Yellow dust blowing down from the North, migrants from the country scrambling for a living, young urbanites scrambling for cars and condos, memories of famine and the Cultural Revolution, an authoritarian government watching over it all: Jonathan Tel gives us, in The Beijing of Possibilities, the grit of Beijing today. What sets him apart from other chroniclers of that capital is that he never forgets—from the appearance of a gorilla bicycling furiously through Beijing's streets in the first story, to the simian's reappearance, singing, in the last—the grin. Not recommended for those who feel that serious topics should only be approached with earnestness and gloom.