I Deliver Parcels in Beijing: On Making a Living
Language: English
Published by Allen Lane, London, 2025
- First Edition
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: The Secret Bookshop, Tararua, New ZealandThe Secret Bookshop
AbeBooks seller since January 11, 2016
Condition: Used - As new
£ 9.31
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
Feels unread. A memoir of working life in modern China, following one man through nineteen different jobs, including convenience-store work, bicycle sales, security and parcel delivery. Moving between cities whenever conditions become unbearable, he describes the exhausting routines, low wages, workplace hierarchies and bureaucracy faced by ordinary workers. Alongside these experiences, he reflects on literature and writing as sources of freedom and individuality. The book combines humour and close observation with a revealing account of China’s gig economy and asks broader questions about work, dignity and what it means to build a worthwhile life.
Seller Inventory # 053179
- Title
- I Deliver Parcels in Beijing: On Making a Living
- Author
- Anyan, Hu
- Publisher
- Allen Lane, London
- Publication year
- 2025
- Condition
- As New
- Dust jacket
- As New
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0241733820
- ISBN 13
- 9780241733820
- Edition
- 1st Edition
- Printing
- 1st Printing
- Dimensions
- 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall
- Seller catalogs
- Autobiography, Culture, Non Fiction
A witty and humane account of one man, multiple jobs and what it means to live
A Book of the Year in the Guardian, Sunday Times, Economist and the Financial Times
Shortlisted for the Baifang Schell Book Prize: Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction
Hu AnYan has held nineteen different jobs since he graduated. He’s been a convenience store clerk, a bicycle salesman, a security guard and a delivery driver (among many other things). Every time the work gets punishing or the bosses too bossy, he moves on, from city to city, carrying with him nothing but his copies of Chekhov and Carver. This is his story.
A runaway bestseller in China, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is about what it’s like to try and make a living – and stay sane – in the gig economy. From the pecking order on a parcel-sorting factory floor to the perfect alcohol dose to get some daylight shut-eye before a punishing night shift, from the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the hiring departments to the ideal layout of a delivery route, Hu illuminates the hidden lives behind the roles that keep our world going. But he also shows how, through the liberating power of literature, he finds solace, and even freedom in his existence.
Quietly radical, brimming with humanity and humour, this book asks: what does work really mean? What should it mean? And do any of us really know how to live?
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Hu Anyan (Author)
Hu Anyan was born in Guangzhou, China, in 1979. After graduating from secondary school he joined the workforce, moving between cities and odd jobs to make a living. In 2020, a blog post based on his experience as a delivery driver in Beijing went viral, leading to the publication of his first book, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing (Insight Media, 2023). It has since become a major national bestseller in China and will be translated into fifteen languages.
Jack Hargreaves (Translator)
Jack Hargreaves is a Chinese-English translator. He has translated work by such writers as Li Juan, Lu Xiaoyu, Chai Jing, Shen Dacheng, Gu Qian, Wen Zhen and Chen Chuncheng, among others.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
The Secret Bookshop
Tararua, New Zealand
AbeBooks seller since January 11, 2016
Shipping rates from New Zealand to U.S.A.
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Where some of the best books in New Zealand hide. Fantastic range of NZ history, Military History, Collectible fiction, Rare and out of print books and some modern popular books.
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