Isabella Bird was one of the greatest travellers and travel writers of all time, and this is her last major book, a sympathetic look at inland China and beyond into Tibet at the end of the 19th century. In describing the journey, Isabella provides a rich mix of observations and describes two occasions when she is almost killed by anti-foreign mobs. It many ways, Isabella created the model for travel writing...

Published right after the first Opium War, this book reveals the chasm between the Marco Polo-inspired view of a mythically serene China and the harsh realities of the colonial era. A delightful mix of fact and fancy, Tales about China and the Chinese encapsulates the ethos of an era when the West saw China as a remote, and unspoiled empire - ripe for the picking.

In 1969 Sasha Gong, like millions of other Chinese teenagers, was forced from her home in the city to live and work with peasants in the countrys ideas part of China's Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The work was backbreaking, rations were tight, but one part of her "re-education" she remembers fondly is how to make simple, delicious country cooking. The Cultural Revolution Cookbook is a collection of dele...