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| Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China (P.S.) | 
 enlarge | Author: Peter Hessler
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $4.50
You Save: $11.45 (72%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (27 reviews)
Sales Rank: 9953
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 528
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1.2
ISBN: 0060826592
Dewey Decimal Number: 951
EAN: 9780060826598
ASIN: 0060826592
Publication Date: May 1, 2007
Release Date: May 8, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 an extra-ordinary book on China January 5, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I would have rated the book 6 stars if there were one.
The talent of the author is obvious to anyone who read the first 10 pages. Each chapter is independent so you can read one at a time, but yet they are related so I always wanted to find out what happened next.
The author also just wrote what he observed as a journalist (he admits he is an unconventional one), neither as a moral judge nor as a missionary who tried to install Christian values.
The characters in the book are very interesting, which include his former students (some of whom became emigrant workers), a dissident (one of the most fascinating characters) who was obsessed with North Koreans, a cab driver who invited the author home for dinners, a famous actor whose movie was banned, a talk show hostess with a very humble beginning, a former high-level official who asked the most smart question ("why don't we realize our product is not as good as the competitors").
The author also documented the reaction of the mass to key events, e.g. the bombing of the Chinese embassy, the china-US plane collision, 9-11 terrorist attack, which are also fascinating.
Another instant classic from a masterful author December 31, 2007
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
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.
 Unique Perspective / Coherent December 29, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The book gives readers glimpses of what it's like to live in China, what China is and was. The book tells the stories from Chinese born in this era with much more economic freedom and Chinese who had been through difficult political and economic times of past era. Each of these two themes has multiple stories. The book does a great job intertwining these stories and I never felt lost reading through the book.
The stories of young Chinese were the average Chinese he kept in touch with - he had known them through his teaching in Fuling. These are the average Chinese people. Each story served a purpose. Each story (character) was chosen to illustrate a perspective and demonstrate the changes that are going on in China.
Besides the personal story of the author's subjects, he also included a number of other stories and people he was tracking - these are the people from the previous era, such as people who had been through touch times such as the Cultural Revolution. He told us how he did the research, how one lead ends and another begins. He walked us through the process of his research. As a result, you feel like you know exactly what he did to gather all the facts and what insights he gained from each interview. He tracked the story of a few oracle bone scholars.
He also described his experience in China when several important events occurred in the world relevant to China and America during his stay. He talked about Chinese people's reaction to 9-11 attack; to embassy bombing; to Fa-Lung Gong demonstrations; to spy plane collision; to Bush's visit to TsingHua University; and to China-Taiwan relation.
I think this is good book. The author described the changes in China in an intuitive but unique way. It described many sides of China through views of young and old Chinese. It lifted the veil that had covered China especially for anyone who hasn't lived in China for an extended period of time. The book is logical and coherent despite the intertwining of stories and timelines.
Fabulous NEW writings on China December 2, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
With China being a hot topic it's easy to pick up any of the hundreds of books about China's economy, its threat to America, and the destruction of its environment written by US government officials and academia. Unfortunately, they all have the same story to tell. Hessler bypasses these common themes to provide a much more intimate picture of China and its people based on the years he's spent living there.
Mixing personal and historical stories, he provides some of the freshest writing on China in years and provides a glimpse at how modernization is affecting the average citizen. I was intrigued by the details he gave, from his visits to the border of North Korea to how emigrants play the system to enter the US. His own story of working through the system to become a journalist should be considered mandatory reading for anybody looking to this profession in China.
In addition, Hessler's writing style has improved since his first book River Town. I found River Town to be a good book, but the writing seemed a little stiff. Hessler writes with much more confidence in Oracle Bones, making it a pleasant read throughout.
Endearing portrait of the impact of China's changes on her people November 14, 2007
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
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.
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