PAUL THEROUX - Riding the Iron Rooster.By Train Through China

London England, Hamish Hamilton, 1988. First Edition, Binding: Cloth, Very Good/Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall 0241125472 Hardback Hardback. First Edition. Riding the Iron Rooser. By train Through China. Shelf wear to edges of D/J. If you want to understand China, take the train: as the Chinese do, as the author did - in every province of the People's Rupblic, from the searing hot Gobi desert to the Western Xinjiang of the ice-bound cities of the Siberian border; along the South China Sea and to the edge of Tibet. The result is a beguiling - and revealing - book of travels in old and new China. This book is a book of encounters, full of people and their talk - for the Chinese are candid and friendly and nowadays outspoken about Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution, about rising prices and student unrest, about their work and their worries and the possibility of a better life elsewhere. The trains go everywhere and Mr. Theroux trode them for a year, to the end of a line in the grasslands of Quinghai province, where wild Yaks browse outside the line. At that point Mr. Theroux detrained and made his way into Tibet where, in the rearefield air of the holy city Lhasa, he made some distrubing discoveries. 494 pp.