In fact the oracle bones of the book's title are not even a major element in the narrative. Wherever he goes, he goes there with an open mind, and the acquaintances he makes are only big names insofar as some of them are highly specialised scholars. The author gets about a lot of China, as can be easily checked from the beautiful map at the front of the book, but his explorations have more of a random feel to me than the sense of any systematic search. As I read the book, it is autobiography even more than it is sociology or history. In Oracle Bones he is a professional journalist, still at that time single and unattached, exploring China, its peoples and their culture. In River Town he had set down his experiences as a teacher of English for the Peace Corps in a small town on the Yangtse. This is the second volume of Peter Hessler's memoirs of his life in China. However if you take the title `New Yorker' for which Peter Hessler is the Beijing correspondent, translate it into Chinese and give it to the appropriate officials of the Chinese Communist party, the title will come back as `New York Person', and argument with the functionaries will be futile. Had you ever heard of a magazine called The New York Person? I expect not.
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