“In River Town (2001), Hessler described teaching English and learning Chinese in the remote town of Fuling. Back after 20 years, much has changed . . . Throughout, Hessler shares the words of his students?variously curious, skeptical, tired, and wise?in what is, at heart, a meditation on teaching and learning from one’s students.”??Booklist (starred)

“Hessler paints an expansive panorama of China . . . The result is an enthralling take on China’s remarkable progress and its downside.” ?Publishers Weekly (starred)

“Peter Hessler has written a wryly observed, deeply empathetic portrait of modern China, told through the lives of his Chinese students and his own daughters' experiences at a local school. Hessler avoids sweeping conclusions, trusting that the country’s real story emerges from microhistories, everyday conversations and amusing glimpses into daily life. This is journalism at its most humane, and (especially for those of us who aren't Sinologists) a perfect primer on what China is really like.” ?Pamela Druckerman, author of Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
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“Fascinating and engrossing. Other Rivers is an extraordinary work of foreign correspondence and memoir, drawn from a quarter century of direct and intimate observation. With deep sympathy, humor and seriousness, Hessler portrays several generations of Chinese lives in the throes of staggering social, political and economic transformations?and how their experience responds to and reflects on our own.” ?Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
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“The hardest and most important challenge in writing about China is conveying the vivid individuality of the people who make it up. Peter Hessler does this wonderfully again. The students whose stories fill Other Rivers are funny but also super-serious, idealistic but also cynical, hopeful but also resigned?and in all ways memorable. They are China’s next generation, and we are fortunate to be able to meet them in this book.” ?James Fallows, author of China Airborne and other books

“Beyond the headlines of strategic rivalry and military confrontation with China are countless stories of real people trying to live in a complex country . . . [Hessler] tells [students’] stories with empathy and affection . . . shines a valuable light on the reality of life in today’s China.” ??Kirkus?