Peter Hessler, Strange Stones: a Book

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Mara Hvistendahl, Behind the Bamboo Curtain. Portraits of ordinary folk in rapidly changing China, like a driving teacher who treats his students to booze midway in their lessons. Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2013
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 53181873237850.html
(book review on Peter Hessler, Strange Stones; Dispatches from East and West. Harper Perennial, 2013)

Note:
(a) Mara (name)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mara_(name)

, where the first paragraph is about Mara as a surname, and the second, about Mara as a given name.

(b) Peter Hessler
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hessler
(1969- ; a Rhodes scholar; In 2011, Hessler received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" in recognition and encouragement of his "keenly observed accounts of ordinary people responding to the complexities of life in such rapidly changing societies as Reform Era China")
(c) "Yet Mr Hessler attended instead to the nation's many smaller stories."

attend (vi): "to apply oneself <attend to your work>"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/attend
(d) "Fuling, in Sichuan province"  重庆市 涪陵区

(e) His 2001 book was "about Mr. Hessler's students—first-generation college attendees from poor families who choose English names like Soddy and Lazy."

Soddy is an English surname.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soddy
(f) The reviewer compares Mr Hessler to "a sort of Tracy Kidder in Asia."

Tracy Kidder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy_Kidder
(1945- ; American)
(g) Sanatorium for Chinese Coal Miners, Beidaihe
中国煤矿工人北戴河疗养院
(h) "it is in China that Mr. Hessler is truly in his element"

element (n): "the state or sphere natural or suited to a person or thing <at school she was in her element>"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/element