Book Reviews

Pol Pot tried to do this . . .

'The Sayings of Buddha' Review by Alexander Turner This is supposed to be a book review column covering books about Thai nightlife so what the hell am I doing reviewing a book called The Sayings of Buddha ? Good question. I wish I had a good answer. I have a bad one. That it reminded me of a fragment of a conversation I once had with someone in a Bangkok bar. It reminded me of a view of Bangkok and its nightlife and how it can play to the best and the worst of us.

'Lonely Planet : Thailand' by Joe Cummings Review by Alexander Turner

'Faces of the Night' by John Hinds Review by Alexander Turner

'I Walked Away: An Expatriate's Guide to Living Cheaply in Thailand' by Michael Ziesing Review by Alexander Turner

'Borderlines' by Charles Nicholl Review by Alexander Turner

'Travels in the Skin Trade' by Jeremy Seabrook Review by Alexander Turner

'Emmanuelle' by Emmanuelle Arsan Review by Alexander Turner

'Patpong : Bangkok's Twilight Zone' by Nick Nostitz Review by Alexander Turner

Every year a reporter for one wire service or another has his press credentials revoked for reporting on the commercial sex industry in Thailand. And yet the bookstores are full of lurid paperbacks which shamelessly pander to prurient interest.

Books are among mankind's most powerful inventions. Das Kapital changed the world as surely as the steam engine ever did, and with one small thesis Copernicus changed the whole universe.

I had one of my rare days off yesterday, when wife, boss and baby all allowed me twelve hours of personal time. As is my custom I took a favorite book down to Nai Harn Beach for some serious reading.

A look at Dominic Lavin's novel.

I was reading a collection of Somerset Maugham’s short stories last night. Eventually they depressed me so much that I threw the book against the wall. It wasn’t Maugham’s smarmy class-consciousness that offended me, or his pompous British ethnocentrism, or even his paragraph-long sentences. It was his apparent ease at conveying a sense of romance that got my dander up.

"You had sex and perhaps love again but Duan was distracted. You both were."