Set Free in China: Sojourns on the Edge

by Peter Heller

A young world traveler recounts his restless adventures, from his experiences at a logging camp in Vermont, to his fish-packing job in Alaska, to his wrestle with death on a Chinese river.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel

166 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1992

About the author

There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.


Peter Heller holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in both fiction and poetry. An award-winning adventure writer and longtime contributor to NPR, Heller is a contributing editor at Outside magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure, and a regular contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek. He is also the author of several nonfiction books, including Kook, The Whale Warriors, and Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet’s Tsangpo River. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

Reviews

[Allyson Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Heller is a river guide, kayaker, and wanderer. His essays chronicle his experiences as an itinerant camper, as a worker in a fish-processing plant, as a logger, as a construction crew member, as a lobster fisherman. He bikes down the coast of South America, lodging with drug dealers on the way. He kayaks down fearsome rivers, with fearful consequences, in the Soviet Union and in China. And he tells the tale in frank, unpretentious prose that at times keeps the reader firmly on the edge of his seat. The essays are short, sticking to the highlights (and dark depths) so a tempting bedside book – except for those dark depths.

[Donovan Mattole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read one chapter at a time and loved them all. Fabulous travel memoir. Wonderful writer. Highly recommend.

[Cynthia Sprout · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Peter Heller at his most adventurous and descriptive.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Heller continues to be a favorite author of mine. Again a very enjoyable read into some of his ventures.

[Alison Frye · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to sell most of my belongings, live in the back of a pickup truck, and attempt to have a life even half this interesting.

[Kawtar · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book caused a reading slump !!