何伟和他的涪陵，见证了在梦想和现实的冲突中，普通个体被裹在社会大潮中的百态人生。 彼得•海斯勒，中文名何伟，美国作家，他创作的中国纪实文学三部曲《江城》《甲骨文》《寻路中国》记录了1996至2007的中国，他本人被《华尔街日报》赞为“关注现代中国的最具思想性的西方作家之一”。 何伟准备告别中国前，又一次回到了他在《江城》中写到的曾经支教过的那个地方——涪陵，这座长江上的小城因何伟而出名。当年何伟支教过的学生们已毕业多年生活在不同的城市中，他们在社会化的过程中，梦想破碎，其中大多数人的生活，并不是如当初所向往的那样。后来，有些人妥协了，过上了平淡而幸福的生活；有些人还没妥协，在世间各个角落里坚守与挣扎。

在线阅读本书 A century ago, outsiders saw China as a place where nothing ever changes. Today the country has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. In Oracle Bones , Peter Hessler explores the human side of China's transformation, viewing modern-day China and its growing links to the Western world through the lives of a handful of ordinary people. In a narrative that gracefully moves between the ancient and the present, the East and the West, Hessler captures the soul of a country that is undergoing a momentous change before our eyes.

榮獲2010年度 經濟學人十大好書。 亞馬遜書店百大好書。 紐約時報百大好書。 通過什麼來了解中國？何偉（Hessler）這一次選擇了汽車。嘟嘟——這個紐約客記者租了一部美國產的切諾基吉普車，開始了他的尋路中國之旅。在第一部裡，他選擇了沿古代中國橫貫東西的城牆而行（沒錯，它今天被民族主義和愛國主義者塑造為長城），這裡崎嶇難行，本非道路，古老頹敗的城牆承載了古今殊途的意涵：古代它是中國抵禦胡人的工具，今天抵禦胡人的城堡沒落荒廢，人們沿著新修的路去了南方尋找機會。第二部裡，汽車潮和旅遊熱沿著新開的道路湧向了長城腳下作者居住了二載的一個鄉村，他透過這個叫做三岔的村莊，具體而微地呈現了新興商業力量和傳統政治力量如何左右它，如何左右這裡的村民。第三部裡，他沿著十車道高速公路來到一個個南方雨後春筍般混亂成長的工業城市，圍繞著一台山寨版胸罩調節扣機器發生的諸多有趣故事，他明白了什麼是中國版本的工業革命。還有什麼比這更不可思議呢？一座座山被削平變成了工廠，種植柑橘和小麥的手開始給女人做胸罩，成功就在眼前，如果不沿著路往前走，就無法抵達，而更主要的是，他們已經無法返回。 本書最打動讀者的是對眾生深入到本質的刻畫，何偉真實再現了這個時代裡很多中國人特有的空洞感：周遭變化太快，應接不暇，為之所累，而迅速的變化也帶來了太多的不確定。簡言之，這不是一個關於汽車和道路的故事，而是一部處於瘋狂移動狀態中的國家的浮世繪，更是一部中國如何被莫名快速的力量所驅動和駕馭的深入記錄。是的，在中國，每個人都在路上。 「誰能弄明白這樣一個世界？」 我們向正在努力尋找答案的何偉表示感謝。

A New York Times Notable Book Winner of the Kiriyama Book Prize In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the complex processes of understanding that take place when one is immersed in a radically different society. Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be. Third-place winner of Barnes & Noble's 2001 Discover Great New Writers Award for Nonfiction

如果你不認識何偉，就從這本《奇石》開始； 如果你已讀過《甲骨文》、《尋路中國》， 這本「番外篇」不容錯過！ 何偉最新力作《奇石》， 精選改寫自十多年來發表在《紐約客》的深度報導， 是當今非虛構類寫作的最佳範本， 只要在何偉筆下，你就讀得到奇形怪狀的中國。 「中國就像是顆奇形怪狀的石頭，每個人都能看出不同的樣子。」------何偉 一個作家的筆，要如何趕上中國這個瞬息萬變的國家？在經濟的開放與城市的快速成長下，書寫中國本身乃至於這個國家對世界的意義，變成了一件十分具有挑戰性的事情。何偉的《奇石》被《時代雜誌》主編評價為「最好的長篇報導」，就在於他在中國崛起的這十幾年間，一次又一次地用幽默生動的真實故事，寫出中國處於變化中的奇特面貌。 熟悉何偉從《消失中的江城》以降「中國紀實三部曲」的讀者，《奇石》可以被視為｢番外篇」之作：是三部曲的前傳、書寫背後的心路歷程，也是書中人事地物後續發展的追蹤。何偉是如何開始學會觀察人群？他的第一篇中國紀實之作寫了什麼？那些出現在《尋路中國》、《甲骨文》書中的有趣旁線人物，他們完整的生命故事為何？《消失中的江城》的三峽大壩之水淹沒城市時，呈現出何種景象？何偉隨和平工作團到達中國時獨自一人，後來舉家搬遷回到美國中西部寫作，這過程中有多少同伴？發生了什麼趣事？在本書中皆有生動呈現。 何偉的書寫，總是帶有本地居民又是外國觀察者的雙重眼光，這也讓他除了能生動地描寫人物面貌與地方的特殊環境外，還增添了許多發生在作者自己身上的奇聞趣事。閱讀本書，將是認識何偉這個人和他如何進行「非虛構類寫作」的最好途徑。無論中國或世界，只要在何偉筆下，你就讀得到跟奇石一樣題材另類、視角多維的故事。

From the acclaimed author of River Town comes a rare portrait, both intimate and epic, of twenty-first-century China as it opens its doors to the outside world. A century ago, outsiders saw Chinaas a place where nothing ever changes. Today the coun-try has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. That sense of time—the contrast between past and present, and the rhythms that emerge in a vast, ever-evolving country—is brilliantly illuminated by Peter Hessler in Oracle Bones , a book that explores the human side of China's transformation. Hessler tells the story of modern-day China and its growing links to the Western world as seen through the lives of a handful of ordinary people. In addition to the author, an American writer living in Beijing, the narrative follows Polat, a member of a forgotten ethnic minority, who moves to the United States in searchof freedom; William Jefferson Foster, who grew up in an illiterate family and becomes a teacher; Emily,a migrant factory worker in a city without a past; and Chen Mengjia, a scholar of oracle-bone inscriptions, the earliest known writing in East Asia, and a man whosetragic story has been lost since the Cultural Revolution. All are migrants, emigrants, or wanderers who find themselves far from home, their lives dramatically changed by historical forces they are struggling to understand. Peter Hessler excavates the past and puts a remarkable human face on the history he uncovers. In a narrative that gracefully moves between the ancient and the present, the East and the West, Hessler captures the soul of a country that is undergoing a momentous change before our eyes.