An astonishing, cautionary tale of how Westerner Mark Kitto built a successful media empire in China, creating and running 3 magazines, only to have the state take his business, and his livelihood, away.I had fought off attacks from jealous rivals and been investigated by every bureau with the slightest connection to publishing, and by many who did not: nine in total. I had paid over 1 million Yuan in fines, and who knows how much more in administration fees to government 'agencie...

‘China Cuckoo’ is the charming true story of a witty and eccentric sinophile Englishman and his China tree-change, narrated by the author.Mark Kitto was the first westerner to return and live in Moganshan, a dilapidated, beautiful Chinese mountain village, since the original foreign residents left in 1949.In millennial Shanghai, Kitto was the creator of the ‘That's’ city magazine series, the most popular and profitable English language publications in China since the ‘North...

'One of the better known foreign entrepreneurs of his generation in China.' New York TimesIn his bestselling debut, 'China Cuckoo', Mark Kitto described how he 'lost a fortune and found a life in China'. In 'That's China', the thrilling prequel, he tells the story of how he made that fortune. For seven roller-coaster years Kitto outwitted competitors and jealous partners to build the most profitable and popular English language publishing business in China since 1949.To the...

The ferocious Taklamakan desert, the harshest on earth, is known by the Chinese as the 'desert of death' or the 'place of no return' - you go in but you don't come out. It sustains no life and has taken the lives of many of those who have ventured in. Its unknown depths are said to be haunted by demons and spirits and legend has it that ancient cities filled with treasure lie lost and buried beneath its dunes. The only certainty is that no human being in history had ever crossed it from en...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERAn extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships – and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and...

THE STORY THEY COULDN'T HACK: In this international bestseller, a high-ranking counterintelligence agent describes his life as a former poet laureate to Kim Jong-il and his breathtaking escape to freedom.As North Korea’s State Poet Laureate, Jang Jin-sung led a charmed life. With food provisions (even as the country suffered through its great famine), a travel pass, access to strictly censored information, and audiences with Kim Jong-il himself, his life in Pyongya...

At twenty-something, Alice is eager for the milestones of adulthood- leaving home, choosing a career, finding friendship and love on her own terms. But with each step she takes she feels the sharp tug of invisible threads- the love and worry of her parents, who want more than anything to keep her from harm. Her father fears for her safety to an extraordinary degree - but why?As she digs further into her father's story, Alice embarks on a journey of painful discovery- of memories lo...

**"Dark, gorgeous…feels authentically Chinese and it works like a charm." --Washington Post Book World on A Case of Two CitiesChief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Department is offered a bit of luxury by friends and supporters within the Party – a week's vacation at a luxurious resort near Lake Tai, a week where he can relax, and recover, undisturbed by outside demands or disruptions. Unfortunately, the once beautiful Lake Tai, renowned for its...

In this intrepid and brilliant memoir, Emma Larkin tells of the year she spent travelling through Burma, using as a compass the life and work of George Orwell, whom many of Burma's underground teahouse intellectuals call simply "the prophet". In stirring, insightful prose, she provides a powerful reckoning with one of the world's least free countries. Finding George Orwell in Burma is a brave and revelatory reconnaissance of modern Burma, one of the world's grimmest and most shuttered dict...

Martin Booth died in February 2004, shortly after finishing the book that would be his epitaph - this wonderfully remembered, beautifully told memoir of a childhood lived to the full in a far-flung outpost of the British Empire...An inquisitive seven-year-old, Martin Booth found himself with the whole of Hong Kong at his feet when his father was posted there in the early 1950s. Unrestricted by parental control and blessed with bright blond hair that signified good luck to the Chine...

The acclaimed travel writer chronicles a year of train travel across China in a revealing travelogue that " gives the reader much to relish and think about " ( Publishers Weekly).The author of the train travel classics The Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express, takes to the rails once again in this account of his epic journey through China. The always irascible, infectiousl...

After the brutal suppression of an unarmed national uprising, which cost thousands of lives, Rory MacLean seized the chance to visit Burma. Travelling from Rangoon to Mandalay and Pagan, into the heart of the Golden Triangle, he heard stories of freedom fighters, government censors, basket weavers, farmers and lovers -- ordinary people struggling to survive under one of the most brutal and repressive regimes in the world. He met Aung San Suu Kyi, the most courageous woman of our time and t...