Alan Paul was living a suburban dad existence in the States when his wife accepted a position with the Wall Street Journal as the Beijing bureau chief. In August 2005, the couple and their three kids moved to Beijing, just as the city began to crank it up for the Olympics. Paul’s memoir of the time, Big in China, follows both his family’s adjustment to expat life, and his adventures in the country’s burgeoning music scene as part of the band Woodie Alan, a blues outfit that included Chinese guitarist Woodie Wu. The band played Beijing, Changsha and Xiamen, and even took home a City Weekend Reader’s Choice Award for Band of the Year in 2008. Though most people don’t move here and form bands, Paul’s tales of his family’s first Chinese New Year, a trip to Guizhou, and other moments will resonate with readers. One of the more poignant lessons the family learns is how to manage the bittersweet feeling of “who’s left and who’s leaving,” an omnipresent situation throughout the book that is wisely summed up by Paul’s young son Eli. “We were fine before,” he says, “but now we’ll always feel sad about someone not being close to us.”

Alan Paul, Big in China, Harper, buy it at The Bookworm for $25.99