China Road

China is a country on the move, and Route 312 - China's Route 66 - is the artery along which 150 million Chinese are travelling daily in search of work and a better life. Running 3,000 miles from the east-coast boomtown of Shanghai to the border of Kazakhstan in the northwest, crossing many ethnic and provincial boundaries, it is the transcontinental road that Rob Gifford has always wanted to travel. Part personal pilgrimage, part reportage, Gifford's book cuts right through the middle of the turmoil. Sometimes poignant, often funny but always engaging, the author's quest to get to the heart of the new China and his ability to talk to everyone across the social spectrum - from truckers and prostitutes to yuppies and travelling salesmen - makes China Road an outstanding travel narrative.