Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost
I loved this author’s first two books, and was intrigued by his decision to follow those tales of the South Pacific with a trip to China. I was disappointed. The first two books were filled with loosely connected stories that were each funny in their own right, but this book was more a beginning-to-end narrative of his trip and lacking in much of the hilarity that made the first two books so attractive. In all, we get a picture where materialism balances with poverty, where the Chinese government has destroyed history, and an underlying sense that each corner houses at least a million people. All true, and all conceptions that I already had before buying this book. It is not a bad book by any means, but when laid up against expectations, it fell short.
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Posted on July 26th, 2008 by toddg
Filed under: Books, Nonfiction
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