Oracle Bones

"A remarkable travelogue documenting aspects of a country still little understood." - Kirkus (starred review)

"Hessler gets the stories that no one talks about and delivers them in a personal study that informs, entertains and mesmerizes. Everyone in the Western world should read this book." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A brilliant observer with a novelist's ear for character and dialogue, Hessler is both fascinating and funny, whether talking to the dove keeper at a Nanjing monument or chasing a would-be robber down a Dandong hotel hallway in his underwear." - Entertainment Weekly

"Serenely confident, Hessler has a marvelous sense of the intonations and gestures that give life to the moment. . . . Today's China could have been made for him. If you don't believe me, dip into the chapters in Oracle Bones. . . You will be hooked." - Jonathan Spence, New York Times Book Review

"Excellent. . . . Hessler has a gift for graceful first-person storytelling. . . . Those who seek to understand the real China-rather than the cartoonish threat-would do well to pick up Oracle Bones. It offers an intelligent rumination on China, both ancient and modern." - USA Today

"Wonderful. . . . Intimate. . . . The book reads like a really good novel." - Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Insightful. . . . Hessler is a wry and witty writer who manages to bring humor even to tense situations." - Christian Science Monitor

"Engaging. . . . Acutely observed, moving, frequently funny and a perspicacious X-ray of China's zeitgeist." - South China Morning Post

"Deeply engaging. . . . 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." - Los Angeles Times

"An extraordinary, genre-defying book. . . . Beautifully constructed. . . . Hessler's reportage is vivid." - Nigel Richardson, The Daily Telegraph

"Oracle Bones melds the multiple personalities and tangled story lines into a kaleidoscopic vision of a country surging toward an uncertain future. . . . The society that emerges from its pages is one buffeted by conflicting currents, confident and yet deeply insecure, and haunted by its recent past." - San Francisco Chronicle

"Oracle Bones will firmly establish Mr. Hessler as one of the Western world's most thoughtful writers on modern China. . . . A page-turner with great insight into Chinese society. . . . A richly humanistic portrayal of contemporary China." - Wall Street Journal

"Hessler has stepped off the treadmill of events-driven journalism to produce one of the most profoundly original books about China since, well, since his first book, River Town. . . . . Everywhere, the book is shot through with sensitivity, insight, and rollicking good humor too." - The Economist

"A stunning book. . . . . Hessler is a wonderful guide. . . . One conclusion is certain: Americans and Chinese need to better relate across gigantic cultural barriers. Hessler is a near-perfect intermediary." - The Sunday Oregonian

"Timely and necessary. . . . Beautifully delivered. . . . An informative read for those interested in a nation bound to occupy more time on our 24-hour news channels as the 21st century progresses." - Rocky Mountain News

"Oracle Bones achieves an emotional and intellectual intensity that one usually associates with fiction. Patiently following the lives and preoccupations of his former students as they migrate to the coast, fall in and out of love, find and lose jobs, Hessler creates a vivid and complex picture of a society in rapid transition." - Pankaj Mishra, The Guardian

"An erudite and thoughtful tapestry woven from past and present, history and biography, rural life and migration." - The Times (London)