In this thrilling road trip from Peking to Paris, a woman tries to save her car, her marriage, and her confidence from breaking...

The official record of the centenial re-enactment of the 1907 Peking to Paris race. Man and machine against the elements, driving where no car has gone before; That was the impossible challenge of 1907 when a handful of madcap motorists took up the idea of a Paris newspaper to prove that the car could now go anywhere by driving from Peking to Paris. To mark the 100th anniversary of the original "Great Race," over 100 cars set out to drive the original route used by Prince Borghese in 1907.

On 6th September 1997, Rosie Thomas, mother of two, bestselling author of a dozen novels, nearing fifty years of age, stepped into a Volvo Amazon in Beijing that was to take her half-way across the world. She and her co-driver - nearly twenty years her junior - Phil Bowen, a pearl diver, charter boat skipper and photographer, were set to retrace the run of the first ever international motor rally. The excitement of the daily time challenge, the strange camaraderie, the bickering over who should drive, the dangerous endurance test of miles on dirt roads, up mountains and through deserts, followed by nights spent sleeping outdoors or in flea pit hotels, is more than matched by Rosie's own internal journey, including a near-death experience at the top of the Himalayas.

Genevieve Obert discusses the experiences she had while competing in the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge in 1997.

Winner of the both the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the CWA Non-Fiction Dagger from the author of City of Devils Chronicling an incredible unsolved murder, Midnight in Peking captures the aftermath of the brutal killing of a British schoolgirl in January 1937. The mutilated body of Pamela Werner was found at the base of the Fox Tower, which, according to local superstition, is home to the maliciously seductive fox spirits. As British detective Dennis and Chinese detective Han investigate, the mystery only deepens and, in a city on the verge of invasion, rumor and superstition run rampant. Based on seven years of research by historian and China expert Paul French, this true-crime thriller presents readers with a rare and unique portrait of the last days of colonial Peking.

"By looking at the activities of Taoist clerics in Peking, this book explores the workings of religion as a profession in one Chinese city during a period of dramatic modernization. The author focuses on ordinary religious professionals, most of whom remained obscure temple employees. Although almost forgotten, they were all major actors in urban religious and cultural life.The clerics at the heart of this study spent their time training disciples, practicing and teaching self-cultivation, performing rituals, and managing temples. Vincent Goossaert shows that these Taoists were neither the socially despised illiterates dismissed in so many studies, nor otherworldly ascetics, but active participants in the religious economy of the city. In exploring exactly what their crucial role was, he addresses the day-to-day life of modern Chinese religion from the perspective of ordinary religious specialists. This approach highlights the social processes, institutions, and networks that transmit religious knowledge and mediate between prestigious religious traditions and the people in the street. In modern Chinese religion, the Taoists are such key actors. Without them, ""Taoist ritual"" and ""Taoist self-cultivation"" are just empty words."