WHERE UNDERPANTS COME FROM – FROM CHECKOUT TO COTTON FIELD by Joe Bennett. Card covers with 258 pages. Published by Simon and Schuster UK in 2008.

When Joe Bennett bought a five-pack of 'Made in China' underpants in his local New Zealand supermarket for $8.59, he wondered who on earth could be making any money, let alone profit, from the exchange. Exactly how do pants like this get from their place of manufacture to the West? How many processes and middlemen are involved? Where and how are the pants made? And who decides on the absorbent qualities of the gusset?

Leaving his supermarket trolley behind, Joe embarks on an odyssey to the new factory of the world, China, to trace his pants back to their source, a journey that takes him from the smoggy bustle of Shanghai to the remote cotton fields of Xinjiang province on the border with Afghanistan. Along the way he discovers how global trade works and the history underlying the Chinese economic renaissance, a renaissance that is rapidly elevating China to the status of world economic superpower. He also grapples with chopsticks as well as his own prejudices, and marvels at the contrasts in one of the world's oldest, but fastest changing, societies.

Funny, wise and insightful, it is another wonderful journey from the author of A Land of Two Halves and Mustn't Grumble.

This local book is in excellent shop-shelf condition and comes from a smoke-free home.