Dreaming In Chinese : Mandarin Lessons In Life, Love, And Language
by Deborah Fallows

Being a language nut (I speak French, German, and Spanish and know a smattering of Chinese, Farsi, Hebrew, and Hindi), I thought this book was going to be a delight. It certainly started out that way. Each chapter has linguistic explanations of the Chinese language and at the same time the author interweaves her encounters with everyday life.
Mandarin is one of the most difficult languages to learn due to characters, tones (there are four and don't mix them up), no verbs and no tenses.
Deborah Fallows is a linguist yet in her three years of living in China, she doesn't really master the language and it's understandable. Even the Chinese get rusty about remembering some of the characters.
One of the things she writes about that is irritating is saying how rude and impolite the Chinese are. She generalizes from some of her encounters as if that's the norm. (Having worked with several Chinese, I have found the opposite to be true.)
This book will have limited appeal for most readers. Only students or tourists visiting the country would want to peruse this slim tome.
One more thing. The title isn't valid. Fallows never did say that she dreamt in Chinese. When that happens, you truly have arrived.