“Lost on Planet China: The Strange and True Story of One Man’s Attempt to Understand the World’s Most Mystifying Nation, or How He Became Comfortable Eating Live Squid” ($22.95, Broadway Books) arrives just in time for the Olympics. That’s ideal for anyone who has not visited the world’s most populous and, arguably, most interesting as well as possibly one day most powerful country. Author J. Maarten Troost, who wrote the amusing “The Sex Lives of Cannibals,” is only slightly less irreverent here, trying to get a more thoughtful take on China’s quick and painful road to modernization and dirty laundry regarding Mao Tse-tung. Ultimately, he’s pretty hard on the place, but he also has a keen eye for the truth, beautiful and ugly, and a terrific sense of humor, and his writing style makes this a very funny and enjoyable read while giving a good sense of the day-to-day lives of the people whose country we’re about to spend time with on TV.
