OTHER RIVERS by Peter Hessler is subtitled "A Chinese Education." Hessler is a staff writer at the New Yorker and has written several other award-winning travel texts. He has lived and worked in China over many years and this text describes the changes he sees given the roughly twenty years which have passed between his initial time in Beijing (2000 to 2007) and time in Chengdu (2019 to 2021). OTHER RIVERS offers an insightful perspective on the lives of many of Hessler's former and current students and there is much here about what he learned while teaching, too. Hessler is particularly effective in evoking emotion, partly due to the excerpts of student writings which he includes. COVID was active during his second stint in China and Hessler explores and relates the Chinese societal response, detailing the activities and restrictions in Wuhan, even his correspondence with a pharmacist there. OTHER RIVERS received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly.

In “Other Rivers”, Peter Hessler reveals a country that has changed considerably from his days teaching at a teacher’s college as covered in his first memoir, “River Town” – not only by using the lens of his daughters’ time in a Chengdu primary school, but also by reaching out and telling the stories of former students from his Peace Corp days long ago. Between this blend of his reporting on his family’s own experiences, the experiences of the men and women that he’s built relationships with, plus an abundance of contextual cultural and historical information, he’s created another entertainingly insightful work that has much to share about the current state of things in China, as is his wont. Fans of his previous works will definitely enjoy his latest publication (or at least so was my personal case). However, first-timers will have nothing to worry about, unless an in-depth informative glimpse of a read is a cause for anxiety.