jake really cared about these people.

I don't know if I could give it a better compliment than to call it gritty and real. Well written and fun to read.

where it all began, October 24, 2009
Jakes ability to express himself is a rare gift that few are given. He often mentioned that grace and agility did not come naturally. As a freshman in college in the midwest, he fell two stories down an open elevator shaft.
This resulted in a few injured bones and a mild concussion. The result was a loss of short term memory. At the time he was enrolled in Japanese at the University of Missouri. His Japanese memory was gone,but soon recovered with the help of a tutor.
Tokyo Vice, not only explains how he was able to learn to read,write,and speak Japanese, but to use it as a reporter. Although somewhat biased, it was hard to put down the book. His personal stories and reporting revealed things that even a mother doesnt want to know.
Jakes mother

Entertaining and informative read, November 11, 2009
Jake Adelstein has a very special story to tell. He worked for Japan's biggest daily newspaper as a crime reporter, which is some feat in a country where the idea of cultural and racial essentialism thrives. The book is written in a slightly hardboiled reporter style, and there are lots of small and amusing details just waiting to be noticed. Adelstein avoids the usual trappings of gaijin writing about Japan, and includes a lot of the things that every ex-pat living in Japan moans about, but in a good way. Really good book, and very recommended if you have interest in real crime stories, journalism or Japanese society.

Vice Grip, October 29, 2009
I would have considered myself well read and well...for lack of better terms, well versed in the American Mafia lit. scene (if there is such a thing) by reading the likes of books such as Five Families by Selwyn Raab and then being a huge, (understatement) HUGE connoisseur of all things Godfather movie types and of course the HBO series The Sopranos. Yet, I know little or did know little about similar scenes around the world, until now.

Adelstein's dislodging of my perception of this world is masterful at best. His, at times, excruciating detail about his own experience, starting with scene one to the last page, quite frankly, scares me.

"She was found faceup, both hands spread out. She was wearing dark blue overalls with a striped blouse. She was wearing shoes and socks. (Another telling sign: If she didn't have her shoes and socks on--and if they weren't part of the crime scene--that opened up the possibility of a double suicide attempt in which her partner chickened out. The reason: typically Japanese remove their socks and shoes before killing themselves...)"

I can almost see her in her death, in a complete light. All I can say is that I only thing I can picture now is his version of Japan. The underground, the death, the murderous stares.

Adelstein, as seen in the para. above, also serves up a heaping pile of Japanese culture lessons for us who have always envisioned it as this Hello Kitty/gobbs of Sushi rolls thrown our way. The same version that made me long to visit there. But I suppose this is what great writers do. They infiltrate your "reality" with the either fictional or actual reality. Adelstein's vice grip is well placed around my senses throughout.

Another compelling point of his work is the use of candid "humor" as if he, personally, was addressing me in all things police tactic. Reference the "Memo to Whom It may Concern" on page 69. These tidbits of real information, told in a relatively easy to understand style for the obsessive true crime layman like myself, are gems. Finding the balance between what he went through and then to get "real" information about the job, is not only rare, but refreshing and breaks, in just the right place, the tension he's crafted throughout.

Kudos to Adelstein for placing a great read in my hands. I would recommend this to anyone who relishes the surreal as if it were real and vice versa. He does a knock out job at both. ~Cicily Janus

Not a Book But a Life, September 1, 2010
Tokyo Vice cannot be called simply a book. It is a life - a slice of life of one American reporter working for one of the largest newspapers in Japan. This slice of life account opens up a window view into another world that lies just under the surface of what we think of as the norm. Some people fall into this world by ill luck from debt and poverty, some fall into it by the weight of their vices or the need for thrill, and some are born into it having little choice. Tokyo Vice shines a light on this darker world and some of its people and the people who try to keep back the darkness.

Tokyo Vice is not juicy pulp fiction type book, however, and this may be where some readers looking for a quick fix will be disappointed. Those looking for sordid tales of murder and sex will find it here but these details are told matter-of-fact as opposed to macabre glee. Tokyo Vice does not glamorize Tokyo's Underworld. It serves as a warning of the reality of sex-slaves, brutal men, murderous perverts, diseased junkies, battered prostitutes. This is not a world you want to associate with if you can help it.

But even more compelling than the cold look at Tokyo's darker side, are the characters the author encountered in his time in Japan. His yakuza-looking cop friend is one of the best characters in the book. He is one of those good people in this world you never hear about but should. Another character is the indomitable female reporter who fought against the prejudice towards the mentally ill. And then there is his foul-mouthed full-of-life prostitute friend who may have made a courageous sacrifice for her friend and the fight against human trafficking.

Tokyo Vice may be a book about bad people who have done terrible deeds but it's also a book about good people who have fought hard and strove to make a difference and that alone makes it worth a read.

Tokyo Vice, January 8, 2010
A friend of mine who likes Yakuza stories refered me to an article Jake Adelstein had written for either Maxim or FHM on the organized crime figures of Japan. Finding it somewhat interesting I did a google search on him and found He had written a book about to be published and now have finally gotten around to reading it. While the book has blurbs from the likes of Roberto Saviano and other investigators into criminal activities I was kind of startled by the actual book itself which plays more with Adelstein's accomplisments becoming the first American reporter for the all Japanese edition of the Yoimiuri Shobun, one of the most prestigious papers in the country. The book does begin with a meeting between him and a group of Yakuza dispatched to frighten him into leaving the country the even that ended his career with Yoimiuri before begining the story of his endeavour to get a job as a writer.
What follows plays out showing parts of the Japanese society as Adelstein first learns the ins and outs of the Japanese news system. The first half of the novel detailing this seems almost anecdotal in as a Adelstein endears himself with his co-workers and earns a contact within the local police force through a ritual which is highly involving for reporters to keep up their contacts. And truthfully a lot of this section was just as fascinating to me as the later parts of the books discussing Japans love of Manuals and how Adelstein was recruited to write against one detailing the perfect ways to commit suicide, or how Adelstein grew to befriend the family of officer Sekiguchi who became his main source fo information in writing on the crime beat.
The second half of the book involves the more criminal elements as Adelstein transferred learns the ins and outs of the sex trade in Japan which I found interesting to a degree that was tempered a bit with a final story involving Adelstein investigating a sex slave trade specializing in white women who were basically lied to come to Japan, forced to do whatever was asked of them, had their money stolen, and couldn't seek help from Japanese police who were unable to help them by law since they were seen more as illegal workers. Summarizing this section isn't easy but Adelstein admits it strained even him in a way.
The last section details the major part of the story where details of Adelstein's fight against the Yakuza group that threatened his life. The main Yakuza Tadamasa Goto, head of a powerful family used resources to force the FBI into letting him into the country to gain a liver transplant. Seeking to write a story on this was what put Adelstein's life in danger, who returned to write a book after a friend investigating the group disappears. Theres alot of information covered including a bit about Juzo Itami, a director who dared to challenge Goto and allegedly commited suicide and the unfortunate death of Sekiguchi to cancer.
Adelstein has a deft touch in telling his story to western audiences never over embellishing things though I did admit his choice of nicknames for certain characters was odd. Still though He writes with a simple thouroughness that I like for writers of this type of work. He gives you the facts but never in a boring way and keeps it in line with the story Hes telling in the chapter. Like I said a fascinating story and a book well worth reading. ... Read more

Editorial Review

From the author of The Last Mughal (“A compulsively readable masterpiece” —The New York Review of Books), an exquisite, mesmerizing book that illuminates the remarkable ways in which traditional forms of religious life in India have been transformed in the vortex of the region’s rapid change—a book that distills the author’s twenty-five years of travel in India, taking us deep into ways of life that we might otherwise never have known exist.

A Buddhist monk takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet—and spends the rest of his life atoning for the violence by hand printing the finest prayer flags in India . . . A Jain nun tests her powers of detachment as she watches her closest friend ritually starve herself to death . . . A woman leaves her middle-class life in Calcutta and finds unexpected fulfillment living as a Tantric in an isolated, skull-filled cremation ground . . . A prison warder from Kerala is worshipped as an incarnate deity for three months of every year . . . An idol carver, the twenty-third in a long line of sculptors, must reconcile himself to his son’s desire to study computer engineering . . . An illiterate goatherd from Rajasthan keeps alive in his memory an ancient four-thousand-stanza sacred epic . . . A temple prostitute, who initially resisted her own initiation into sex work, pushes both her daughters into a trade she nonetheless regards as a sacred calling.

William Dalrymple chronicles these lives with expansive insight and a spellbinding evocation of circumstance. And while the stories reveal the vigorous resilience of individuals in the face of the relentless onslaught of modernity, they reveal as well the continuity of ancient traditions that endure to this day. A dazzling travelogue of both place and spirit. ... Read more

Reviews

Indian spirituality, December 10, 2009
The Bangalore bookshops are prominently showing this book and having read William Dalrymple before and liked his scholarship and easy style I bought it. I wasn't disappointed, in fact i hated to see the book come to an end. The common theme of heartfelt devotion is told simply and openly through nine diverse and extraordinary lives. You feel that each one is a person you've come to know and like. I am an American living in South India and this book helps me appreciate living here even more. It helps me appreciate William Dalyrmple even more too. He writes wonderful books!

a wondrous "read" about good people whom most of us will never otherwise hear., June 24, 2010
Highly interesting, wonderfully researched, beautifully written, as are all of this author's works.
A main question seems to be whether often-isolated, syncretistic, devotional religious practices will continue in the face of India's burgeoning economy and, presumably, growing secularism and consumerism, on the one hand, and the exclusionary fanaticism of a militant segment of Hindus and Muslims, on the other. While much will be gained by greater educational opportunity and a higher/healthier standard of living for the rural and urban poor and powerless, rich, curious, sometimes bizarre religious practices in the name of the gods will probably fade away.

This book is not about mainstream religious practices or faiths of the great religions --- or even of "smaller traditions" that have gained acceptance, if not understanding, because of their great age. The `Sacred" referred to in the title are approaches to gods/God that are, for all the integrity of those interviewed who practice them, mightily strange.

The book certainly shows that devout, faithful approaches to belief are common to all levels of people and a belief in a "greater power" is sustaining in the most difficult of situations. The book is a wondrous "read" about good people whom most of us will never otherwise hear.

Good book, June 26, 2010
Elegant and occasionally nostalgic William Dalrymple has written a beautiful and insightful book on the hidden India, a country at once capitalist and modern but also still spiritual and unique. Dalrymple said that the idea for this book was born 16 years ago in 1993 when he was corkscrewing up a Himalayan trail. He does not identify when his interviews took place. It is therefore difficult to envisage when and how India's traditional forms of religious life have been transformed in the vortex of the region's rapid change. I have always liked Dalrymple's books as he has always been fantastic through his well researched writings. Nine Lives isn't just another travel book. It's a window to contemporary India - the one that remains forgotten or hidden, but is very much out there on the road, quite literally. As Dalrymple puts it, "The water moves on, a little faster than before, yet still the great river flows. It is as fluid and unpredictable in its moods as it has ever been, but it meanders within familiar banks."

Seekers of Spiritual Truth, September 5, 2010

William Dalrymple's latest book, Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India, raises the question in relief: what is sacred, what is spiritual, and how do those qualities exist against a backdrop of daily life, its woes and joys, triumphs and travails? Dalrymple seeks out individuals who imbue their lives with their own apprehensions of the sacred. These exemplars are more often than not at the fringes of modern India (and in one case, Pakistan). Three or four truly stand out, lingering in the reader's memory--not just because Dalrymple lets us see them as fully developed individuals, but because their beliefs are so strong, so informed by their lives. The book isn't perfect: a couple of the choices are, if not unconvincing, then not up to the standard of the others, but they are the exception.

The nine seekers cover a broad swath of belief systems in India, though sidestep orthodox Muslim and Christians. In fact, they are mostly unorthodox, outside of the mainstream of belief. They need to be, in a sense: if they weren't, their devotion would be halfhearted, not defining. The first chapter, "The Nun's Tale," is powerful and disturbing. The young nun in question is a Jain, a member of the sect that began around 600 BC and which is most notable for its belief in absolute non-harming of other beings. Jains gently sweep the paths they take, to avoid stepping on insects, and will wear masks to protect any flying creatures or even microbes from being breathed in.

Prasannamati Mataji comes from a well-to-do family, but at an early age is drawn to the acetic life of the Jain nuns. Following tradition, she ceremonially plucks all her own hair out as a sign of her devotion to the way, and wanders with her fellow Jains, no possessions but her bowl, her whisk, and her robes. Shortly before we meet Mataji, a companion of hers for a number of years, dying of tuberculosis, performs sallekhana, ritually starving herself to death. In the end, Mataji tells Dalrymple that she, too, has decided to take the same path, even though she is healthy and in her mid-30s. "First you give up your home, then your possessions. Finally you give up your body," she says by way of explanation. It's a jarring reminder of the all-encompassing--some might say dark--side of some forms of spirituality.

Then there is Hari Das, a Dalit--an untouchable--who digs water wells for well-off Brahmins nine months of the year, but for three is a dancer of epics, channeling Hindu gods. Wearing the costume of a god, he becomes that god in his trance-like dances, and the otherwise disdainful Brahmins eagerly seek his approval. Dalrymple sympathetically portrays Das in his contradictory life, god and untouchable. Then there is Srikanda, a maker of idols from a family of idol-makers going back 700 years. Once the eyes of the bronze-cast idols are carved opened--the final step for the artist, performed following ancient ritual practice--they literally become those gods. As Srikanda tells Dalrymple, everyone has worries--money, family, and work--but the idols are gods who help supersede them all. But one worry remains: Srikanda's son is drawn to video games and a career in computers in Bangalore. The 700-year family tradition is in imminent danger of a sudden death.

That intrusion of the modern world reappears again for the female Sufi we meet in Pakistan's Sindh province, where orthodox Wahhabis are building madrassas--orthodox Islamic schools--to inculcate the young and root out the singing and dancing Sufis and their belief in saint worship. Likewise, a young Tibetan monk, who fled his native country in 1959 with the Dalai Lama, cast off his robes to fight the Chinese, and ended up spending a career in the Indian Army. Finally retired by the time Dalrymple meets him, he takes up his vows again, living in Dharamsala, the center of Tibetan Buddhists in northern India.

Most touching of all are Dalrymple's two final profiles: a woman devoted to the fearsome goddess Tara, who lives in the cremation grounds of Tarapith, and a blind baul, a wandering religious singer. Both are outcasts who have found great joy amidst their tremendous suffering, attaining a peace that the householders of modern India could likely never approach. Their stories, like all in this book, are told mostly in the first person, in lengthy quotes, Dalrymple acting as midwife to their tales. They seem to come from a world much removed from our own, from modern life itself, but they aren't. They are here and now: a testament to the multiplicity of faith in India, and even perhaps, to that country's celebration of the sacred. As Kanai Das Baul, the blind wandering spiritual singer from Bengal, says of his music, "It makes us so happy, that we don't remember what sadness is."

Spritual life in India thru personal stories, July 3, 2010
Extremely well written personal tales of individual's spiritual path and practices that illuminates the larger Indian culture past and present.

wonderful portraits of real-life Indian spirituality, August 11, 2010
Great reading! I became completely engrossed in each of the nine beautifully drawn portraits in Dalrymple's Nine Lives - to the point where I wanted to go meet each one of the main characters and keep following their stories.

As a whole, the book gives a taste of the wide variety of spiritual experience/practice found in India. If you are not already familiar with Indian (including Muslim/Sufi, Jain, and Buddhist, not just Hindu) spirituality, some of the stories might seem shocking or even repulsive, so be warned; and other than providing some helpful and interesting historical context, Dalrymple does not go into much explanation or analysis of the underlying philosophy or metaphysics of the spiritual paths described in the book, so the unfamiliar westerner may also feel disoriented and confused or simply lost; but if you are open-minded or if you already have some understanding of concepts like bhakti, dharma, yoga, tantra, etc., then there is a good chance that you will find these stories fascinating, mind-expanding, and heart-opening. Personally, it does me good to see that there are so many people out there in the world pursuing their unique and distinct visions of truth, love, and the divine with such total commitment and dedication.

Maybe most importantly, I found the seekers described in Nine Lives to be role-models providing me with inspiration for my own seeking and encouragement to face my own obstacles and go beyond some of the more constricting boundaries imposed by modern, western values and mores. Part of the reason for this is that the characters I met in the book seemed so real. They are not big-name teachers and gurus from large, well-funded organizations which often represent "official" Indian spirituality in the west. These are very real people dealing with very real difficulties, but doing so with a great deal of humility and dignity, within their respective traditions. All of the stories are tinged with sadness (some stories more so than others), none of which is glossed over, and I felt that this contributed greatly to their power.

Only time will tell if India will manage to hold on to Her amazing spiritual heritage in the face of modernization, but Nine Lives gives the hopeful impression that She is managing to do so - at least for the time being.

AIDS to Asceticism, Revelry to Renunciation, September 19, 2010
[Addendum] I have finished this book since my earlier review and each story has only further served to reinforce its beauty. It is a colorful kaleidoscope of fascinating characters, beliefs, rituals, relationships (both traditional and (especially) the unconventional), topographies and landscapes.

Each story renders its own stock of shock or intoxication, as the case may be, for varied reasons:
The Nun's Tale delicately affirms that persevering to stay on "spiritual" paths that beckon us even amidst overwhelming objections and hardships might still lead to peace. The Dancer of Kannur highlights the quirkiness and occasionally humorous lopsidedness of the consequences of enforcing repressive societal divisions. The Daughters of Yellamma encourages us that hope and desires can spark and stay alive in the most unkind of situations. The Singer of Epics humbles the definition of what being educated means. The Red Fairy delineates the dangers of fundamentalism very powerfully. The Monk's Tale exposes the lesser known horrors perpetrated on the Tibetans and the ill fated circumstantial perversion of hitherto gentler souls. The Maker of Idols sounds the alarm bell for co-opted and dying familial and generational traditions. The Lady Twilight demonstrates that bonds amongst the outcast can be (just as, perhaps even more so) meaningful and affirming. The Song of the Blind Minstrel challenges the notions of what it takes to be happy.

I tend to disagree with praises that hint that this is an indictment against condemnation of religion. While the apparent innocence, simplicity and struggles of all "nine lives" are certainly endearing to a degree, the book does not seem to attempt to distort or embellish, and hence comes across as very honest. It tilts neither towards romanticizing nor prosecuting.

-----

I've only been able to finish the first chapter, "The Nun's Tale," so far, and found it to be very poignant. It was a story that can suffuse into your consciousness ever so gently, but leave an immediate potent impact. The nun's unwavering perseverance and strength inspired by her beliefs and her all too human fragility and profound sadness which she was forbidden from expressing upon the death of her "walking companion" were contrasted beautifully.

I realize that this book does not endeavor to either espouse or critique collective thought systems, nevertheless, I couldn't help but contrast her set of beliefs with the more flagrant, outright violent ideologies practiced by the vast majority of us.

Nine Lives- Nine Hundred Loves, June 26, 2010
I have lived in India. I inhaled the air at higher altitudes in the Himalayas, and wondered if oxygen deprivation causes this deeper awareness and spirituality. But then everything is heavily laden with spirituality up there, every rock, every tree, every drop of water is pregnant with a rich history. I have watched the sadhus walk by on pilgrimages of one sort or another. After a brief glimpse of curiosity at each other, we moved on to our appointed destinies, each regarding the other as irrelevent in the greater scheme of the Universe. But not so for Mr. Dalrymple. He delved deeper. He noted their humbleness as having just as legitimate place as yours or mine in the Universe, and he did it with a wonderful writing style. He flooded me with memories of all the things I missed that he captured so well on the journey. And if you haven't made such journies, you will feel enriched for reading this book and taking the journey through this very competant author's pages.It's almost like being there. Well done, William Dalrymple. You are a truly gifted author.

Here comes the Tarapith tourist boom. . ., November 18, 2010
I never come home from India with less than 25 kilos of luggage. I throw away clothes to make room for books. Therefore, let me save you the backache: this is the book you must read.

Presenting itself as nine "non-fiction short stories", 9 Lives portrays expressions of faith that are often romanticized or sensationalized, such as that of a tantric priestess, or ritual prostitute, or Tibetan soldier monk. As an obsessive reader of books about India, I can assure you that much of what is found here cannot be found anywhere else -- the alternatives are often sensationalist nonsense, or else dry as dust.

For example, the first chapter, about a Jain nun: I dare you to find elsewhere a readable brief narrative of Jainism that explains the basic beliefs and shows how they can continue to compel those that believe.

I've spent time in three of the places Dalrymple explores here -- Sravanabelagola, Dharamsala and Tarapith -- and still I learned so much about each.

(I admit I have an awful fear that the chapter about Tarapith -- the very most beautiful in the book -- will provoke a tourist boom in dusty Tarapith. In which case, let me warn you, the road is one of the most treacherous in India. Potential devotees are strongly advised to take the train.)

Dalrymple writes in spirited opposition to the forces that threaten to homogenize spirituality in India. Almost all of what he profiles here is in danger of being blotted out.

Particularly praise-worthy is Dalrymple's ability to get entirely out of the way of his subject. We learn nothing whatsoever about Dalrymple's personal spiritual journey -- and I mean that as very high praise.

If you love this book, the obvious next step would be to read Wendy Doniger's spectacular "The Hindus: An Alternative History": a beautiful service to Hinduism and human civilization, for which she has been, of course, thunderously condemned by fundamentalist panjandrums.

May the spirituality of India always bloom as richly and strangely and powerfully as Dalrymple finds it blooming here.

Tremendous, August 28, 2010
Dalrymple brings, the real face of India, with such ease - great writing skill. Indian spirituality is often misunderstood in the west and 'nine lives' brings stories of common Indians and their beliefs and faith. The book shows the multitude of faiths in India - and how each is facing the explosive growth and 'modernity' that is sweeping India. Dalrymple states it best - 'the water moves on, a little faster than before, yet still the great river flows'.

The book is so well written - I couldn't put it down.. Can't wait to get started on his others (this is my first). ... Read more

Editorial Review

The guide that shows you what other travel books only tell you!

If you are planning a trip to the Land of the Rising Sun, make sure you don't leave home without DK's Eyewitness Travel Guide: Japan. All aspects of modern Japan, as well as its history, art and ancient traditions are explained through informative text and spectacular photographs and illustrations. Learn about Japanese history and culture, and experience the exotic cuisine and entertainment. Over 800 full-color photographs, street-by-street maps, and aerial 3-D cutaways highlight all of Japan's major attractions. Japan's enormous variety in landscape (from near arctic in the north to sub-tropical in the south) comes to life like no other guide. Whether in Tokyo, Kyoto, Okinawa, Honshu, or Hokkaido this is the ultimate resource for all points of interest. ... Read more

Reviews

Eye-catching guide is a worthy investment, July 26, 2003
This is sort of a "Japan! Wow!" type of guide, full of eye-popping graphics and catchy factoids. It is a very fun guide, and does a great job of engaging enthusiasm for Japan and its wonders. The makers definitely know their audience, and all of the weird and wild parts of the country and its culture are captured.

Nothing off the beaten path here, only the major attractions of each city/region are represented. It is wide but not deep. Pricing information and such is well done, and gives an accurate picture of what to expect. Tidbits of culture and history help explain what you will be seeing and make for interesting overall reading.

Even as someone living in Japan, I find this guide to be valuable and fun. It has sparked my interests in several sites and is a great reminder of places that I have been.

For a deeper travel guide, I recommend "Gateway to Japan." That combined with "Exploring Japan" should be all you need to plan a snazzy and enjoyable trip.

A disappointing DK guide, December 31, 2001
Until recently, I was a devoted fan of the Eyewitness Guide series. (My bookshelf holds their travel guides to France, Bali, South Africa, and even some US cities among others.) However, my recent trip to Kyoto and Tokyo proved too much for the series and I thought other travelers deserved a warning.

The Eyewitness Japan volume is an interesting cultural introduction, but a woefully insufficient travel guide to this complex country, even for a very short trip such as the one I took. Some thoughts:

(1) The maps (particularly outside of Tokyo) are not at all comprehensive. It would not be possible to find one's way around Kyoto, for example, without another guidebook. There is a high-level overview map of Kyoto (without most streets marked) and some cut-away maps of particular tiny areas, but you could not piece together one usable city map out of it.

(2) The phrasebook is only four pages long and doesn't contain some of the most basic and useful information. Example: It doesn't contain the word for "cash machine," and Japan appears to be a heavily cash-oriented country.

(3) The hotel information is wholly insufficient. It lists few hotels and then gives only one short sentence about each hotel. It doesn't make any suggestions as to which neighborhoods would be better to stay in, either.

(4) The greatest strength of the book is in its cultural information and its visuals. For example, after finding the Kyoto "philosopher's walk" on a map in another guidebook, we were able to learn from the Eyewitness book why it was named the philosopher's walk and some interesting (but not particularly practical) facts about the walk. However, here again there is a hidden weakness: unlike other guidebooks, the Eyewitness book doesn't seem to take a stand on which sites are worth seeing in limited time.

In such a complex country (particularly if, like me, you do not speak Japanese), you need a more comprehensive and more opinionated guide. All in all, in terms of survival and travel enjoyment, you're better off with the other travel books we had with us: Lonely Planet Japan (which has great opinions on what to visit) and Time Out Tokyo. I also recommend the Berlitz phrasebook on Japanese to get around; it's small and contains lots of useful phrases, although sometimes in strange places. Also, if you're leaving Tokyo, don't forget the bilingual maps.

Happy traveling!
Lydia

PS: This particular Eyewitness book (perhaps I'd missed this on other trips) seems oriented towards the high-end, perhaps business, traveler. Whereas the eyewitness guide described a particular Tokyo ryokan as having a convivival lounge area that encouraged travelers to meet people, exchange stories, and strategize about their travels, Eyewitness would describe a particular ryokan as not having a particularly nice view. Perhaps that's something to keep in mind, depending on your interests.

Beautiful book..., June 5, 2002
Having travelled to Japan on two occassions (once as an exchange student and once travelling throughout the country alone), I was have mixed feelings about this book.

Although the book is very well designed and has beautiful pictures (it is nice to show to guests who don't know about Japan), some of the most interesting things are skimmed over (for example Arashiyama in Kyoto has only a short description). I was also very disappointed when I visited Osaka-Castle, as the inside was very much like a museum, and I had expected the reconstruction to have replicas of the original interior decoration. The travel guide did not explain that the interior is completely modernized.

The other problem is that some of the rural areas - Toyama and Akita for example weren't really covered.

Nonetheless, there is no better travel guide of Japan on the market (at least designed for English speakers.) There is also coverage of the Ken-rokuen and the various temples.

Although I think the book is well worth the money, I would also recommend that anyone with Japanese language skills check out the area specific guidebooks designed for Japanese travellers to supplement the information in the book (there are many excellent magazine style ones on large cities such as Kyoto), and ask friends and acquantiances before travelling to spots far from where you are staying.

Eyewitness is the gold standard in travel guides!, April 16, 2002
I do hope DK will publish individual Eyewitness guides to Kyoto and Tokyo. To fit all of Japan into one guide is an unreasonable task, so I considered this book to be an overview at best. Even so they managed to include a great deal of detail and I found it extermely useful throughout my recent trip to Japan. There were many instances where Eyewitness Japan gave more detailed information on a particular sight than the Lonely Planet city guides for Kyoto and Tokyo.

I love the way the Eyewitness guides organise the information in a way that is similar to how you will actually tackle it when traveling; first by region than neighborhood. It is all very visual and user friendly, but also quite meaty when you dig into the information. One word about the maps, which I found excellent; very few streets in Japan are labeled, only the major ones, and many streets don't have names at all, so street names are not really relevant. I often found myself orienting myself by the last shrine I passed.

Like many people I find the Eyewitness guides to be an excellent resource in planning and navigating my travels, as well as a nice keepsake for my bookshelf when I return. I find their strength to be in guiding you around and explaining the major sights, I look elsewhere for information on dining, lodging and the off-beat. No single guide is good for everything. In fact if it were up to me I would eliminate the hotel and restaurant sections of the Eyewitness guides all together because they are so weak. I loved this guide for what it is, an excellent overall view of Japan.

Useful But Limited, March 8, 2002
I recently completed a 19 day trip to Kyoto and Tokyo. If there is a perfect comprehensive guide to Japan I have yet to find it, despite buying 6 of them. I did find this guide very helpful for locating sights in two specific ways. First, they are numbered and the numbers are clearly shown on maps (at least for major cities). It is surprising how few guidebooks successfully accomplish this seemingly elementary and essential task. Second, the pictures were very helpful in spotting sights on the ground. I found that getting oriented in Japan was more difficult than in European countries I've visited and pictures really helped. Plus, it makes a great souvenir. I primarily used this book and "Gateway to Japan" for sightseeing. They made a good combination.

Do not go to Japan without buying this book!, February 15, 2006
This book is, hands down, the greatest travel guide that I have ever used. With breathtaking photos, incredibly useful illustrations, and great information relating to cultural and historical context, it provides a fantastic reference for any traveler. I don't really understand the complaints of others who stated that it had to be used with other guides and that it didn't condense the information into the "you have one day in Tokyo - this is what you must see" format. Seeing as how a travel guide is exactly that; a guide - a tool to be used in conjunction with other resources, I feel that some may have expected too much. While this book may not be as textually comprehensive as other travel guides, most of those read like stereo instructions - this book, on the other hand, does not bore the reader and is rich with poignant detail. I survived on a solo trip to Japan using this guide and, while it is true that I utilized other resources, that's half the fun of traveling - getting out there and talking to people, finding out what to do and how to do it. Which leads me to my second aforementioned point - no, this book does not say "here's what you should do if you have 15 minutes in Kyoto". I can't stand such books and don't comprehend our societal gravitation towards such instructional material. To me it shows that we are becoming lazy and want others to tell us what to do as opposed to make decisions for ourselves. Which leads me to my final point: this book is great and easily holds the reader's interest but, because it is not one of the types of books that I have begrudgingly discussed, it is not intended to be used as a sole means of guidance. Therefore, while this book is tremendously useful during one's travels, I would recommend purchasing it in advance and using it as a research springboard during one's trip planning. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.

P.S. I frequently read sections out of this book; it is quite interesting even when not engaged in travel.

And, on a final note: Japan is the most spectacular place that I have ever traveled to. It is a nation that is lusciously rich with vivid beauty and fascinating culture. It has such an intriguing history and the people are absolutely phenomenal. If you stumbled upon this review because you are simply thinking about going, I vehemently encourage you to take the plunge, hop on a plane, and get over there! Oh yeah, and buy this book before you do :)

Great photos and a nice size, November 13, 2005
I have lived in Tokyo for 3 months and have spent another 3 months traveling in Japan with this guide. My favorite thing about the guide is the photos. While other guidebooks have an elaborate description of a town or site, I find the Eyewitness Travel Guide (ETG) to have a briefer one with some great photos. While a picture may be worth a thousand words, as someone who loves to take travel photos, I have personally found the photos to be MORE useful in selecting destinations than the other guides. I also find that after seeing the photos, I feel a little familar with a destination when I arrive there.

Another nice plus I have found is the size of this guide. This book is narrower than the other guides, and I can slip it into an oversize coat pocket. That may seem silly, but it makes the book a bit more handy.

I suppose the downside is that this is a guide to JAPAN. It is not the most comprehensive guide to Tokyo and Kyoto. (Trying to do both is probably unreasonable for any book.) So if you are going to spend more than a week in Tokyo or Kyoto, and going full out every day, then you will eventually exhaust the details of this guidebook. In that case, I would recommend you pick up a city guide for those locations. Also, as someone who has spent a lot of time in Hokkaido, I find the section devoted to the northern island to be too brief.

If you are traveling around Japan, or even considering traveling to around Japan, this is a wonderful guidebook. But if you will ONLY be going to Tokyo or Kyoto, much of this guide will be wasted, and it may not be your best option. But if you are visiting the two big cites and other parts of Japan, , you can always pair this with another guidebook.
I have found the best use for this book is to read this ETG and another guide [Frommer's online] in advance. Then when I travel I bring this one with me, and pick up some of the local tourist guides.

Pretty comprehensive, December 25, 2004
I thought this book covered a lot of Japan and not just the main cities. It was nice to read about so many of these places, many of which I've never even seen when I lived in Japan. I thought the detail was good and allowed me to envision being there.

After reading this I read another book on Amazon called "No Elbow Room" by Kenneth Andrews, and found that one totally amazing. It took me so much further into the Japanese culture and business world. The 2 books together really made me feel like I knew Japan.

Probably the best one available, February 27, 2006
I only wished it had a map of the trains. Other than that it was a great reference. I could carry it with me all the time and it even has useful phrasebook. The visuals allow you to make quick decisions.

You probably still need to do a lot of research online if you want to find off-the-beaten path spots. For example, if you want to stay in a Buddhist temple in Koyasan you get more info from the web. But this is always the case if you want the most up-to-date information. By the way, I highly recommend checking japan-guide.com.

Will help you plan an unforgettable trip, September 4, 2004

DK Eyewitness Travel Guides certainly live up to their motto - "The guides that show you what others only tell you." Their Japan guide is no exception; it's full of photographs, maps, three-dimensional graphics of castle and temple compounds, and has tons of background information about all possible sites you'd want to visit and about virtually all facets of cultural life.

It doesn't reveal to you only the most popular or famous places, but also tells you about more well-kept secrets in the Japanese countryside. One example is the Buddha hiking trail in Kamakura; it's not a major attraction (though the Buddha it leads to is), but it's a great hiking trail, and the guide lets you know to look for it. Also, the Japan guide magnifies streets for you in town and city maps... for instance, Eastern Gion in Kyoto is a district made up of a warren of small streets, but there are a lot of sights to see there, including temples, pagodas, shrines, antique shops, and old unpaved roads. The Japan Guide gives you a magnification of that part of the map, showing clearly what roads intersect with other roads and pointing out the places of interest.

Definitely a worthy investment if you're planning a trip to Japan. This colorful, extensive, informative guide will give you info on practically all aspects of your trip - places both famous and obscure, food, hotels, shopping, transportation... and you'll absorb a lot of info reading it. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Reviews

Genius. Pure Genius. Wish I'd Thought Of It First., March 23, 2009
Three words for this hysterical, witty, GENIUS novel. 1: Oh. 2: My. 3: God. A satire on the novel Eat Pray Love (Elizabeth Gilbert), comedian writer Andrew Gottlieb nails the angry husband who takes a year off dedicated to drinking, gambling and, well, f@#king. The protagonist, Bob Sullivan, is in Ireland when he notes that his ex-wife was on "some kind of whirlwind transcontinental spiritual journey. Yet one more idea of mine that she copied that I'll never get any credit for." (page 51). The intrinsic connections to the Eat Pray Love story are masterful without being overwhelming or obvious - so much so, this story would stand alone if you'd never even heard of Eat Pray Love. If every story has two sides, Drink Play F@#k is a convincing version of a scorned husband's tale of a marriage break-up and subsequent quests to discover what really matters in life: happiness.

Adolescent, February 12, 2010
Parody can be the funniest of all types of humor, so it was with high expectations that when I saw the book cover of Andrew Gottlieb's, Drink, Play, [...], as a match to Elizabeth Gilbert's popular Eat, Pray, Love, I picked it up with relish. I had given Gilbert a two-star rating, and never bothered to write a review. Following a divorce, protagonist Bob Sullivan decides to let himself go loose for the first time in his life, and see what happens. His first step was to drink, and he did that with gusto in Ireland, meeting compatible characters and telling stories to all who would listen. I wish this book had such gusto, but the drinking episode came across as maudlin. The pace picked up when Bob heads to Vegas to play, and along the way meets a guru who guides him through the Vegas games. The gambling, golfing and playing had little humor and unexceptional stories. At just the right time, the guru suggests the pleasures of Thailand, and Bob ends up in a remote resort to enjoy great physical satisfaction, until a car accident. While I laughed at times, there just wasn't enough laughter to make the full parody work. By the end of the book, I couldn't care less what happened to Bob.

Rating: One-star (Read only if your interest is strong)

Expected Steak, Served Tripe..., August 11, 2009
The premise of this book is great: parody Eat, Pray, Love. Few books are as ripe for parody as that one. I mean, how can anyone mess that up? Well, Gottlieb did. What he delivers is a sterilized, homogenized, made-for-TV tale of a guy I suspect is really patterned after John Glenn when he was a younger man, but on estrogen. It is obvious this story panders to the female book-buying audience and Bob Sullivan comes off as a made-acceptable character who apologizes constantly for being male. There's no other explanation for the constant I'm-not-really-that-guy disclaimers that quickly become Sullivan's mantra. Well, if he's not that guy then why was he written as the main character? Wouldn't a parody mean he should be the antithesis of the lady from Eat, Pray, Love? Bob Sullivan's friends are right out of a screen writing 101 class, becoming Bob's bad-boy, yet acceptable, yet wouldn't want to marry, guides to the protagonist's journey into his supposed debauchery; the debauchery that never seems to pick up steam or muster any credibility. But there was no real debauchery, except for maybe the frat-boy drinking, which Gottlieb could get away with without turning off a female audience. And there's no f@#king. No there wasn't. A brief yet somehow made-acceptable tryst with the girl from India, and then he falls madly in love while laid up in his sick bed. Yeah, that's real debauchery tempered with an eye toward book sales to the fairer sex. Why am I so disappointed with this book? Because I expected to be at least slightly entertained and never thought I would have my intelligence insulted with such a trite, backpeddling and poorly constructed attempt at parody. And for believing, once again, some glowing reviews without checking to see what other books the reviewers have reviewed. Stupid me.

Don't let the title suck you in......, March 15, 2010
I was looking for a book to read while on my last beach vacation, and I was lured in by the title "Drink, Play, F@#k. I had not heard of the book "Eat Pray Love", and so I had no basis on the layout, or if it tried to satire the original, if indeed that was the intention.
As noted in a previous review...I too, was hoping for a little more energy, creative storytelling, and "guy talk", but what we received was 38 chapters with no cohesiveness, forced gambling metaphors, and upper-echelon frivolous disrespect for money with the occasional "Dennis Miller-like" caveat on Monday night football....which as we all know does not work.

I stopped reading this book 4 times, but had a 5 hour flight on the way back, I was so bored I finished it.
Here, I will summarize the book into 3 chapters:
Chapter 1 - My wife left me, I have enough money so I went to Ireland and got drunk daily.
Chapter 2 - My wife is still not with me, I have enough money so I went to Las Vegas, made frivoulous wagers, got drunk a lot, and played golf.
Chapter 3 - My wife is still not with me, I have enough money so I went to Thailand, to a ridiculously expensive and exclusive resort, had sex with a young woman, found my morals and my future ex-wife.

I would have tried to sell this book on Amazon, but I threw it in the trash, as I unpacked.

Entertaining to a degree, July 14, 2009
When I picked this book up at the store I loved the title and I loved the blurbs about the book on the back so much that I had to have it! Based on these two things I bought this book and finished it within a week. It was a fun and interesting read but I really thought the book had more potential than what it gave. The main character Bobby just got a divorce so he goes on a world wind adventure of debauchery that spans across Ireland, Vegas, and Thailand. The adventures that he lives out are every man's dream he drinks in Ireland, gambles in Vegas, and of course has sex in Thailand. The writer delivers some great one liners and amusing anecdotes but all in all the book really fell short. It felt like all the chapters were rushed and while this is a good book it's not a great book. I know that this book was written as an impudent which is funny but in the end the whole book is very predictable and written somewhat (for my tastes) like a romantic comedy. Guy's wife is mean, guy's wife cheats, he gets divorced, goes out and gets drunk, fornicates, finds himself, then hopes to find someone else. To me that formula is directly linked to most romantic comedies and for being somewhat unoriginal is why I give it only three stars. The book was a good read don't get me wrong! It just wasn't what I thought it was. It was entertaining yet not filled with the craziness that embodies a great title like, "Drink, Play, F@#k".

don't waste your time, February 8, 2010
Having read " Eat, pray, love", I eagerly awaited for the parody on the title. However, there is not even one humorous or witty sentence in this entire book. If this guy can go to print,then by all means, we can all become published writers. I hardly review books but this one was such a mess,I just had to issue a warning. Don't bother reading it unless you like repetitive, stale writting that leaves you disappointed and bored.

Mild! Not nearly as edgy as title implies..., April 30, 2010
Not a bad book, but not great either. With so many other good books out there, don't waste your time with this one.

Before reading, I briefly glanced at some of the Amazon reviews; most were only lukewarm. Thinking the other reviews might have been a bit harsh, I gave the book the benefit of the doubt, purchased, and read. Mistake.

With a word like "f@#k" in the title, I expected the book to be a bit more edgy. What the book delivered was much milder- a recently divorced, middle age man going through somewhat of a midlife crises in the form of one year across Ireland, Las Vegas, and Thailand. Sounds promising and full of potential, right? Nothing nearly as provocative as you might expect. Most of the potentially edgy scenarios are glossed over or omitted entirely. To be fair, some of the vignettes are OK, but again, everything is overall very mild.

What a disappointment, December 23, 2009
I was so looking forward to getting a good laugh out of this book. I really tried to like it but just couldn't get on board. The author just wasn't funny or exciting enough for me. If you're going to have the word "f@#k" in the title of your book, your readers will assume it's going to be a raunchy, crazy good time. But unfortunately it wasn't. The author actually refuses to kiss and tell which is so odd when you think about the title of the book. Very disappointing.

this book is awful, July 28, 2009
My wife's book club recently read "Eat Pray Love". They had the terrible idea of asking their husbands to read "Eat Play F@k" and then attend a book club together. This was the most painful book I have ever read in my adult life. The only possible redeeming value is that he was making fun of another book where the women must have been selfish without a shred of wisdom. But even if that is the case what a collosal waste of time. I found it annoying how he bragged about everything. And his stories were rediculous and so obviously made up. (I prefer non-fiction) I understand that was part of the gag but I truly wish I did not have to read this book.

I usually like satire but . . ., August 22, 2010
Cleverness, intelligent writing, quirky characters . . . all characteristics of good satire. Good satire also requires that you assume many of the characteristics of the original work. The reason why good satire works is that it's probably more difficult to write than the original work. Good satire has to equal or surpass the cleverness of the original work.

This book doesn't fulfill the needs of good satire, unfortunately. This is just plain bad. It's predictable and not clever at all It's simply a piece of writing written by a guy who wants to poke fun at women who were inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. In his effort to give the reader the impression that he doesn't take himself seriously, he comes off as trying to convince the reader to take him seriously. If I met this author, I'd probably walk away thinking that he was a fat Southern Republican frat boy who was never forced to stand on his own two feet.

If you like satire, read the Harvard Lampoon's satirical work on the Twilight series . . . "Nightlight" is clever. Any Twilight haters will roll on the floor when reading this novel. Twilight lovers will enjoy it as well. It's a great bathroom book and can be read quickly or in small bits. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Nobody knows Thailand like Lonely Planet. Our 13th edition will have you soaking up the sun on the island paradises of the south, trekking among the hill tribes and riding elephants in Chiang Mai, discovering the ancient temples of Sukhothai and snapping up bargains or being pampered in a spa in Bangkok.

Lonely Planet guides are written by experts who get to the heart of every destination they visit. This fully updated edition is packed with accurate, practical and honest advice, designed to give you the information you need to make the most of your trip.

In This Guide:

Detailed advice on everything from food & drink to transport & health
Special 'Thailand & You' chapter with tips on culture and etiquette
Extensive Deep South coverage eases your travels in the conflicted region
... Read more

Reviews

a guide for ALL of Thailand, December 2, 1999
This guide--like previous Lonely Planet guides to Thailand--offers the full range of Thailand to the potential tourist. Indeed the famous R&R resort city of Pattaya receives only 12 pages, but the fact that one-third of visitors to Thailand go there anyway means that the glitzy notoriety of Pattaya's "entertainments" are probably already well-known enough abroad.

Cummings' book is directed to a different audience. For those who do not wish to read about the political or social problems involved with certain kinds of (shall I say "predatory"?) tourism, there are other guides to Thailand. But for those who have traveled to Thailand and elsewhere before with Lonely Planet guide in hand and have appreciated the careful attention these book pay to parts of the country and aspects of the culture that might otherwise be missed, we can rejoice that Cummings has spent many, many pages turning our eyes toward the beautiful yet neglected or underappreciated parts of Thailand, all the while reminding us of the potential for abuse that is may be latent in even the gentlest of tourists.

Cummings book is simply not designed for the tourist who deplanes in Bangkok already drooling after the "delights" available in some neon-illuminated corners of this othewise beautiful, hospitable country filled with many, many thoughtful, kind, and decent people. Those tourists who would dismiss Cummings' commentary generally don't need a guidebook anyway. For them, everything they want out of Thailand will be offered in all its sleazy glory as soon as the touts see the glint in their eyes and their tongues hanging out.

The third copy I have purchased of Cummings' thoughtful book will be in my hand this January when I get to Thailand. Previous editions have guided me and my family on the most memorable (and inexpensive) trips we have ever taken. This book makes it possible to enjoy Thailand with a fullness and richness that other guides can't match.

Lonely Planet fan, April 4, 2000
Re: other reviewers' comments on Pattaya: Thanks, Joe, for NOT dwelling on that tourist trap. ANY OTHER brochure, website, or travel agent offers equal information. Lonely Planet's info given is more than plenty to fully enjoy R&R in Pattaya.

If you want to venture to the true beauty of Thailand, true land of smiles, than use LP as a terrific reference. If you want someone else to plan your whole trip and be part of a tour group, then call a travel agent or buy the "other" books.

Re: 7th edition: "Loi Krathong" (Festival of Lights - last full moon in November) needs more detailed information for more cities in Thailand and the festival itself. For me, this was THE festival of the year - great to observe pre-celebration, too. The flowers, floats, parades, food, atmosphere... This was one of my highlights of the trip. (We spent pre-festivities in Bangkok; actual festival in Ayuthaya). Joe only briefly mentions that it's "best to celebrate in the North." Don't let this discourage you from celebrating it elsewhere in Thailand.

Having traveled with various guide books, nothing so far beats the Lonely Planet guide books. But you must keep in mind as a user - all recommendations are merely recommendations. Investigate comments, take in the facts. (The comments are usually funny and helpful anyway). The cultural background information, history, and other side notes help make the difference to buy Lonely Planet instead of the others. Joe Cummings' LP books on Thailand, Bangkok & the phrasebook were superb. I liked his insight. LP helps you be a traveler, not just a tourist. (Other LP books used: Israel, Turkey, Greece, Western Europe, Baltics, Asia, and Hong Kong. They've all been worth their weight and size). If you can take your own luggage off the baggage carousel, you must use Lonely Planet.

Good but Lonely Planet is capable of doing better, July 13, 2006
UPDATE:
The book turned out to be decent background reading, but nothing one would take as a first choice everywhere. Many restaurant recommendations were good, some not so. But to be fair, the opinions were honest. And I am not sure what else I would take for a trip to Thailand. Its not a very difficult country to navigate with English spoken well and everywhere. Warning though on the prices, they were most inaccurate.

ORIGINAL:
We've been to Thailand before and covered a fair amount of the country. So purchasing the updated edition we were expecting to see a lot of the highlights of our previous visit, covered extensively. In this regard, Lonely Planet was a mixed bag. Some of the highlights from our visit to southern Thailand including details in and around Krabi were just not there. Also, visitors tend to use guidebooks and lean upon them for detailed recommendations of hotels. This book sets up brief and basic introductions, hoping instead that you use the internet instead to follow up on more details. Same for restaurants. If this was the true intention, websites and internet links would have been most helpful.

Its obvious that the book is not a complete overhaul from the pervious editions. A lot of the material is identical, word for word. Details of new hotels, ferry schedules, or the new low cost airlines flying internally in Thailand or within S.E. Asia are just not mentioned.

Still, its a reasonably exhaustive first step towards getting to know Thailand. And helping you plan your itinerary. Be warned though that you'll still want to use the internet a lot, to complement the information here.

Finally, I was contempleting getting the Lonely Planet Thailand's Beaches (including Bangkok) but that's not been updated at all in a long time (I intend to primarily spend time in the southern coast) and this book would be fine for most people especially if you are not anticipating the northern areas like Chiang Mai. Because this full LP version is rather heavy... and you are likely to not carry it with you everywhere you go. Still, overall-- a 4 star effort.

We are off to Thailand in August 2006. Stay tuned for updates to this review, the following month...

With Love from Thailand, February 8, 2001
I have just returned from a trip to Thailand, where this Lonely Planet has served me extremely well in creating a fascinating trip. Unlike other Lonely Planet guides, this one seems to go above the level of catering backpackers alone. The information provided will help all travellers, from those who seek to taste each and every experience the hard way, to those who look for a remote control like excursion.

Helpful information on places to stay and places to eat proved to be extremely accurate, which is quite a surprise for any guide book (I'm used to paying more and receiving less than the guide says).

The book has its down sides, though. By trying to be thorough and guide the reader through all the important sites, it fails to give the necessery weight to places of less importance but more charm. If we take Bangkok, for example, it seemed to me too much space was dedicated to the temples, with which I soon grew bored, while other charming venues were neglected.

However, the book's attractiveness comes mainly from the fact it is quite obvious the author is in love with the items he writes about. This love gives the reader a personal angle when reading the book, and it is this love that makes this book your best guide to Thailand.

All that you need, October 1, 1999
Lonely Planet's Thailand text is as good as any, and in many ways stands out from the majority of other travel publications on Thailand. Cummings' environmental advice and recommendations come as a breath of fresh air in this world of selfish package tourism that we live in. To criticise him for shining light on important social, political and economic issues relevant to Thailand is both irresponsible and ridiculous. I don't know what kind of world the reader from Japan lives in but in mine these issues are extremely important. It is attitudes like the one contained in this person's commentary that have resulted in much of the abuse of Thailand's natural environment that has occured in recent years (ie. the ruin of Ko Phi Phi). Buy this book and go to Thailand informed. Cummings' work has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with awareness. The simple fact is that if every traveller to Thailand carried this book the country would be a more enjoyable place to visit. Wake up.

Good detail on less traveled Southern locations, January 14, 2006
Last year I took the Rough Guide to Thailand and this year I am taking the latest edition of Lonely Planet. Already I can see a significant difference in the level of detail regarding smaller towns and islands. I especially like the attention to email access, as it's difficult to stay in touch without it. No guide is perfect, but the supplemental information about the status of recovery from the Dec. 2004 tsunami and policy changes under the current government help compensate for the frequent sales pitches for companion books from the large Lonely Planet library.

If it's possible to update this review after I get back, I will!

Still the one, January 14, 2000
Of all the guides out there this is the one to get. Yes, they get a little preachy but nothing over the top (ala Blue Guide) and I always find the history, food, culture and dangers/annoyances sections a help - or at least decent reading on the plane. The cost info./ hotel recommendations are great, hit all budget levels and the directions are usually right on. I can't believe Fodor's is still in business.

PS: I would pass on the phrase book. (or buy a used copy once you are there.)

Excellent, February 21, 2001
Couldn't have been better. I use Lonely Planet books as a loose guide to give me background information as a base for myself to build upon. I don't follow it like a bible, because then one is not being as spontaneous, curious, or as individualistic as they perhaps should be when traveling abroad. This Lonely Planet edition for Thailand had accurate information on accomadation, pricing, culture, food, language, religion, and historical background. Great "atmosphere" descriptions. The maps of the cities and towns were very helpful. I think the author Joe Cummings, did an excellent job as well as those who assisted. (Avoid tourist-trap, phony areas that are fake, and want your Baht.) It took me six years to return to Thailand, my favorite country in the world. How could I have taken so long? I will not make this mistake again. Best people, food, and culture in the world in my opinion.

First Choice IF you are going to Bangkok, Chang Mai or Rai, February 27, 2005
Of the four guides that I recently took with me to Thailand: Thomas Cook's, Let's Go, Rough Guide and Lonely Planet, Lonely Planet Thailand has a few areas that makes it a top contender.

Its `Bangkok' section is better organized than the other guides and its Chiang Mai & Chiang Rai coverage is superb. It has an excellent section titled, "Facts about Thailand", that introduces you to this exotic country and its section "Facts for Visitors" (Visas, money, health etc.) maybe the best out in a Thailand guide. The accommodations recommendations are reliable and normally good. Both accommodation and restaurant prices are given in Bahts (much better than Rough Guides 1-9 numbers), but because the guide is slightly dated (2003) the information is about three years old by now and you will have to adjust the prices by at least 20%.

Bangkok is a huge sprawling city, much like Los Angeles, and this guide logically separates the six regions within the city that you are most likely to visit. You will find the map, hotel and restaurant recommendations and sites closer together than Rough Guide, but neither guide makes it easy to navigate this concrete jungle.

The maps in Lonely Planet are plentiful but more difficult to decipher than in the Rough Guide's maps. Good, easy to use maps are critical, especially when you are trying to find a recommended restaurant while the 95 degree heat saps your patience, the traffic and noise assaults your senses and your frustration grows with this guide. Becuase of the tiny, small print, the small 1/3 page map that is designed to covers 5 square miles of Bangkok you turn the book 360 degrees and scream (don't work your voice will not be heard amongst the din). This is a important area that needs tweaking.

Rough Guide (see my review) does a much better job with restaurant recommendations than Lonely Planet. This guide will list a restaurant and write something banal about the place, like "has Thai food" and leave it at that - "duh". Occasionally, the guide sticks out its neck and says something risqu� like; "has good food". Seldom, does the guide commend a dish to try. "Rough Guide" both tells you why they recommended the restaurant, i.e. "relaxed riverfront eatery under bamboo shelters... marinated pork or chicken", and often tells you what dish you should try, "the chef's signature green peppercorn sauce served with steak, chicken or duck." This is what good "guides" are supposed to do, guide you. Another area that needs tweaking.

If you are going to go to Bangkok, Chang Mai or Chang Rai then this guide would be my first choice. If you are going throughout Thailand and will not spend time in Bangkok then consider Rough Guide first. Finally, if you are going to do the sun and surf (Southern Thailand) and not go north of Bangkok then `Lonely Planet Thailand's Islands and Beaches' is the book to have (see my review).

Very helpful in a small package, September 28, 1999
I thought this book was excellent. I liked the way I could locate districts in Bangkok, and I did value the cultural background. It was also street savy. One day I was approached by a scam artist and he presented the exact jewelry con that was detailed in the book. I highly reccomend it. Much better than Fodor's. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Reviews

Excellent city guide, February 26, 2008
This useful guidebook is compact in size, concise in descriptions, and colorful in discoveries. Husband-and-wife authors Lale and Tankut Aran love Istanbul with such passion, enthusiastically guiding readers through the back doors, back streets, and back stories of their beloved city. They single out Turks you can track down for a chat; don't miss their picks of several Grand Bazaar shopkeepers who happily share their stories and, of course, their wares.

I especially like the self-guided walking tours; museum must-sees; and money-saving transportation tips. Although I've been to Turkey six times, this little guidebook helped me rediscover Istanbul with fresh eyes and a renewed sense of appreciation for this complex, appealing country.

Best travel book ever, May 22, 2008
I've bought the Rick Steves phrase books (which are the best, by the way) but this was my first of his guide books and, I have to say, I'm hooked. I absolutely love his list of the top sights. Not only does he rank order them from the must-see to the could-probably-miss, but he includes a very brief description of the site, the days and hours it's open (great for planning!), and the page number you can go to for more in-depth information. I put a post-it note on this page and was constantly referring back to it. There's really great information on each site you visit and my friends started out our first day in Istanbul making fun of me for always referring back to the book for the fun facts he includes. By the end of the first day there they were coming up to me asking what Rick Steves had to say about where we were at :) I love that he includes lots of budget and mid-range options. Europe isn't cheap and Rick Steves helped me stay within my budget. After using this book, I've now purchased Rick Steves Rome, Paris, and London books as well. I know they're going to be worth every penny!

Excellent shightseeing guide, but not as good for eating recommendations, April 28, 2008
This Istanbul follows Rick Steve's usual formula of focusing on the main sights, providing practical information, good walking tours and useful travel tips. I have used Rick Steves guidebooks for over 7 years livng and vacationing in Europe. My only disappointment with this book was with the eating recommendations. The restaurant descriptions were not as honest as they could have been - especially for the Sultanahmet touristy area. If I am going to eat in a tourist trap I prefer to be forwarned. At one recommended $$$ fish restaurant, the Balikci Sabahattin our group of 3 adults and 3 children was subjected to snobby service and were outright scammed into ordering multiple servings of first course dishes (dishes were the same size but contained different numbers of portions) - NOT the treatment I expect from a Rick Steve's recommendation. Buy this guide for the sightseeing and the Lonely Planet Turkey guide for complementary information and restaurant recommendations.

Not the Best, But Good, October 6, 2008
This guide will probably be appreciated most by readers who are one-time visitors, have a few days in Istanbul, are not particularly interested in the history of the city, don't want to spend much money, and want to see the major sites, in other words the average tourist.

For visitors who want more, a better general guide to the city try Istanbul (Eyewitness Travel Guides), and for those truly interested in the city, buy any of the books by John Freely, an American ex-pat who has lived in Istanbul for more than 40 years. Examples: Istanbul: The Imperial City and John Freely's Istanbul.

Fair book - no hidden gems, January 4, 2009
We went to a few of the restaurants Rick suggests in this book. In all the restaurants I seemed to notice that everyone had a copy of Lonely Planet, or Rough Guide on their table.

I'm not saying I don't recommend the book, however the book does seem to advertise itself in a way to lend you to believe that it was written by a local guy that is going to recommend lots of "hidden gems" or "locals' favorite little spots" - this is not the case.

I did not think I liked it until I was in Istanbul, September 12, 2009
I bought 4 books - (can you tell that it was my first trip abroad). This book was the book that I thought I would like the least. It seems wordy and the pictures are not so good... That was until I was in Istanbul. In the first few days, we traveled with other books. But at the end of day 2 - I sat in the hotel room and began reading this book. Once I had a good idea of the city -this book was invaluable especially the walks in different regions. On day 2 (at night) I found out that I was about 100 feet from some place I had wanted to go.. but did not get the spatial relationship of different sights. I began using this book religiously. I really liked the short historical descriptions of different sights and the way it grouped sights that were near each other together. It made my sight seeing more efficient. The index was well organized so I could look up things that we were considering going to quickly. The directions were very good. The only place we had problem was a trip we took to Kirkakoy on the Asian side.. (but there was a huge construction project that made it hard for us to orient with the book's directions).

I would highly recommend this book. I thought their recommendations on must see, should see, and see if you are nearby were very good.. They also used Turkish and English names for places - so I was able to point in book for cab drivers on occasion when necessary. The maps it had were clear but not flashy - but allowed me to use to public transportation on several occasions. The only thing I wish it had done better was talk about Turkish food.. I also bought a Just Enough Turkish for deciphering menus and they made an excellent pairing.

indispensable guide to Istanbul, February 18, 2008
This has all the things that make Rick Steves' guides great. The clear maps, the insider tips, the historical back-story. The Authors are Rick's guides who live there, and know their city forward and back. This gives you the indispensible knowledge to make a visit to Istanbul safe and rewarding.

Good book but not updated--save money and buy old edition, May 12, 2009
I would recommend this book because it contains multipage guides to walk you through major sites (Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, Chora Church, etc.)

Despite a March 2009 publication date, the most recent edition was out of date when I used it in April 2009. The Suleymaniye mosque, the Galata Mevlevihanesi and the Topkapi Palace kitchens were closed for renovation in 2008 but are still listed as recommended sites in the 2009 guide. It's not worth paying a premium for a new edition--save money with a used older edition instead.

Excellent for self-guided tours, full of text, April 2, 2009
I was just in Istanbul for over a week, and my friends and I shared several guidebooks. Rick Steves' was one of them.

Pros
-Offers very detailed tours of major sites for the self-guided wanderer. (Unlike other Rick Steves' guides, this book was written by 2 Turkish tour guides, and Rick Steves lent his name to the book.) My friends and I used the book as we walked through Chora Church and the Archaeology Museum without a tour guide, and the detailed descriptions of the mosaics were excellent.
-Good details such as recommended length of visit for each site, phonetic pronunciations of site names
-Interesting sections of information on history and culture scattered throughout (read up on harems, iconoclasts, etc)
-Listed fees were very up-to-date (as of March 2009)

Cons
-Maps are not very granular. Definitely need to supplement with maps you pick up at a local office or maps from another guidebook (I recommend Time Out Istanbul's maps) if you plan on finding your own way around
-Pictures are lacking
-Entire book is black and white. Heavy on text and a little difficult to navigate.
-Book sometimes has TOO MUCH detail, e.g. listing locations of restrooms at certain sites, providing guided tours of areas that I felt did not need stall-by-stall, store-by-store explanations (Istiklal Caddesi - a major shopping street, Spice Bazaar). Using this book could cause some to fall into the trap of following a guidebook too closely and not seeing things for oneself.
-Large sections of the book are not useful until you are actually at the sites. Unfortunately, the book can get a little heavy to carry around.

Weaker Than Other Rick Steves Books, January 1, 2010
I love Rick Steves books. His travel philosophy matches mine, and I find his books incredibly useful. His Istanbul guide has a wealth of useful info - but also many weaknesses compared to his other books... Sights and walking tours are great; history information and trivia is great and entertaining; many restaurant recommendations are also good. However, the hotels recommended are all way more expensive than what I managed to find. Many restaurants recommended were dissappointing. Also, there is practically no info on Asian part of Istanbul - which is surprising knowing Rick's philosophy of travelling as 'temporary local'... In the Old Town one can never feel like temporary local - only like a moving target... while in the Asian part of Istanbul I and my family felt way more pleasant, and in a way easier to blend...
This book is still better than the other books offered - just some areas are not up to the standards of other Rick's books, in my opinion. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Experience the best of Vietnam with Lonely Planet. Our 10th edition is so full of practical information that you'll be watching the sunset from a junk on Halong Bay, sucking back bia hoi street-side in Hanoi, or bargaining like a local in Ho Chi Minh City in no time.

In This Guide:

Detailed itineraries on beaches, food, the Ho Chi Minh Highway and more
Comprehensive information on everything from food and language to health and transport
Full-Color chapter on the hill tribes of Vietnam
... Read more

Reviews

Lonely Planet Vietnam 9 -- LP's best try yet, August 1, 2007
For the first-time visitor to Vietnam, Lonely Planet's Vietnam 9 overall is a fine production -- and is easily Lonely Planet's best swing at Vietnam -- even if the style police are trying to ruin the show.

Vietnam 9 covers all the big-ticket destinations comprehensively, with detailed sleeping, eating, drinking and sights information. There's a detailed orientation section, loads of maps, crystal clear photos and lots of general information. Good coverage on most of the border crossings is included and the transportation information is pretty easy to digest -- if a little confusing at times. A series of suggested itineraries, while not overly imaginative, remain useful for first time travellers.

Authors Nick Ray, Peter Dragicevich and Regis St Louis have done the hard yards and crammed much of what Vietnam has to offer into Lonely Planet's famously tight word-limits. They've done a great job putting together what is a probably the most comprehensive text available and something much improved on Vietnam 8.

Listings
Guesthouse and hotel listings are concise and all budgets are well covered. There were some omissions which struck me as odd -- Mai House on Phu Quoc, Tay Ho Hotel in Can Tho, Jungle Beach north of Nha Trang, Hoa Hong in Da Nang and the Tung Trang in Hanoi -- all outstanding places, yet none made the cut. That said, there are stacks of excellent places they do mention -- more than enough for most readers. For the rest you'll just need to read www.travelfish.org.

Sights-wise, the information is excellent. Lots of historical background and interesting snippets are woven into the text, acting as leads for the reader to learn more. For example Ong Pagoda in Tra Vinh includes a reference to the Chinese classic The Romance of the Three Kingdoms for more information on the pagoda's god Quan Cong.

Transport
Transportation comes in two parts -- a summary and the destination specific sections throughout.

The summary section is good though a little unbalanced. There are almost three pages about getting a flight to Vietnam (surely something fairly simple), yet almost no information about the niche topic of buying a motorbike -- certainly an area where advice and suggestions would be useful. The train section has the briefest of fare charts, but thankfully steers people to the Man in Seat Sixty-One website (www.seat61.com) which is a far better resource.

The destination specific sections vary. In particular better information regarding frequency of bus services would have been good. There are also some discrepancies -- the Qui Nhon to Pakse bus service is listed as taking 12 hours and costing 250,000 VND, yet in Pleiku it reads "There is also an international service linking Pleiku and Attapeu (US$10, 12 hours)". This error (Qui Nhon to Pakse is at least twice the distance of Pleiku to Attapeu) is repeated in the transport introduction. Perhaps if one of the writers had actually done the trip they'd know that Attapeu to Kon Tum takes about five hours and another two hours to Pleiku, while the Qui Nhon to Pakse trip can take up to 20 hours. Of course these errors can happen to anyone -- I'm sure there are some in Travelfish -- but hey, LP has a bigger editing team than us.

Text and design
Talking about editing, the text is dense and the writing dry, verging on encyclopaedic. I've met a number of the LP writers over the years and without fail they've been a much more interesting, amusing and verbose lot than this text would have you believe. Perhaps the editors could spin the dial back a little on their "textual-de-emotionaliser device" to let the occasional witty or cheeky line slip through.

And while I'm on the topic of the back-end -- there's a new layout, and this one isn't great. A step forward is the removal of "Author's choice" aka the Lonely Planet Touch of Death -- replaced by a small "our pick" icon. A step backwards is the ordering of accommodation by price rather than quality. In this nod to the serial penny-pinchers, the rest of us are left scratching our head thinking "So which one do they recommend?".

Fact boxes though are the real blight. Vietnam 9 saw its length increased from 524 to 540 pages, yet rather than bulking out destinations, there are now more than 100 shaded fact boxes. Of course, some are useful; "Tracking the American War", tying together various sections covering war interests, is great. But half a page dedicated to Regis St Louis's motorbike breaking down is excessive -- especially when there's but a lone paragraph dedicated to trekking out of Kon Tum. Minor point perhaps, but the designers should have their cookie-jar benefits suspended for the incorrectly typeset, mistakenly padded fact box on page 163 -- sloppy.

Call me old school, but a move back to the basics -- accurate and easy to use information -- would be welcome. As an example, if you're looking for a list of internet resources for Vietnam, you'll be needing to refer to pages 21, 42, 58, 63, 69, 74, 79, 84, 89-90, 171, 465, 476, 494 and 495-6 -- whose bright idea was that?!

Now I'm getting petty and trivial -- lets move on.

Maps
The 105 maps cover all the major destinations and look terrific, but in anything short of ideal conditions, are difficult to read. Vietnam 8's maps, while uglier, were far easier to use. The new maps replace clunky shades and chunky outlines with gentle hues and delicate lines. This may look great in Lonely Planet's mapping HQ, but when you're crammed in a minibus trying to decipher the Hanoi map by torch, you'll be thinking different.

Photos
The photos are terrific. From the wraparound train cover-photo to the bored tourists gawking at the carpet in Reunification Palace, they do a great job of catching -- and explaining -- Vietnam. In another layout change, the photos are clustered in the first few pages, closely followed by a food overview and then eight more pages of colour in the centre.

Conclusion
It's worth noting that some of my criticisms are general and not specific to Vietnam 9 -- overall it's an excellent guide and I've rated the book at 8.5 stars (out of 10). If you're going to Vietnam and planning on hitting all the key destinations -- you'll be set with this title -- no questions asked.

*A pet peeve -- I purchased Vietnam 9 at a bookstore in Jakarta on July 20, and had seen it at the airport weeks earlier. Yet on the half-cover it reads "9th edition published August 2007". Unless Lonely Planet have a special in-house definition for the work "published" this is misleading to potential buyers who are looking for what they consider to be the most "up-to-date" text available -- it should read July 2007.

Useful, but too may descriptions done-in-a-rush!, April 5, 2006
Revised April 14, 2010
Kindle edition of LP Vietnam

Authors so rushed their research that they failed to visit many of the sights for the 2009 edition. As a result, descriptions are sometimes far off the mark. In the Hanoi section, for example, Quan Thanh Temple is said to be "on the shores of Truc Bach Lake," but if you walk along the lake shore you won't see the temple because it is a block south of the lake! The misleading description of Hanoi's excellent History Museum may put you off with "A must for the architecture more than the collection..." as may the comments about revolutionary history, but if the authors had visited the museum in recent years they would have found a very well laid-out and labeled collection of Vietnam's history up to about 1945. The revolutionary history has been moved north across the street to the Museum of the Vietnamese Revolution, which is actually very comprehensive and well displayed; here too, the book's description of this museum is flawed.

Lesser used borders, called "Border Blues" are poorly described. Any place to change money, accommodations, restaurants? Road conditions? It's difficult to tell from the descriptions. I've used the Nam Xoi-Na Meo and Nong Haet-Nam Can crossings into Vietnam, traveling on a bicycle, without any problems. It's silly to call these and Nam Phao-Cau Treo the "Border Blues" when they are perfectly fine as lesser-used crossings. Through buses are available to those who wish to reduce transport hassles.

Maps are generally very good, one of LP's strong points.

I used the Kindle edition of this guide, which works well and has enlarged segments of each map. Of course the paper edition is more convenient, but the weightlessness of the Kindle version is great to have.

I wish that Lonely Planet would be more emphatic about authors visiting EVERY sight for each edition to catch the changes. Too often authors assume that nothing has changed and skip a visit to a sight without knowing that the original description was wrong.

Best to take a look at the competition before buying this guidebook!

Comprehensive & useful with a few lacking points, November 27, 2005
I also didn't understand how Japanese travelers read the book; this guide had really good maps & if you know how to look at a map, it is not rocket science to find the places you want to see.
I have been to Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, Danang & Hoi An this November & I liked this guide in general which is more or less the case for most LP guides I have read; it was mostly accurate, the maps & walking tours were easy to understand, it wasn't necessarily the best history book (which I wasn't expecting anyway) on Vietnam but covered necessary information on history & background of the country.

The only few problems we had was that some restaurants recommended were either closed down or moved to other locations in some places. I also think that the author should make some realistic comments about the restaurants rather than just saying it is very nice & the food is delicious etc. which is not the case every time. I.e. we have been to a very highly rated restaurant in Hoi An by the author & basically the place was dirty, I have seen huge cochroaches & a mouse walking on the walls & the wooden platform near the ceiling - the toilet was basically in the kitchen & the kitchen was the worst I have ever seen in my life! Now I understand the locals may be used to this but for a tourist who doesn't have his/her immune system adjusted to the country's conditions, it can be very harmful. I think the author should work on this alot more & shouldn't write good reviews on the restaurants just for the sake of including places in the guide.

In general the guide is acceptable & reliable; but please make your own judgements when travelling around both for the hotels & restaurants - it is better to be cautious than being sorry.

Essential, October 17, 2005
I travelled from North to South with this guide in April 05, and I have no idea what the two "Tokyo" reviewers are talking about. The mapping is clear and functional. The old quarter of Hanoi is a bit of a labyrinth, perhaps these reviewers got confused?

For me, it was an essential part of my travel kit. Having lived in Vietnam for a few years, I tend to be hypercritical of what's written about the place, and I found this guide to be accurate and interesting. It also covers so much of the country compared to some that you may need to extend your holiday - it inspired me to visit places I'd not bothered with before.

I say buy it. No guidebook replaces an adventurous spirit, but this one will lead you in the right direction. And if you're really up for some unique travel experiences, get a phrasebook as well - it's not easy to speak Vietnamese, but the rewards are worth the effort.

Best used as guide for hotels., January 21, 2006
I used the Lonely Planet Vietnam as a guide to hotels and shopping on a recent trip to Saigon and Phan Rang. The information was correct and up to date. I felt some of the guide could have been better, but it is still worth the money. Of course it puts the most effort into places that most tourist will go.

Lonely Planet Vietnam, December 26, 2005
I bought this book in anticipation of my upcoming trip to VN. Having gotten great help from LP Guides over the years, I was sure that this was the book I needed. Wrong. This book is superficial and only marginally useful. Certainly not what a serious traveler need in VN!

Shame on you, Lonely planet. You can do so much better.

Buy another book, September 8, 2006
I have used LP books for a lot of my travels throughout Southeast Asia and usually am pretty satisfied with my experience. This LP book on Vietnam though, does not live up to the standards of other LP travel books!

I lived in Vietnam for three months this past summer. Going through the book, I found out that key details about travel services were missing, maps were wrong, and restaurant recommendations were off the mark. An example of how the book was not up to par: I wanted to plan a trip to Bach Ma National Park while in Hue. Once I arrived, I realized the descriptions of the trails in the book were almost word for word copies of the free trailmap given out to tourist! Nothing new or insightful at all about the descriptions.

I would recommend having this LP book over having nothing, but your better off getting something more reliable.

Happy travels.

Trustworthy, comprehensive with excellent maps., March 29, 2008
I am reviewing the L.P.2007 guide. Note: most of the other reviews are for older editions, ie. Pre-2007. I was in Vietnam January-February 2007 and used this guide.

The guide has maps that are superb and easy to use. Both the accommodations and restaurants I chose from the guide's recommendations were good to very good. The cost for accommodations are listed in dollars, instead of the insipid icons that other guides use. Kudos!!! The restaurants cost quotes are in Dong. Caveat! Because the dollar is in a free fall against world currencies, you will need to add at least 20% to the quoted price for hotels, maybe more.

Vietnam is a country of paradoxes: Communistic-Free Market. Traditional-Progressive. Etc. To capture a caricature of Vietnam is as demanding as it would be enigmatic. Yet, Dragicevich, Ray & St. Louis (authors) have written an outstanding brief profile of this country. "The Culture" is a section not to miss. No other guide is as complete if you are going to go "off the tourist track." I found towns and places in L.P. that other guides don't even list. The information was accurate and trustworthy.

Unlike Rough Guide's Vietnam (8 pages) this guide has only a smattering of book/film recommendations. Sadly, in this guide, unlike other L.P. guides, there are few sidebars or text boxes that give you interesting tidbits about the country and its people. Though most all accommodations have an email address, there are NO webpages. NOT GOOD. This guide needs serious improvement in this area.

The 2007 is a significantly revised guide and one of the best guides in print for Vietnam. This is a highly recommended guide - happy tramping. 4.5 Stars.

Most up-to-date, November 5, 2007
This was a very good guide. I got the Rough Guide, National Geographic and Let's Go and was most satisfied with Lonely Planet. This had the most up-to-date info and mentioned a few things that were not in the other guides. Let's Go might be best for people in their early 20's. All of the guides avoid giving opinions and pretty much list all the tourist destinations. I found the web site [...] to be the best source for recommends on what to see and do and used the guides for hotel information.

Okay, but not good if you're looking for interesting restaurants/bars in Hanoi or HCM, May 20, 2010
I've made one Hanoi trip and one HCM trip. The standard tourist destinations are identified and covered. However, the restaurants and bars section is very weak. It is the typical "white man's choice" kind of places. If I go to Vietnam I want to find good places that the locals go to. The guide provide both expensive and cheap choices but most are of the "white man's choice". Finally, the new editions of the these books are a joke. It is more a way to make money than to update content. Most of the content remains unaltered across editions. If they can't update all content, they shouldn't issue a new edition. Or at least provide a way of telling when a new edition is a major new edition.) I would recommend thodia.vn and using Google Translate to find interesting place to eat and drink. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Experience The Best of Thailand
Make the most of your trip abroad – Lonely Planet’s full color Discover guides highlight the best a country has to offer while still providing an authentic and memorable experience.

Full Color Throughout
Full of color images and maps – makes planning as inspiring as the journey itself
Color-coded navigation

Easy-To-Use Structure
Easy-to-use tools include: color-coded chapters, color thumb tabs, dynamic color spreads on major highlights and
Easy-to-read planning sections throughout

Highlights
Special front-of-book chapter on the top 25 can’t-miss experiences
Features the must-see attractions and unbeatable experiences
Focuses on key cities and regions

Itineraries
Country-wide itineraries take you step by step though the country – broken out by interest, theme and length of trip
Region-specific itineraries help you plan more deeply for the regions you are most interested in

Local Experts
Major attractions include insights from local experts on what not to miss
... Read more

Reviews

Which is the right guide for YOU?, September 25, 2010

The First Guide to Get: A Discover Thailand Lonely Planet Travel Guide Review, June 19, 2010

Colourful inspiration guide, but less detailed than their old series, April 28, 2010

Editorial Review

For 35 years Lonely Planet's Southeast Asia on a Shoestring has been the backpacker's bible. Discover Cambodia's ancient temples, Thailand's island paradises and the best pho in Vietnam. We help you stay longer and spend less.

Lonely Planet guides are written by experts who get to the heart of every destination they visit. This fully updated edition is packed with accurate, practical and honest advice, designed to give you the information you need to make the most of your trip.

In This Guide:

Detailed itineraries to help you plan your perfect trip
Eat Cheap and Sleep Easy with budget beds, cheap eats and places to party
Get the low-down on history, environment, culture and current events
... Read more

Reviews

Lonely Planet- not with this many package tourists., February 17, 2006
"Nobody touches the Lonely Planet for budget travel advice," states the back cover of this book.

I just finished travelling around Southeast Asia with this as my primary guidebook. It includes the basics for getting around, eating, etc... but it really is just the basics. I have used other books from the lonely planet series in the past, and have found them good enough to continue using, at least until this volume. It has been 5 years since I was in this region last, and things have changed. Especially the guidebook, which was once a rich trove of off-the-beaten-path hints and tips. Increasingly, however, it seems that the Lonely Planet authors seem less interested in helping you find a unique experience and more interested in serving up a cookie-cutter, package tourist rehash. I have a couple grievances with this book:

-It insists on constantly pointing out little sidebars entitled "Splurge!" which indicate ways that the budget traveller can spend a great deal of money in one shot. Why this is in a travel guide called "shoestring" I couldn't tell you. Neither do the authors, but I suppose we can assume that backpackers are interested in spending $5 a night for a couple of months and then blowing $150 to stay in some posh hotel in Kuala Lumpur or racking up an additional $20 in credit card debt for an entirely forgettable dining experience in Bangkok. I just don't feel these are relevant to 99% of actual budget travellers, but they waste a lot of space that could be much better used on greater detail. But I will get to that in a minute.

-Another issue I have is the lack of actual information about actually moving from one place to the next cheaply. Cheap local transport is available in many of the places covered in the book. For some reason though, the book usually offers helpful advice like 'just take a cab,' or 'buses are so cheap, so don't bother with local transport.' As an independent traveler that actually enjoys saving money AND spending time with the locals (what's the purpose of traveling again?!?!), I regret the lack of information about local transport.

-The maps in the book, though better than some in past editions, leave much to be desired. Streets are incorrectly labeled or in the wrong place, intersections are vaguely marked, and occasionally they add a street that doesn't exist or remove a street that does. Worst of all, in a region that prides itself on an almost complete lack of road signage, not many good landmarks are given to orient oneself. There is little that is less fun on the road than standing in front of a train station, staring at one's new alien surroundings, being hassled by touts who are trying to steer you in the wrong direction while trying to find that cheap hostel you read about.

Look, if you want a run-of-the-mill book to complete a run-of-the-mill trip, by all means, you will find this book quite helpful. But if you are looking for that individual experience that is the beauty of independent travel, you might be best going with a different guide for this region.

By the way, the quote I wrote at the beginning should be viewed as a warning rather than an enticement

Great new edition. The best SE Asia backpacker book yet., April 22, 2005
LP's latest Southeast Asia on a Shoestring is more than just a current list of cheap guest houses, temples, authentic local restaurants, and transportation info. It's a great read. Unlike other guides (including earlier editions of this book), this guidebook does a great job of making the places it covers come to life. It makes me want to go there. Right now. What's more, it's accurate and user-friendly.

Reading the other reviews of this book, I wonder: is it possible to separate one's appraisal of this book from one's appraisal of their trip to SE Asia? Should the reviewer knock stars off if the guidebook doesn't factor in his appetite for beer and disco when it recommends a daily budget? And what if the reviewer was ripped off or had a bit of stomach trouble? Is that the guidebook's fault? My answer: I don't think so.

I've visited a number of the countries covered by this book. In the case of Thailand, I've been there a handful of times over the past 8 years. I've bought at least two earlier editions of this guide as well as SE Asia and country guides from other publishers. If I could have only one guidebook to cover SE Asia, this would be the one. In particular, the Thailand section in this book is fabulous.

With that said, here are some things to keep in mind when you consider buying or, ulitmately, USING this book:

1. Notice the word "shoestring" in the title. At a practical level, this book is more about budget travel and backpacking than about four-star hotels and up-market restaurants. The sections on culture, history, weather, etc. will apply to (and appeal to) everyone, however.

2. Production of a book like this takes a while. Some things WILL change before this guidebook lands at your local shop. Probably prices will go up a bit. Also, things in this book may burn down, wash away, or generally just go to crap before you get there!

3. This book is NOT comprehensive. It's not like your local phonebook. This book is just a few hundred pages. It covers a bunch of countries. Keep in mind that there are other places (not covered by the book) that are worth visiting. There are other places (not covered by the book) to stay, eat, drink, SCUBA-dive, get a massage, or whatever that are as excellent as some of the places listed in this book. No guidebook can be comprehensive. You wouldn't want it to be.

4. If it's in this book then it's not a secret. There must be 1000 guest houses in Bangkok. This book lists maybe a dozen or so. Guess what? If you go to one of them, then it might be full of people who bought this book! Use this book, or any guidebook, as a general representation of what's available and what things cost in the country you plan to visit. With that said, most of Lonely Planet's choices are very good despite their notoriety.

5. In Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, etc. BEER costs a lot of money compared to guest house lodging or local food. If you drink a lot, you cannot expect to get by on $10 a day or whatever the recommended "SHOESTRING" budget is.

6. If you're going to Thailand only, or to Thailand and some other country only, don't buy this book. Instead, buy the Lonely Planet Thailand guide (it's THE BEST Thailand guide ABSOLUTELY) and buy a guidebook for whatever other place you're headed to. If you're headed to just a couple of countries in SE Asia, then most of this book really won't help you that much. Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting read. But when you're in Vientiane, wondering if the boat goes to Van Vieng and when, this book has the potential to let you down. Likely the details you need most had to be left out in order to provide space for East Timor or Singapore or somewhere silly. You need a country-specific guidebook for things like good bus or boat schedules.

7. This book won't tell you which cheap guesthouse has the best banana pancake (the official breakfast of the food-afraid tourist). And this book won't tell you where you can find a Pizza Hut, McDonalds, or KFC. If you want these things, ask anyone and they'll tell you where to go. (Just so you know, KFC in every language in the world is pronounced "kay eff see." When asking someone who doesn't speak English where you can find the KFC, be sure to say it reallly loud. If the simply saying "KFC" doesn't work, point to you wide open mouth with one hand and rub your belly with the other and repeat: "KFC, KFC, KFC.... This always works. Then they will say, "ohhhh, KFC," and point toward the nearest outlet.)

8. Buying this book may cause you to want very badly to go to Southeast Asia.

9. Buy Lonely Planet's Thailand book. It's the best out there. You will be going to Thailand, won't you?

The SE asia bible!, November 29, 2006
Used this book to travel in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Bali (though I finally ended up buying another book for Bali as Indonesia itself is huge). Don't know if there is a better book that covers so many countries this well. Other people on tour had the Rough guide to SE Asia book and we found this one to be more useful because it had better maps and more information.

Obviously a bit tailored towards backpackers but you can easily find more upscale places (hotels, restaurants etc) in the "splurge" section.

Wouldn't dare to say that it covers everything but certainly a must-have for people traveling in the area

Great stuff but there are alternatives, May 19, 2004
This is indeed the classic SE Asia book and it keeps getting better. But I agree with the previous reviewer that Indonesia is virtually a different continent adding too much extra weight. However there is a 'mainland SE Asia' book which is very light and easy to carry: Trailblazer's Southeast Asia by Mark Elliott. It's a bit strange at first glance but is packed with maps and when you get used to all the icons (and discover just how easy it is to travel in SE Asia anyway) it may prove all you need. Best of all it's very portable. There are helpful reviews on Amazon.co.uk including mine! Worth thinking about if you want something different.

typical shoestring guide, August 24, 2005
This guide is really good value, although you notice easily that it covers a lot of countries. South East Asia is big, the book is limited in size and therefore detail is missing. I bought seperate guides for Laos and Cambodia and this benifited my trip greatly.
Also, the part about Bangkok doesn't show the best bits and doesn't quite warn you for the worst(sex tourism), either.

Very good compilation of the escence of SE Asia, June 27, 2005
No book can have a real big guide to travel SE Asia, or any continent. Too much information for just one book.
But this one has a great seleccion of sumarizzed info.
You can alwways criticize this kind of books as they try to cover too much, but for me, the selection of countries information, quantity and importance of data for each country, and Seleccion of cities, is great.

Too little detail, October 22, 2010
I am currently (Oct 2010) travelling through Thailand with this book and I am very displeased with it - for reasons that are not Lonely Planet's fault, but you should be aware of anyway. Wherever I go (or NOT go due to lack of travel information), I feel that I know significantly less about the travel destiation than my fellow travellers. This book also does not put enough emphasis on some of the climate phenomenons around here (monsoon) with climate diagrams for example. For first-timers to the region, this can be a big problem.

This book is a compromise in so many ways, it has become really useless. I suggest to get the LP country guides instead, they tend to be excellent. I have the Thailand country guide on my Kindle and it is perfect for reading (and really light). The Kindle has its own set of problems though, like the legibility of maps.

What I suggest to do is to get the paperback version of the first country you travel to, then buy the next one in a bookstore in the country of visit (LP guides sell everywhere in Thailand), so you only carry around one book at a time. Or swap books with fellow travellers. Or get a Kindle and the electronic LP books, and get paper maps of the respective cities you travel to (tourist maps tend to be free everywhere). But stay away from this south-east asia guide.

Lonely Planet SE Asia 2008, April 10, 2009
We travelled in SE Asia in the Summer of 2008...you would think the 2008 edition would be helpful and up to date. A friend gave me the previous edition but I saw there was an updated version and decided to buy it while on the road - very expensive! I have travelled extensively in many countries and continents. I will never buy a Lonely Planet Guide again. This book inaccurate, the information and prices so inaccurate you wonder if they were ever right (museums, palaces, etc, were 7X more expensive)misleading, did not give pertinent information, descriptions were "cutesy" rather than factual, you couldn't get from place to place with this guide, just the regualr tourist trail that you could find by yourself int he dark ...You really wondered if a person had actually been there. Totally useless and a waste of time.

Inaccurate and Outdated, July 28, 2009
Yes, Lonely Planet usually delivers with lots of tips and great recommendations. However, this particular guide is almost worthless. Not only did we encounter numerous inaccuracies in terms of transportation availability, restaurant and hotel existence, and false information about visas and entry fees, but also poor recommendations. There is traveling on a budget, then there is traveling like a homeless person. This Lonely Planet landed us in some of the least clean and least safe places we have ever stayed--but only when we were "lucky" enough to find that the book's recommendations were still open. I would not recommend this book and will seriously think twice about buying another Lonely Planet book in the future.

maybe buy the older edition.., October 13, 2010
Great book very informative. It appears like the information was not updated from the last series. Just a few large color pictures were added.
If you want to save a few bucks buy the slightly older edition. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Nobody knows China like Lonely Planet. Whether you want to sip cocktails in Shanghai, trek Tibet's holy Mt Kailash or contemplate history at Xu'an's Army of Terracotta Warriors, our 11th edition will guide you through the best of this jaw-dropping destination - and reveal more of it than any other guide.

In This Guide:

All-new color chapters feature treks, iconic sights and culinary delights
Comprehensive activities coverage, including new cycling trips and unforgettable river tours
Expert trustworthy knowledge from resident and specialist authors
... Read more

Reviews

Good for package tourists; not for exploration, March 5, 2004
They say that everything you hear about China is true somewhere. Everything you read in LP China may also be true somewhere but unfortunately not always where you are. Originally published in August 2002 this book is well past its prime. It is still superior to the Rough Guide but could use a serious update. Speaking of which the overleaf promises guidebook upgrades on the Internet but they discontinued this in favour of user discussion.

Pricing - the cost of tea in China, you say? Like most things in China, prices are in constant flux and I question the value of including them. They are more misleading than helpful. Tourist attractions will generally be higher than what the book says but other prices will be close.

Locations - I live in the city of Wuhan and in the last two year it has undergone tremendous changes. There is simply no way for a printed book to keep up with them. For example, in the last six months the bus routes in WuChang have changed four times.

If you are going to travel around China be flexible! Expect that nothing in the guidebook will be where you expected. Expect to bargain for everything, hotel prices included. Remember that any guide book is only a starting place. As I have travelled around southern China I have used this book as a starting point and then asked the locals what they would do. Most have never been to the "tourist sites" but can show you a great street restaurant just around the corner.

This book is great for those thinking of going to China but who will never make the trip, or for those who are going on a package trip to fourteen cities in eight days. For those who want to explore China on their own I would advise caution.

Necessary but unsatisfactory, March 20, 2001
The lonely planet China guides, for the two years that I taught in China, were indispensable for its general information about places that do not disappear overnight, e.g., train stations, large hotels and hostels. It is relatively useful in physically orienting yourself with cities and the larger tourist destinations. If you want a more informative guide on the history of places that you visit, I would suggest the Rough Guide. General information on what to expect when traveling in china is also useful however some of this is outdated as well.

Outside of this, the Lonely Planet essentially provides you with a tour of China without being on a tour. Everyone and their Grandmother that has a backpack will have this book. Do not expect to find little known attractions with this book, as when a site shows up here, it immediately becomes an overnight success. This is particularly true of all of the restaurant listings and entertainment venues as many of them actually vie to be mentioned in this book. I have also seen many a decent restaurant ruined by callous and hastey remarks.

I have good reason to believe that the Lonely Planet does not verify all that they publish from one edition to the next. While I lived in Chengdu, a new edition came out and listed several restaurants and bars that had been closed for over a year and a half- more than ample time for the Lonely Planet to verify their existence.

With all of this said, no other guidebook remotely comes close to matching the utility of the Lonely Planet. Its an essential point of departure, that I would recommend augmenting with other resources, to discovering your own adventures in China.

Needs massive overhaul - 3 1/2 stars, April 27, 2001
Just got back from China and used the latest edition as guide. That's all it is... a guide. Tries to be your "insider" pal but fails on several fronts. China's too darn big and changing too fast for any publisher to dare think a single "China" volume is sufficient. I mean, would you trust a single "USA" guidebook? Of course not, even if it's as thick as a phone book (and this ungainly little brick is just that).

Many wonderful sights/attractions/wonders are not even mentioned... Did editor decide to excise them, or do researchers look only so far?? I, for one, would have liked to see more attractions mentioned. But if the LP people are going to keep up the chatty little comments with every such entry (a Lonely Planet hallmark), they will have to break up "China" into many volumes. For example, book does not even show on Wuhan map the fascinating, large Taoist temple there... cutting the chit-chat about Mao's Villa there (worth visiting but the text on it is useless) could have made room. But if they want to keep the cute comments (surfing buddhas on a temple wall in Kunming, overrated herbalist in Lijiang, Europe in miniature in Chengdu), they are going to have to break the book up into at least three volumes.

Restaurant reviews could be chopped in half, that's for sure. They are boring, outdated, sometimes wholly erroneous. Phone numbers have always been a joke in LP editions for any country I have used ...I own some seventeen LP's... but these numbers were wholly useless to me on my recent trip.

As other reviewers note, it is necessary to concede that China is always changing, and with growing speed. Perhaps LP just can't send their researchers out fast enough. But there are enough expats living in Chinese cities to be tapped for updates. Incidentally, expats are a great resource for any traveller... already Shanghai and Beijing have weekly "what's on" style tabloids in English that are very helpful to the visitor. Anyway, on the expat account alone, generally clever LP editors really have little excuse for not having a finger on China's latest and greatest.

What's good about Lonely Planet China?? Liberal use of Chinese characters and Pinyin romanization, for one thing. Made it super easy to communicate with taxi drivers. The Orientation section for each city is excellent... three paragraphs to prepare you for the layout and characteristics of the city. History section is good, too. I truly love the off-the-beaten path viewpoint that makes Lonely Planet so much fun... so I hope future editions retain this, while getting on the ball with useful / necessary details.

Using this book, traveller / reader will get a generally good trip, but will be led astray / waste time more than once by old info (where to catch bus to Buddha, where to find Muslim food, etc), and from incomplete phone numbers.

Good guide book with minor problems, September 26, 2005
I've been using Lonely Planet guides for all of my travels in the past decade (and not finding LP, I go with Moon Guides). Luckily, the new edition of the LP China guide came out a month before my visit to the Middle Kingdom. I planned my itinerary inside China based off of recommendations in the book: Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, Suzhou and Guilin --using the book as a reference everywhere. Here are my impressions after the trip, starting with the positive:

-- The book is overall a good value for helping find which sites are worth visiting on a tight schedule. I found all of its site descriptions to be spot on and was not dissapointed by any of the places I visited based on suggestions from the guidebook.

-- As ususal, the LP maps are tremendously useful when navigating major cities and towns.

-- the advice on scams was tremendously useful in China, where being a foreigner makes you an instant target for unwanted attention. If anything, they should expand this section.

However, there were a number of minor quibbles that kept this book from being as useful as other LP guides (like Japan or Canada) which I will go over below:

-- As noted by other reviewers, the prices on admissions are already out-of-date. The book was published in June '05 and my trip was in August '05, yet very few prices corresponded to those in the guide. All prices were higher.

-- Often the hotel reviews were far too generous. After staying at many "mid-range" and "High-end" hotels recommended by the guide, my travel companion and I laughed at the wonderous descriptions given in the LP guide for most of them.

-- Some of the slang used in the guide is unfamiliar to US readers. Granted, this point is a very minor quibble, but it's annoying when you're trying to get a feel for a place from the book and you can't understand what it's trying to say.

-- Since many, many people go to China to shop, and nearly all stores involve serious haggling, I was disappointed that the book did not have a good section on how to approach shopping in China. For this I had to go to various forums on the web, but there's really no reason to not include the universal rules in such a general guidebook.

-- Finally, I was a little surprised that this LP guide seemed a little toned down in its editorial criticism of the enormous inequalities and visibile authoritarian elements within China. This is not to say I was expecting a political statement, but a charming aspect of many LP guides are their willingness to point out blatant or just-below-the-surface problems in the countries and cultures it covers. In many cases the China guide did point issues, particularly with minorities, but often it gave the Chinese gov't a pass in areas where even a fairly oblivious tourist like myself couldn't help but notice. With that said, I have a suspicion that this may have been a judicious choice by the editors, since bringing in books that are too critical to the Chinese Government is forbidden (as clearly stated on the customs forms visitors must sign when they enter the country).

Overall I found this book to be useful. I did side-by-side comparisons with a Frommer and Nat'l Geographic China guide before I purchased it and I felt that the LP guide was willing to make more editorial opinion judgments on what was really worth making time for.

There are better guides, November 22, 2001
China continues to change at a hair-raising pace so I can almost forgive the fact that Lonely Planet can't seem to keep up. Except that it should be able to catch up after three editions yet somehow manages to lag behind even that schedule.

I can't forgive at all the snarky attitude of its writers who seem to operate on the principle, "if you don't have anything nice to say, try at least to make it sound witty and superior." The result is usually smug cynicism, which is an unattractive attitude in a traveller, and all the more trying when all you really want to do is find the hotel after 36 hours in hard class. Sometimes I get the feeling these guys don't really like to travel...

Rather than simply being obsolete, or imprecise as another reviewer notes, Lonely Planet is often simply inaccurate. How do they do it? I'm not sure. I've had reports that the underpaid and tightly itineraried writers can't always complete their assignments and sometimes rely on second-hand information from other travellers. I've met a German guidebook writer (not lonely planet) who admitted she'd done the same, so it's not all that far-fetched.

China can be a frustrating country for budget travellers, particularly those with no other option than train or bus on long journeys. Not much english is spoken, even in the major cities and the whole country appears to operate under alien premises. (These happen to be two of the best reasons to travel there.) However, outdated, imprecise and inaccurate guidebooks just exacerbate the potential frustrations.

There are better guidebooks. Consider titles in the Cadogan Guide series, particularly "China: The Silk Routes" by Peter Neville-Hadley. Read the editorial and customer reviews on its Amazon page, which are bang on.

Oh, by the way, I took one star off for inaccuracy and two for being unpleasant. China's a tough assignment but it's no reason to get nasty.

like a pair of training wheels, June 13, 2001
The China LP is an excellent resource for the novice traveller to China if you use it correctly. By "use it correctly," I mean that you have to learn to ignore large chunks of it. Some of the info is invaluable for even the most veteran China-traveller: the maps showing where the train stations and cheap foreigner-accepting hotels are (perhaps the most annoying phenomenon in China is the proliferation of cheap guesthouses that, owing to Commie regulations, cannot accept foreigners. In this aspect, the LP is a life-saver; I've wasted literally half my day trying to find accomodation in cities not covered by the LP). For the uninitiated, the LP can be somewhat helpful for showing where the major sights in Beijing, Hong Kong, Xi'an, and other large cities are.

For Chinese speakers, the recent revisions have been particularly helpful, with the addition of characters throughout the book (instead of in the annoying, hard-to-find glossary secton in each chapter).

However, that being said, I really despise the LP. In terms of restaurants and food, AVOID USING THE LP AT ALL COSTS. You will waste your time trying to find non-existant or crappy, overly expensive restaurants. China (especially southern China) is packed with some of the best food in the world in the most unexpected places. Do not waste your time chasing after a restaurant on the other end of Guangzhou when every street corner has a little restaurant that's incredible. Half the fun of China for me was exploring all of the street vendors and little holes in the wall.

For those of who want to see anything outside of the major cities without being funnelled into the tourist ghettos known as Dali, Yangshuo, and Lijiang, avoid this book like the plague. Those three tourist traps are mind-numbing in their monotony of banana pancakes and muesli with yogurt. Most of the people who use the LP to guide them through China are essentially spending a huge wad of cash to fly to China in order to avoid as much as possible actually being in China. Easily the most edifying experience I had in China was when I to places uncovered by the LP (e.g. far western Sichuan, southern Qinghai). Admittedly, to get outside of these ghettos requires a least a modicum of Chinese language ability, but this can be overcome be finding help from other travellers who speak Chinese, natives who speak English, or, in the worst case, using a phrasebook.

China is a difficult country to travel in, but the only interesting experiences you'll have is when you drop the book and open yourself up to unexpected ephiphanies.

Excellent - if Outdated - Guide for the Middle Kingdom, July 12, 2006
The Lonely Planet guidebook is a commonplace symbol on the long hard road through Asia. Everywhere you go on the tourist circuit (and sometimes off it) you will see tourists and backpackers totting well-thumbed and/or pristine copies of the blue book for immediate reference. While in some destinations, particularly South-East Asia, a well-delineated tourist circuit has already been established and a guidebook is not really needed, China is a different sort of challenge, and - barring proficiency in Mandarin - some sort of manual is essential in traveling from one place to the other and in exploring the myriad sightseeing destinations without the wallet-sting of the package tour.

I used this guide to visit the provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Henan and Guangxi and the municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong in the spring and summer of 2005. Aside from offering fairly informative sections on China's history, health issues and basic language skills, this particular guidebook is necessary in that it contains the characters for all locations covered. Aside from Hong Kong, Shanghai and the tourist-Mecca of Guilin/Yangshuo, most Chinese natives do not speak nor recognize English, and having a concrete symbol to point at goes a long, long way in making this vast country assessable. Factor in lodging recommendations, reasonably competent maps, bus and train time-tables and the boxed articles about misc. culture, Lonely Planet: China contains all one would need for an adventurous trek through this ancient, swiftly-changing nation.

Change quickly outdates any guidebook, however. Published in January 2005, this particular edition should prove satisfactory for information in every regard *except* price. With a burgeoning Chinese upper middle class more than willing to spend extra lucre for their two-week vacations, the prices for tourist destinations have risen anywhere from 30 to 60 percent in the last year and a half. For example: Black Dragon Pool Park in Lijiang is listed as having an admission fee of 20 yuan; the reality is now 60 (USD $2.50 to $7.50). For Shaolin Si, entrance is 100 yuan instead of the listed 60. Transportation costs have risen only slightly - roughly 5 to 10 yuan - while hotels are always a nebulous rate, given the Chinese predilection towards bargaining... and, aside from government-listed tourist fees, one should always attempt to bargain; getting something half off the quoted price means you're paying a fair price.

This guidebook - which, in the core writing, hasn't changed in years - gives a great overall analysis for the 33 provinces / Special Economic Zones. But if one is planning their trip around certain specific locals - Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tibet - it would be better to pick up on of the individual guides covering those areas, as cramming information about all of China's environs in roughly 1000 pages does tend to short-change certain sections. Personally, I feel the guide works best for someone traveling through three or more provinces on their trip. Prior research is very important: China is enormous and there is a lot to see and do. In order to maximize one's potential, an itinerary is necessary and this guidebook goes a long way in terms of preliminary research.

Enjoy your trip!

Solid Over-View But Not Very Indepth, November 4, 2005
As others have mentioned, China is a sprawling country that will transport you to 1421, 1890, 1850 or 2005 depending on where you or what your interests are. There is really no way any one guide book could satisfy everyone.

Here is what the Lonely Planet-China manages to deliver and why you'd want to buy this book: An over-view of nearly every city you might be able/want to visit. The brief history and signifigance of each city and its main sights are mostly accurate. Within each city, there are a range of hotels, transportation and resturants. Depending on the size of the city, that can range from from a few paragraphs to several dozen pages.

After most cities pages, there is a page with English & Chinese words/characters so you can point to them for your cab driver or if you have any questions at the hotel. They are in tiny print so hopefully, no one needs glasses to read them.

There are also Chinese phrases (along with English) of the most important things you might need to ask or say.

If you are planning on traversing on your own or if you speak Chinese adequately, this is a decent starter book as to what you might want to go or see in a particular city.

If you're on a tight guided trip - this might be adequate enough for you to get a sense of where you are in the city in respective to everything else.

If you have relatives in China or you're traveling with a Chinese speaker and your trip is short, this book offers you enough of an over-view of most things.

Why this book might not be for you?

Just think of any large American or European city near you with hundreds or thousands (well, not really in the US) of years of history - can you describe all there is to do, see, eat, etc in several pages adequately? Rome? New York? Etc? Not really. That's the main problem with Lonely Planet-China. It's really an all too brief over-view.

If you're with a guided tour group and you are a really detailed person, you'll want to get the city specific books (Lonely Planet or otherwise) of each particular city to learn the history of what you're seeing and what else you might want to do your few hours away every few days.

First, in the major cities, China is literally changing overnight. There are 4,000 skyscrapers in Shanghai and 1,000 going up in the next YEAR. Most all of the information pertaining to lodging & restaurants are changing EVERYDAY. But going to China as a non-Chinese speaker is not necessarily easy. If you're willing to pay typical major US city hotel rates, there are dozens of choices in Beijing and Shanghai not listed here - most which will pick you up in a limo from the airport - a very necessary arrangement for non Chinese speakers. There are car rental agencies now but unless you are a cab driver in Manhatten and you can negotiate your way in Chinese out of any fender benders, do NOT even consider driving in China.

The other problem with the guidebook is that you definitely need to sit down and map things out way in advanced. For instance, there is a descripotion of a sight, you need to find the key to that city - then look at the monochome map - find the number to see exactly where it is. They also are not very clear about how far each sight to each other. The maps are not huge so what seems like 3 inches might really be way, way out of town. It would also be nice if they were clearer in exactly what you absolutely need to see and why in comparison to another temple ... for instance, each publically accessible section of the Great Wall also offers you different things.

And of course, the food. If you love food, China is the mother mecca of food - it's extremely inexpensive unless you just eat at the tourist spots of course, personally I have had a filling breakfast for $.25 USD and massive banquets for less than $8 USD a person. From the street to 6-story restaurants, there is no way any guide can keep up but also what's disappointing is that most foods are very regionalized in China and that is NOT really mentioned in this guidebook - if you are really traveling around to different parts of China - there are definitely dishes and delicacies that are sometimes ONLY available in that city or region and if you want to eat it, sometimes by the next train stop, it's NO longer available (many if not all sit down restaurants have picture menus but I don't think that's pointed out also).

BTW, many major historical sites and in particular Beijing historical sites are undergoing renovation for the Olympics and beyond so be prepared to see scaffolding.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to email us.

Overall - a decent book with a decent over-view of most of the cities in China. The real problem is a printed book cannot hope to cover the thousand years of history, the overnight changes going on right now as we speak and of course, the thousands of food choices.

Enjoy your trip!

Good travel literature, but not a good guide book!, April 13, 2002
Lonely Planet China provides excellent introduction on the destinations and I do enjoy reading it. I appreciate the writers and the editors to have done such wonderful research on those small villages and towns.

However, most of the "practical" information is getting unpractical, because it's apparently far outdated. Hotel rate, admission fees, cost of the food and so on are really misleading the travelers! After traveling thouroughly in China, I really do not believe I can find a place that costs 10 RMB per night, even in a backpacker's guest house.

I have to say, this is not a good "guide book" as most of the supposed to be useful info is useless.

Use With Caution!, November 8, 2007
It is confusing that many of the reviews here are for the National Geographic Traveler China book, by the same author as the Lonely Planet book. The National Geographic book has lots of pictures and is a good "idea" book. The Lonely Planet is geared to the independent traveler, with much more specific information about how to get around. This review is for the Lonely Planet.

My husband and I have successfully used Lonely Planet books on many other trips, but we were disappointed in the China book. Obviously China is a huge country, and it is changing very quickly, so we were not surprised to find that many places no longer exist and that some of the information was out-of-date. But we WERE surprised at the amount of blatantly wrong information. For example, the section on Jade Dragon Snow Mountain near Lijiang was so mixed-up that we ended up spending the day at the wrong hiking area.

In most countries it would be fairly easy to double-check the accuracy of a description by asking a hotel concierge or taxi driver. In China, though, we often had problems communicating, so we relied much more heavily on our guidebooks.

The book is huge, but it didn't need to be quite so big. Many of the descriptions are excessively wordy, and sometimes it seemed like the author was more interested in writing a clever review than clearly giving the facts.

The best thing about the book is that names of places and most streets are written in Chinese. It was incredibly helpful to be able to point to the place we wanted to go. We found that our accents and pronunciations were so bad when we tried to read pinyin that most people didn't even realize we were trying to speak Chinese to them.

We looked through other guidebooks at some of our guest houses, and unfortunately none seemed to be much better.
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