Can anyone recommend a travel essay concerning Shanghai? Something along the lines of Bill Bryson or Calvin trillin would be great, but any suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

ttt

outside of cambridge, we call those travel reports, travel reviews, overviews.....NOT ESSAYS...

Shanghai is often part of a Fodorite's total china trip.

didn't escrunchy do a pretty thorough discussion of Shanghai in her TR?

Yes, Ekscrunchy did an excellent COMPLETE report. I was inquiring about books generally shelved in the travel essay section.

Gotta think a bit about this one.

Not any that come to mind immediately.

There were a number of older "travelogues" written by ex-pats, like before WWII. Any particular time period?

The only travelogue that comes to mind is "Riding the Iron Rooster" by Theroux, but I don't know if it covers Shanghai.

To read about one interesting and powerful family from Shanghai, try "The Soong Dynasty", brother a major banker and sisters supporting and/or marrying opposing political parties.

You might also want to look up Edgar Snow.

More recently on the communist era, there's "Life and Death in Shanghai" by Nien Cheng.

hawthorne wrote, with the help of emerson, a very long essay on the delights of soi 4, sukhumvit rd...its not well circulated however..

Riding the iron rooster is probably the most interesting travelbook about china and very well written but really outdated.
if you like some crime fiction located in Shanghai try Inspector Chen by Qiu Xiaolong.
Historicalwise Farewell Shanghai is a great book (can't recall the author).

I would like to turn Calvin Trillin loose in Shanghai!

A terrific book about modern China including Shanghai

LOST ON PLANET CHINA by J. Maarten Troost

Hysterical!




http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/d...767922005.html




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And if a silly yellow round thing appears on this post, note, too, that I did not put it there..