Here are 100 books that The Last Bird of Paradise fans have personally recommended if you like
The Last Bird of Paradise.
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I find it crucially important that we acknowledge that slavery is a global phenomenon that still exists this very day. Dutch historians like me have an obligation to show that the Dutch East India Company, called the world’s first multinational, was a major slave trader and employer of slavery. I am also personally involved in this endeavour as I am one of the leaders of the “Exploring the Slave Trade in Asia” project, an international consortium that brings together knowledge on this subject, and is currently a slave trade in Asia database.
This book became the starting point for many publications on slavery in Southeast Asia. It is a collection of essays that not only provides us with an overview of the entire region over the past 700 years but also suggests how we can study the multifarious forms of slavery and bondage in the region in a comparative manner. Although almost forty years old it is still indispensable reading for any course on slavery in Southeast Asia, including my own course.
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I was born in Singapore to a traditional Chinese medicine trade family in the early 80s, during a period when Singapore was still not a rich country nor a trading hub. As I became an adult, I had experience in the left wing of NGOs and charities and also the right wing in the government sector on cold strict laws controlling wildlife, wildlife management, the Ministry of Education in illustrating for educational materials, etc. I faced radical left environmental extremism before and also extreme right capitalists. This gives me a more well-balanced way of absorbing both left and right, to write my book in a more down-to-earth, neutral tone.
This book covers mainly the Vietnam side of the South China Sea and its issues of economic or cultural conflict with China. It is very detailed and tackles a wide range of serious issues. It’s a deep ocean that is not suitable for younger readers but for hardcore readers who have an interest in the tension between Vietnam and China concerning the South China Sea.
The book is one of those in which the author drew some information from the Vietnam side of the South China Sea and then rewrote and represented it for a younger audience.
The impact of continuous coastal development, reclamation, destruction of corals, overfishing and increased maritime traffic places all of us on the front lines of preserving our oceans. Marine biologists, who share a common language that cuts across political, economic and social differences, recognize that the sea's remarkable coral reefs, which provide food, jobs and protection against storms and floods, have suffered unprecedented rates of destruction in recent decades.
Dispatches from the South China Sea's blend of participatory research and field reportage paves the way for a transformation of policy and, provides a basis for the eventual resolution of some of…
Where you sit determines what you see. China is complex, and so it pays to move around and view it from as many perspectives as possible. My view of China is formed by visits to all of its 31 provinces and to most of its neighbors. A professor of foreign affairs at the University of Virginia, I have taught and written about Chinese politics for the past forty years, and I have worked with Chinese universities and scholars. This list suggests some excellent books presenting different vantage points on China’s past and present.
Two prominent aspects of China’s recent economic development are its mushrooming network of high-speed rail and its efforts to encourage infrastructure in its neighbors and beyond through the Belt and Road Initiative. The careful research of this book brings the two together. In exploring the different attitudes toward China among its southern neighbors the authors give a concrete account of how involvement is shaped by the prospects, concerns, and politics of each country. Meanwhile, it is clear that China is achieving a new centrality and connectivity in mainland Asia. What remains to be seen is whether a connected Asia is also a unified one.
What China's infamous railway initiative can teach us about global dominance.
In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled what would come to be known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)-a global development strategy involving infrastructure projects and associated financing throughout the world, including Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. While the Chinese government has framed the plan as one promoting transnational connectivity, critics and security experts see it as part of a larger strategy to achieve global dominance. Rivers of Iron examines one aspect of President Xi Jinping's "New Era": China's effort to create an intercountry…
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
I’m a writer and journalist with an eye on South and Southeast Asia. I first visited beautiful, land-locked, and sleepy Laos in 2000, as the country reluctantly reemerged from post-revolutionary isolation. I researched and co-wrote The Most Secret Place on Earth, a feature documentary on how the CIA created a clandestine army to fight Laotian and Vietnamese communists, rigged elections, and eventually destroyed much of the country with carpet bombing. This slice of secret history forms the narrative backbone of my novel. The Man with the Golden Mind is a spy thriller, as well as an ode to one of the most isolated countries in the world.
This classic travel book, first published in 1951, is said to have inspired Graham Greene to travel to Vietnam and to write The Quiet American, the greatest piece of fiction on white men in Southeast Asia. It is also a charming and charmed eyewitness account of the dying days of the French colonial occupation of Indochina which makes A Dragon Apparent a document so much of its time that readers might it find quaint, patronizing, and perhaps a little racist. The locals don’t come away very well but neither does the author who barely speaks to them. That said, Lewis’ observations of Luang Prabang are worth revisiting.
a poignant description of Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam in 1950, with all their beauty, gentleness, grandeur and intricate political balance intact - Restores this lost world, like a phoenix, from the ashes of the Vietnam war and its aftermath - shows the Vietnamese guerilla movement in its infancy, ranged against the French colonial powers, and the early affects of imported Western materialism - a best-seller when first published, and venerated by all the Saigon-based war correspondents in the '70s - inspired Graham Greene to go to Vietnam and write The Quiet American
I write thrillers full-time these days, but for many years, I was a writer and editor at publications that take reporting and fact-checking seriously. I still strive for accuracy in my novels—which always involve violence. As a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt, the mechanics and psychology of close-quarters combat are things I think about daily. This is not to say that you need to rob banks to write a heist scene. And while technical knowledge is helpful, there’s no substitute for close noticing of what happens to our bodies and minds in extreme situations. Here are some books (and one screenplay) which do that incredibly well.
This is the book that made me want to be a novelist. I stole it off my dad’s shelf when I was 11—way too young to be reading about the seedy, violent, sex-fueled underbelly of 1970s counterculture. It’s the story of the an American journalist covering the war in Vietnam who gets the bright idea to smuggle heroin to California. I read it at least once a year, and it gets better every time.
Near the end of the book, an ex-Marine named Ray Hicks flees into the desert with the heroin on his back, gut-shot and bleeding out. The scene, masterfully intercut with hallucinations and memories from Hicks’s childhood, was clearly the inspiration for Frank Semyon’s death in Season Two of True Detective. My advice? Read this book instead.
In Saigon during the last stages of the Vietnam War, a small-time journalist named John Converse thinks he'll find action - and profit - by getting involved in a big-time drug deal. But back in the States, things go horribly wrong. His courier disappears, probably with his wife, and a corrupt Fed wants Converse to find him the drugs, or else.
Dog Soldiers is a frightening, powerful, intense novel that perfectly captures the underground mood of the United States in the 1970s, when amateur drug dealers and hippies encountered the violent world of cops on the make and professional killers.…
Having been born in Fiji and lived in Cyprus, Austria, and Nigeria, I have always had a strong sense of wanderlust and a keen eye for my surroundings – both natural and man-made. I’ve always been open to "what might happen next," which makes sense as to why I became a professional storyteller – an actor, writer, and director. I am thrilled by not knowing what lies ahead, and I’ve always felt there is possible adventure at every turn in life, which is why I am so fond of the evocative and thrilling books I have listed.
I read this sultry and disturbing Thailand adventure story in one sitting. It transported me away from my out-of-work actor troubles that rainy day in London and took me to a beautiful and terrifying dreamscape, diving ever deeper into the backpacker protagonist’s murky quest. I can still picture the cut-glass water, the huts… the shark. I still feel the heat, the sting of mosquitoes, and the tang of blood.
I found it extraordinarily gripping, moody, and menacing. The speed at which the unexpected twists unfolded was mind-blowing.
On Richard's first night in Bangkok, a fellow traveller slits his wrists, leaving Richard a map to "the Beach", where white sands circle a lagoon hidden from the sea, coral gardens and freshwater falls are surrounded by jungle. Richard was looking for adventure, and now he has found it.
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
I love knowing about things. Science is both a knowledge base and a way to discover new knowledge. I’ve been looking through microscopes and telescopes (that my dad built) from my earliest toddling. Though I have never been to university I have picked the brains of my scientific siblings (one of whom is a biology professor) and I read widely. Gathering crumbs from many sources gives a wider knowledge base than one university child afford. Scientists begin with speculation. I love inventing systems and worlds where we break one or a few of our known laws of nature or physics. Marrying science with fantasy births marvelous offspring!
Lost, confused, and feeling the victim, Ethan visits Thailand. He falls down a sinkhole into an alternate reality. Even more lost among really weird people, feeling even more confused and victimized, he learns the true meaning of life. But can he get back to live his real life?
Who hasn’t tumbled into Ethan’s emotions? We go along thinking we’re doing good and suddenly the worst happens. We didn’t deserve any of it yet we’re stuck alone and destitute in it.
Ethan meets an archaeologist who introduces him to indigenous people and their ghost stories. I love cultural studies, sociology, archaeology, anthropology, and linguistics, all sciences represented in this story. Reality gets smudged and blurred, but love, loyalty, and forgiveness remain true and unshaken in this beautiful story of redemption.
In this debut novel from Connie Mae Inglis, readers travel with Ethan Adam on his quest to find answers to questions he has barely articulated.
All his life, Ethan's felt betrayed by the ones he's loved.
Feeling homeless, and without hope, Ethan travels from the Canadian prairies to Southeast Asia, searching for he knows not what.
When his path crosses with an archaeologist heading to an unexplored area of northern Myanmar, Ethan goes on a journey into an Edenesque world of welcoming telepathic humans, strange voices, and a cunning enemy. For what purpose? He doesn't know.
I have been studying Jewish translation for over a decade now. I’m fascinated with the way translation enables dialogue between different languages and cultures without eliminating the differences that make such dialogue worthwhile. Most of my work has been dedicated to translation between Christians and Jews, but I’m also interested in the ways in which translation functioned (and continues to function) within Jewish culture as a means of conversation between different communities, classes, genders, and generations.
I stumbled upon Ronit Ricci’s captivating book while finalizing my own research on early modern Jewish translation in Europe. The experience of reading this book was a little like (what I can only imagine) discovering an unknown relative on 23andme must feel like.
Ricci explores the literary networks that developed during the spread of Islam through early modern South and Southeast Asia. She shows how translators from Arabic into Javanese, Malay, and Tamil developed a remarkably creative approach to translation and how they domesticated (“localized” is her preferred term) their sources, reshaping unfamiliar concepts to resonate with their target readers.
Engaging with Ricci’s book was an uncanny experience; here, in a distant translator culture, I found fascinating parallels to the issues and concerns I encountered in my own research, often approached in surprisingly similar ways. Who would have thought that Old Yiddish and Old Javanese shared such common ground?
The spread of Islam eastward into South and Southeast Asia was one of the most significant cultural shifts in world history. As it expanded into these regions, Islam was received by cultures vastly different from those in the Middle East, incorporating them into a diverse global community that stretched from India to the Philippines.
In Islam Translated, Ronit Ricci uses the Book of One Thousand Questions-from its Arabic original to its adaptations into the Javanese, Malay, and Tamil languages between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries-as a means to consider connections that linked Muslims across divides of distance and culture. Examining…
During 30 years living in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I have developed a deep appreciation of Northern Thai culture and a fascination with its 700-year history. Though the region escaped being colonised as were nearby Laos (by the French) and Burma (by the Brits), a teak boom in the late 19th century came close to pulling it under the colonial yoke as Western trading companies muscled in. Teak Lord explores the frequently fragile relationships between circumspect Asians and adventurous Westerners, against a background of shifting borders and impenetrable jungle.
Norman Lewis is best known for his non-fiction works such as The Golden Land (about Burma) and A Dragon Apparent (about Vietnam). Yet he also wrote a dozen novels that show a great flair for characterisation, dialogue and plot pacing, in addition to his incisive descriptions. A Single Pilgrimtells the story of John Crane, manager of a teak logging company in North Thailand, who revels in “the voluptuousness of routine and civilized triviality”. However, his company’s leases are about to expire and the thought of an end to his Oriental idyll is more than Crane can bear.
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
As a child, I enjoyed a special relationship with an oak tree in my backyard. My father indulged my love of nature with backpacking trips in the mountains of California. In my teens, he published my booklet on edible wild plants. My maternal grandmother encouraged my interest in Indigenous uses of plants with books, field trips, and stories from her anthropology studies at UC Berkeley. My mother cultivated my creativity with ferocious intensity and supported my desire to earn a Ph.D. I landed my dream job at an alternative, interdisciplinary, small, public liberal arts college and have taught botany there for nearly 30 years. I love teaching plant-centric environmental history.
Jonathan E. Robins illustrates how a tree that provides vegetable oil aided colonialism and the rise of a global food system built on the exploitation of people and places. To weave an engaging narrative, he draws evidence from multiple disciplines, including agricultural science, economic botany, environmental history, and gender studies.
Backed by the evidence, his conclusion is compelling that trying to catalyze sustainable and socially just practices through responsible consumerism is a flawed strategy by itself. I appreciate how he tackles a complex history from a global perspective and addresses environmental justice concerns in a historically grounded way.
Oil palms are ubiquitous--grown in nearly every tropical country, they supply the world with more edible fat than any other plant and play a role in scores of packaged products, from lipstick and soap to margarine and cookies. And as Jonathan E. Robins shows, sweeping social transformations carried the plant around the planet. First brought to the global stage in the holds of slave ships, palm oil became a quintessential commodity in the Industrial Revolution. Imperialists hungry for cheap fat subjugated Africa's oil palm landscapes and the people who worked them. In the twentieth century, the World Bank promulgated oil…
