I have noticed that many of the promising new books about China's ethnic minorities -- their history, culture, and even award-winning short stories and novels by ethnic authors -- to which I call attention in my blog are just about impossible to track down and purchase. They are publicized in a press release duly carried word-for-word on certain politically correct web sites, and then fall off the radar.

A Manchu grad student in Beijing explained it to me thus:

在中国，有些书出版就不是为了阅读，或者说不是为了买给市场为大家提供阅读的。