Seven Years in Tibet

With Tibet in the news so much lately I decided to finally read Seven Years in Tibet. Written by Heinrich Harrer, it is the story of his escape from a POW camp in India during WWII and his harrowing journey to neutral Tibet. After two years he finally makes it to the forbidden city of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet where he lives happily for the next several years, learning the language and culture of Tibet. Eventually he even becomes the Dalai Lama's tutor. He reluctantly flees when the Chinese invade and wrote this book almost immediately after to plea Tibet's case to rest of the world.

This reads like an adventure story and if you are interested in learning more about Tibet I'd recommend the book. However if you are interested in the bits about the Dalai Lama be warned, he doesn't come into the story until the last fifty pages or so. I learned quite a bit from Heinrich Harrer's book and feel even more strongly that the Chinese should leave Tibet.