My Thailand Reading List
So, part of traveling light (one backpack for six weeks) is trying to sort out my reading list. I’m trying to get a good mix of seemingly location-appropriate titles, with stuff I just want to read, re-read, and savor. Not sure how many books I will get to take (although i am mostly ordering old beat-up paperback versions from Amazon, so I can dump them as I go, not to mention the 18 hour plane ride (that’s at least 2 books right there, unless they have quality flicks like “Dude, Where’s My Car?”), but the current list includes:
Location-appropriate
- The Beach by Alex Garland: In the same vein as my reading Tales of the City on the first day I moved to San Francisco, I am holding this one to read on a beach in Thailand. I will watch the movie again before I leave, though.
- How to Practice: The Way To A Meaningful Life by His Holiness Dalai Lama. Seems like a good book for the setting.
- The Art of Happiness, also the Dalai Lama. Same.
Classics I want to enjoy for the first time
- Lolita: Does anyone not reference this book as inspiration to their writing style?
- Madame Bovary: I started this book on a beach in Jersey, too noisy, but Thailand may give me the space I need.
- Great Gatsby
- Death in Venice: Need a little gay lit. Not to mention, well, read other blog entries to figure other reasons it might be appropriate. (Yes, both Lolita and Death in Venice in Thailand of all places?!. I’m aware, but any thematic connection is coincidental)
Big Brother from afar (classics to enjoy again)
- 1984
- Catcher in the Rye
New stuff I’ve wanted to check out
- Dive from Clausen’s Pier
- Life of Pi
- Number9Dream
Most of the books are small paperbacks, so I can carry a bunch. The bigger ones are the more modern ones, which are also the ones I would most likely read on the plane (I’m weird about what I can read and where for some reason), so they will get dumped first. Also taking the Lonely Planet Thailand book and probably a guide to buddhism and/or meditation, so I might be able to take all these, we’ll see.
Any other books that just scream “Thailand Beach Read!!” to anyone?
August 19th, 2003 at 10:38 am
I would recommend Andrew X. Pham’s “Catfish and Mandala”, about a gay Vietnamese man’s journey back to his home country. He came to the U.S. as a refugee with his family. It’s very much a journey about situating himself as a gay Vietnamese with experiences that creates notions of home and family for him in the U.S. and Vietnam. His journey to Vietnam is a journey about that tension. While not specifically a book about Thailand, it provides a perspective on grappling with aspects of “Southeast Asian” culture in regards to kinship relationship and cultural ties that has a way of hooking oneself back to a place.
I found reall cheap hardcover editions of this book a few months ago in bookstores–for like $5.