Ten non-fictions that offer insights into the world

Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory by Peter Hessler. [Photo/Agencies]

Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory

Author: Peter Hessler

The book written by Peter Hessler, The New York Times bestselling author of Oracle Bones and River Town, is the third and final book in his award-winning China trilogy. After travelling 1,000 miles across northern China, Hessler investigates a historically important rural region being abandoned, as young people migrate to jobs in the southeast. Then he spent years in a mountain region north of Beijing, in a small southeastern city called Lishui, and deftly illuminates the vast, shifting landscape of a once traditional rural nation. It is a book that addresses the human side of the economic revolution in China, explaining China's shift from rural to urban, from farming to business.

What they say:

"Hessler has a marvelous sense of the intonations and gestures that give life to the moment."

-- The New York Times Book Review