Category: Books

Beeizebub travels in a Bedford

There is no question as to how Tom Vater came up with the title to his novel The Devil’s Road To Kathmandu: the sheer mix of danger, drugs and salacious exploits transports the reader straight to the gritty underbelly of the Hippie Trail to follow four friends on the road to chaos. Venturing through space and time, this story pursues a mystery from a drug deal gone horribly wrong in 1976 to the consequences that surface more than 20 years later as the men retrace their steps to Kathmandu.

Dan, Thierry, Fred and Tim endeavour to leave their Western ways behind their beaten-up Bedford bus and get lost in the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle of Asia. If they only knew just how lost they would get. When a supposedly simple drug deal in the Swat Valley erupts in mayhem, the men escape the bloody feud with their lives and the drugs, and violence imprinted on their minds. Unable to escape their provocative world, various mishaps, drug trips and women pave their way to Kathmandu, only for Fred to then disappear with the drug money.

Twenty-five years later, Dan’s son, Robbie, is on his own mission of self-discovery in Kathmandu when his father and the other two remaining men are lured back there by a mysterious email and the promise of seeing their drug money once more. The men, discovering that much has changed in their absence, soon find themselves wrapped up in a tangled web of deceit, corruption and violence as the story spirals towards one final showdown with the ghosts of their past. With the narrative skillfully weaving between past and present, the pieces of the puzzle slowly come together and shed light on a mystery that spans over a quarter of a century.

For anyone who has ever dreamed of a dark adventure, or gotten lost in one of his/her own, this pulp thriller will quickly captivate your inner daredevil. Vater successfully manipulates his personal knowledge of a fast-paced life in Asia and masters the rhythm of the road, his colourful descriptions and drug-induced inner monologues creating a world both palpable and intoxicating:

“His life was a dream. There was no need to sleep to escape anything. He would turn his neurotransmitters into free-range activists. He’d stop to dream and start to live. He’d transform himself into a shining entity of love and principle, of curious undertaking and generous self-destruction.

“He couldn’t remember the moon over London. The city absorbed the heavenly bodies into its whirl of coloured economic frenzy. Now, keeping an eye on the road, another on the yellow sickle, bobbing up and down with every dip in the land, he was being sucked into a vortex, mysterious and exciting. He’d broken free.”

So for those seeking a wild ride through the hellish roads of Southern Asia, cosy on up in the backseat of this Bedford bus… and hold on tight.

The Devil’s Road To Kathmandu, by Tom Vater, is now available for Kindle at $4.99 on Amazon.com.  

 

Mirror man

Eccentric, jaded and fading expats populate Harlan Wolff’s debut novel, Bangkok Rules, but before you say ‘another cliché-driven exposé of Bangkok life,’ (phew!) read on. The journey may well be worth it.

At the centre of this crime novel is Carl Engel, a private eye on the edge of destitution, who scores an apparent lucky break when he is hired to track down a long-forgotten missing person.

Facing a mid-life crisis of broadening chest and shirking options, Wolff’s protagonist is a man who, despite numerous foibles, understands the ‘rules’ for living and working in the ‘city of smiles’.

In fact, early on Carl seems to understand them so well that you have cause to wonder why his life has come so unstuck. That is until you see he’s his own worst enemy, squandering money, love and opportunity in the pit of his own vices.

While reading, I recalled memories of another book that explores the darker sides of an Asian city, Paul Theroux’s Saint Jack. Like Wolff’s lead, Jack is a long-term resident, this time of Singapore, with a similar understanding of the norms and codes that are necessary for surviving and working across the fringes of that city.

However, while Theroux avoids exploring the darkest corners of Singapore life, Wolff heartily embraces the noirish alcoves of Bangkok’s streets, sois and bars.

Plot wise, at the centre of Bangkok Rules is a serial murderer on a killing spree, sadistically making his way through the shadows and prostitutes of Bangkok’s underside. Carl’s investigation quickly intersects with the killer’s case as the two become one.

Or do they?

In the noir world of smoke and mirrors, nothing is as it seems. Carl’s case and life spiral out of control as the thin ice he’s built his existence on starts to crack.

Throughout, the reader is served up characters and images with which many an expat living in Southeast Asia, especially those of the male persuasion, will be familiar. Yet Wolff’s ability to engineer a phrase and breathe new words into old stereotypes gives them fresh life and meaning across the evolving plot of his novel.

Undoubtedly, Wolff, a long-time resident of Thailand and a private investigator, has dedicated time to new ways of writing about these things, with one or 50 stake-outs providing the time and opportunity to neatly tailor his phrases and metaphors.

Thus we are served weary ex-Vietnam vets; retired CIA spooks, overweight and sunburned sex tourists and corrupt local officials, all combined in a tale that becomes increasingly intertwined as it barrels towards its climax.

Clichéd? Formulaic? Sure! But Wolff’s debut will also give some readers pause for thought as the ‘mirror moments’ that he conjures yield reflections of themselves. The opportunity for such introspection is just one of the reasons for placing Bangkok Rules in your reading pile.

Bangkok Rules, by Harlan Wolff, is available from Monument Books at $14.

Nourishing minds

“First, let me show you our range of publications,” says Huot Socheata, the woman behind the search for the Cambodian Maurice Sendak. Before long, the table is covered in children’s books: picture books; information books; story books; books to inform; books to inspire, the vast majority in Khmer; a few in English or French. They are the product of more than 12 years of work by Sipar, an NGO dedicated to rebuilding literacy and publishing in Cambodia.

Socheata, Sipar’s chief editor, explains that the group was originally involved on the ground, providing library services in the refugee camps on the Thai border in the late ’80s. “In 1993 we began working with the ministry, setting up libraries in the provinces: Kompong Speu, Prey Veng. Then we found there was a shortage of books to put in the libraries.”

In 2000, Sipar began a publishing programme that continues to this day: books to complement official textbooks; books telling stories to develop Cambodian identity; books allowing children to explore the world through learning about other cultures; an atlas to teach how to read maps. There are stories about daily life, a reflection of the world that Cambodian children live in. “It is important to teach how to read the pictures, not just the words, and then children move to more and more elaborate storytelling. We also want to encourage young people to access the world and the many ways that people live.”

Translations of Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince and Astrid Lindgen’s Pippy Longstocking lean out from the shelf. Roald Dahl stories. A children’s biography of Charlie Chaplin. Folk tales from China, Japan, Greece. Cambodian history is another important component of the range, but there are big gaps. “There are books about Angkor and books about the Khmer Rouge, but very little about the time in between.”  A memoir about growing up in Kompong Cham in the 1950s is the exception in the ongoing effort to build awareness of how modern Cambodian society developed.

“Publishing in Cambodia is still underdeveloped and there is a great need for training: editors; writers; illustrators; translators; the whole publishing process.” Most of the stories are developed through workshops, for ideas and illustrations, with specialists to complete the manuscripts.

Although the focus is primarily on children, books on subjects such as organic farming are produced for the less educated, and a map has been created that is given away free to tuktuk drivers to help with map literacy. In the markets, in contrast, books are sold at cost. “If we give a book away for free, people can think it has no value. Even paying 2,000 riel means it is respected.”

Sipar is just one of the organisations involved in a major event taking place at the end of November: the second annual Cambodian Book Fair, to be held at the National Library, with the theme of Cambodia and book publishing. The event is open to the public and will feature vendor displays; presentations; creative writing and publication seminars, and author signings.

WHO: The budding Cambodian book publishing industry
WHAT: Cambodian Book Fair
WHERE: National Library, Street 92
WHEN: November 29 – December 1
WHY: The Cambodian Maurice Sendak is out there somewhere

 

A kinder, funnier Cambodia

Beyond its temples and macabre tourist attractions, Cambodia is unforgettable for one reason: its people.

In Destination Cambodia, Walter Mason’s light-hearted travel memoir, the Australian author reveals a country unlikely familiar to even the most assimilated cultural warriors. From the obvious to the unbelievable, Mason shares intimate and often humorous tales, all with keen insight into the famously inscrutable natives.

At home in Australia, Mason was for a time involved with a cultish Buddhist sect and his penchant for the spiritually peculiar fuels many of his journeys. An intermittent resident of Vietnam since 1994, Mason – whose previous travel books include Destination Saigon – made his first trip to Cambodia in 1996, succumbing to the Kingdom’s charms almost immediately.

Then a 20-something wanderer with a bent for Eastern spirituality, Mason gravitated toward Phnom Penh’s Buddhist sanctuaries. He helped the monks and students at Wat Koh and Wat Botum practice their English and, in exchange, they gave him the kind of tour of Cambodia that only the young and itinerant ever seem to find.

Mason makes the necessary stops along the way. He checks in at Angkor Wat, the killing fields and most of the travel-guide must-sees. But in Mason’s hands the destinations are all but extraneous; it is the people along his journeys who expose the character of the Kingdom.

Early on, one of the monks asked Mason to join “a quick thing” his pagoda had helped organise. “The casual nature of the invitation, and the fact that when I travel I resolve never to say no to any invitation, caused me to accept, though I had grave misgivings. From experience I knew that official Buddhist events in Asia could be ghastly affairs, with long speeches in languages I did not understand. They were also opportunities for me to make multiple social gaffes. But the monk’s charming and offhand invitation lulled me into thinking it would be a casual affair that I could duck into and out of, so I duly noted it down in my calendar.”

The event was anything but informal. Mason arrived at the Buddhist Institute to find hundreds of monks and a television crew waiting for him to give the event’s main address. Live, on television.

The students at Wat Botum seemed to share a similar sense of humour. They introduced him to the local writers’ association, where he met Suong Mak, among the country’s most recognisable authors from the new generation. Mason was desperate to meet a shaman and, when a friend finally fixed a meeting, Mak agreed to tag along. “Why do Cambodian people believe this nonsense?” Mak asks. “I’m only coming to see what fools you are willing to make of yourselves.”

And so Mason goes, pinballing around the country from shaman to Chinese fortune teller to bull-penis restaurant. He travels in a Mercedes with a Very Important Monk, meets Phnom Penh’s oldest hooker and nearly dies in the Buddhist hells of the cultural village.

At each stop he is greeted with genuine Khmer hospitality: often unpredictable, occasionally unbelievable, but always authentic.

Destination Cambodia, by Walter Mason, is available now at Monument Books priced $18.50.

If it’s good enough for The Dead Kennedys…

Laura Jean McKayBY GUILLERMO WHEREMOUNT

“I didn’t really come to it with a plan, other than I felt like I really needed to write about Cambodia – not for some greater good, but just for myself, really.”Like many visitors, Melbourne-based writer Laura Jean McKay had an urge to respond to her Cambodian experience in a creative way. Some become photographers, others get excited about blogging. Laura made several trips over three years, first in 2007 as a volunteer aid worker “as Australian women seem to be!”. She was inspired to take to the keyboard and her efforts were rewarded this year when her book, Holiday In Cambodia, was published in Australia by Black Inc Publishing (available here from Monument Books, where she launches it this week, for $17:50).

It’s not a travel diary, it’s not a documentary, it’s not an expose of the tourist industry. Rather, it’s a series of short stories set in Cambodia. “It started out as a novel, on the ’60s Cambodian surf rock theme,” says Laura. “I moved to Phnom Penh in 2009, working with the Nouh Thak Writers’ Association and [began my] love-hate relationship with Phnom Penh. I find it quite scary and strange, but I’m fascinated by it and that makes it a really good place to write about. I never felt relaxed in Phnom Penh. I just really started going at this collection and I’d be writing five stories at once.”

What emerges is something like a mosaic: bright shiny diamonds of stories that observe and that observe the observing, and also the lack of observation. “The subjects that I’m writing about, they’re not original, they’re the sort of things that tourists and expats experience when they arrive in Cambodia. They see brothels, they see street kids, they see tuk tuks. If they stay for a bit longer they see factory workers, they see land grabs, things like that, but I wanted to explore these in a way that made Cambodia the dominant culture and these people coming in the foreigners.”

Much of Laura’s storytelling seeks to overcome the frequently narrow perspective of the foreign traveller, while still examining how such a perspective works. “A lot of the stories are a reflection of myself and some of the characters are re-walking the steps that I made. I think it’s really important, when you’re looking at stories that make a judgement on a certain culture… to also recognise that you really need to be judging yourself as well. It’s as much a self discovery as anything.

“There were certainly stories that I didn’t tell because I just felt as though perhaps it would be a bit too finger-pointy, and there wasn’t enough of me in there to be able to justify that.” She heard stories “that were just so astonishing that I couldn’t even write them, too over the top, they were too fictionalised, and a caricature. I felt that I would possibly paint a flatter picture than their characters deserved”.

Hence the name of the book: almost a caricature in itself. “Cambodia really confronted a lot of my values about myself, and myself as a traveller. When I arrived in Cambodia the very first time and I said to the person [from] the programme, oh, this is great, Cambodia, just like Vietnam – which went down really well – so, where do you go on holiday? And there was a silence and the guy said ‘I don’t go on holiday.’ And I was horrified and that sentence changed everything for me, my point of view changed with that.

“For a long time the book had a lot of different titles. Very much towards the end of the collection when I’d finished a lot of the stories, I was listening to the Dead Kennedys and I just went, Oh! I had always loved the lyrics to that song; it basically says everything that the collection is about. Today it would be Holiday in Syria. Also it is just that cliché: everybody makes the joke about having a holiday in Cambodia and I felt like that really it summed up. I knew that it was the right title when one of my friends said, ‘Oh, such a cliché’ and I went YES! I’ve got it!”

The title embodies the literal, the ironic and also the iconic reference, and news travelled far. “I got a letter from Jello Biafra’s record company saying Jello would love a couple of copies of the book, so I found myself shaking in my publisher’s office, trying to write a note to the man… Hi Jello, thanks for being the greatest punk rocker in the whole world, and hope you like my book. Catch up some time in Phnom Penh.”

Things have changed since she last visited and Laura is keen to see the scene. “I’ve been head down, finishing off this book for the last few years; I have no idea what is actually going on in Cambodia, I’ve really lost touch. Nou Hach is still running and producing their journal, which is great. The comics scene is going well, but again that’s visual. I would love to get some of my stories translated into Khmer.

“In 2009, there still wasn’t much of a critical art culture from Cambodian people; there was quite a lot of fear about criticising anything. And because the whole writing scene was so smashed, people were just in the role of supporting each other: great, you wrote a story, well done. It’ll be interesting to see if that critical culture is emerging or not. I would really love for a Cambodian woman to review my book. That would be really exciting for me.” Confronted by stories of the shift in the expat population to a more family oriented community, Laura laughs. “My mind is sparking: maybe I could make a volume two with new stories: parents and nappies!”

WHO: Author Laura Jean McKay
WHAT: Holiday In Cambodia book launch
WHERE: Monument Books, Norodom Blvd.
WHEN: 5:30pm October 19
WHY: Jello Biafra asked for copies!

Pictures in change

In Javier’s Day, Singaporean illustrator Joshua Chiang captures the changing nature of family life inside Asia’s most outsized economic powerhouse.

At the time of her independence in 1965, Singapore looked a lot like Cambodia does today, with tree-lined quays, stilt homes and man-powered rickshaws dotting the streets. The wealthy lived in yellow two-storey colonials with brick walls, wooden floors and tiled roofs. The poor survived as day labourers. A third of the population lived in slums, unemployment clocked 14% and GDP per capita registered less than $3,000.

Over the last five decades, Singapore has grown into the world’s fourth-largest financial centre and built one of the busiest seaports on the planet. Such dramatic growth has also meant profound changes to the Singaporean family.

“At the heart of it, Javier’s Day is about the joys of growing up all over again through the eyes of the youngest member of the family,” says Chiang, who lives in Phnom Penh, of his first self-published illustrated children’s book. “It is also about how children are raised in the modern Singaporean context. We may have moved out of our kampungs long ago, but it still takes an entire village – plus the maid – to raise one child.”

While the Cambodian context still remains firmly rooted in the kampungs, or ‘villages’, in today’s globalised world the Kingdom can’t help but drift toward greater urbanisation. As the economy grows, so too does the country’s middle class. If Singapore in 1965 looked a lot like Cambodia does today, then Cambodia could look a lot like Singapore five decades hence, if not sooner.

Yet as Chiang’s book subtly illustrates, entry into the middle class comes with a price tag attached.

Javier’s Day opens with a portrait of the extended family: daddy, mummy, aunt, uncle, grandmother, grandfather, Javier and the nanny. It takes all of them to keep two-year-old Javier occupied while his parents are away at work.

Javier wakes up to the nanny mopping the living-room floor. He runs in the park with Uncle Joshua and scribbles on the walls.

The people around Javier do typical Asian things: feed him rice porridge for breakfast, burn incense and pray at the spirit house, sit on the kitchen floor and clean vegetables.

Such comfortable middle-class living often requires two incomes, however, and Javier’s mummy and daddy are gone most of the day. They return from work just in time for dinner, and the family convenes around a big fish at the dinner table. After eating, the parents are off again, tiptoeing out the door. Javier cries. grandpa consoles.

Such are the demands of life in the middle class.

Javier’s Day, by Joshua Chiang, will be available from Monument Books soon. Price to be confirmed.

Pictures of change

Joshua Chiang’s self-published children’s book Javier’s Day ponders the evolving lifestyles of Asia’s middle class

…..

In Javier’s Day, Singaporean illustrator Joshua Chiang captures the changing nature of family life inside Asia’s most outsized economic powerhouse.

At the time of her independence in 1965, Singapore looked a lot like Cambodia does today, with tree-lined quays, stilt homes and man-powered rickshaws dotting the streets. The wealthy lived in yellow two-storey colonials with brick walls, wooden floors and tiled roofs. The poor survived as day labourers. A third of the population lived in slums, unemployment clocked 14% and GDP per capita registered less than $3,000.

Over the last five decades, Singapore has grown into the world’s fourth-largest financial centre and built one of the busiest seaports on the planet. Such dramatic growth has also meant profound changes to the Singaporean family.

“At the heart of it, Javier’s Day is about the joys of growing up all over again through the eyes of the youngest member of the family,” says Chiang, who lives in Phnom Penh, of his first self-published illustrated children’s book. “It is also about how children are raised in the modern Singaporean context. We may have moved out of our kampungs long ago, but it still takes an entire village – plus the maid – to raise one child.”

While the Cambodian context still remains firmly rooted in the kampungs, or ‘villages’, in today’s globalised world the Kingdom can’t help but drift toward greater urbanisation. As the economy grows, so too does the country’s middle class. If Singapore in 1965 looked a lot like Cambodia does today, then Cambodia could look a lot like Singapore five decades hence, if not sooner.

Yet as Chiang’s book subtly illustrates, entry into the middle class comes with a price tag attached.

Javier’s Day opens with a portrait of the extended family: daddy, mummy, aunt, uncle, grandmother, grandfather, Javier and the nanny. It takes all of them to keep two-year-old Javier occupied while his parents are away at work.

Javier wakes up to the nanny mopping the living-room floor. He runs in the park with Uncle Joshua and scribbles on the walls.

The people around Javier do typical Asian things: feed him rice porridge for breakfast, burn incense and pray at the spirit house, sit on the kitchen floor and clean vegetables.

Such comfortable middle-class living often requires two incomes, however, and Javier’s mummy and daddy are gone most of the day. They return from work just in time for dinner, and the family convenes around a big fish at the dinner table. After eating, the parents are off again, tiptoeing out the door. Javier cries. Grandpa consoles.

Such are the demands of life in the middle class.

Javier’s Day, by Joshua Chiang, will be available from Monument Books soon. Price to be confirmed.

Seeking words of wisdom

“Drawing is my livelihood; nature my refuge, culture and history my addiction, and spirituality a way to make sense of it all.” – Joshua Chiang

A tusked elephant in billowing saffron robes dances lightly atop blades of emerald-green grass, small raccoon-like pilgrim trailing doggedly in its wake. Floating on a white page behind these watercolour animal characters are the musings of Buddha himself: “The path of the enlightened one leaves no track – it is like the path of birds in the sky.”

Joshua Chiang, a self-taught illustrator/scriptwriter from Singapore “who happens to also love the Great Outdoors and finding out about our true purpose in life”, has chosen an unusual vessel for elements of existentialism. In his new book, Trackless Paths, the author – who ‘sold’ the only copy of his first hand-drawn comic The Adventures of Hercules and Odysseus to his mother for a meal at the age of nine – pairs a menagerie of cartoon critters with notable quotes from sages and literary figures, polishing the exercise off by offering up his own reflections on each.

Nota bene: if you’re the sort who breaks out in boils when confronted by Buddha Botherers and Jesus Freaks, fear not. Preaching isn’t the point here. The intention, says Chiang, is to impart words of wisdom which, hey, even the Hell-bound and Godless among us might find comfort in. “The sayings which inspired the illustrations in this book come from a diverse range of spiritual (and the occasional non-spiritual) sources from different cultures and time periods, covering themes from love to courage to coping with grief, and are chosen for their ability to inspire, heal and challenge. The diversity is intentional; Wisdom and Truth are not confined to any creed or denomination and there is always beauty in every spiritual tradition. It is this universal beauty that I hope to share.”

The 84-page book contains 36 illustrations hand-drawn in pencil and then painted over with digital watercolour brushes. Every illustration is accompanied by the quote which inspired it, juxtaposed with Chiang’s notes and reflections. In one, a pair of grinning dogs dressed in woolly jumpers bound across a lawn, tugging behind them colourful balloons on string. Between the balloons nestle the words of martyred Beatle John Lennon: “Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted.” On the facing page, in discrete text, Chiang offers the following thoughts: “One of the hardest things for us to do as adults is to completely forget ourselves and surrender to the moment. For this piece, I wanted to express that feeling of uninhibited exuberance and genuine enjoyment, and at the same time convey that child-like innocence found in Lennon’s drawings.”

Trackless Paths is available now at Monument Books for $15.

 

Seeking words of wisdom

“Drawing is my livelihood; nature my refuge, culture and history my addiction, and spirituality a way to make sense of it all.” – Joshua Chiang

A tusked elephant in billowing saffron robes dances lightly atop blades of emerald-green grass, small raccoon-like pilgrim trailing doggedly in its wake. Floating on a white page behind these watercolour animal characters are the musings of Buddha himself: “The path of the enlightened one leaves no track – it is like the path of birds in the sky.”

Joshua Chiang, a self-taught illustrator/scriptwriter from Singapore “who happens to also love the Great Outdoors and finding out about our true purpose in life”, has chosen an unusual vessel for elements of existentialism. In his new book, Trackless Paths, the author – who ‘sold’ the only copy of his first hand-drawn comic The Adventures of Hercules and Odysseus to his mother for a meal at the age of nine – pairs a menagerie of cartoon critters with notable quotes from sages and literary figures, polishing the exercise off by offering up his own reflections on each.

Nota bene: if you’re the sort who breaks out in boils when confronted by Buddha Botherers and Jesus Freaks, fear not. Preaching isn’t the point here. The intention, says Chiang, is to impart words of wisdom which, hey, even the Hell-bound and Godless among us might find comfort in. “The sayings which inspired the illustrations in this book come from a diverse range of spiritual (and the occasional non-spiritual) sources from different cultures and time periods, covering themes from love to courage to coping with grief, and are chosen for their ability to inspire, heal and challenge. The diversity is intentional; Wisdom and Truth are not confined to any creed or denomination and there is always beauty in every spiritual tradition. It is this universal beauty that I hope to share.”

The 84-page book contains 36 illustrations hand-drawn in pencil and then painted over with digital watercolour brushes. Every illustration is accompanied by the quote which inspired it, juxtaposed with Chiang’s notes and reflections. In one, a pair of grinning dogs dressed in woolly jumpers bound across a lawn, tugging behind them colourful balloons on string. Between the balloons nestle the words of martyred Beatle John Lennon: “Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted.” On the facing page, in discrete text, Chiang offers the following thoughts: “One of the hardest things for us to do as adults is to completely forget ourselves and surrender to the moment. For this piece, I wanted to express that feeling of uninhibited exuberance and genuine enjoyment, and at the same time convey that child-like innocence found in Lennon’s drawings.”

Trackless Paths is available now at Monument Books for $15.

Weaving Asian tales

In her contemplative new travelogue Almost Home: The Asian Search Of A Geographic Trollop, American writer Janet Brown weaves two Asian tales into one. First and foremost, Brown’s cross-continental travelogue is a wonderfully understated account of the author’s spiritual, intellectual and literary drift-dive through Bangkok, Hong Kong, Beijing and Penang (in Malaysia). It’s a journey that goes under the skin. Readers are spared the usual tourist sites and are instead taken on a guided tour to the back streets, corner shops and roadside eateries of the four Asian cities Brown has called home. Throughout, the wise eye of a well travelled transnational illuminates small poignant moments, absorbs eccentric characters and documents cultural, social and political quirks.

On another level, Almost Home is a book that addresses the tricky question of where one belongs in a highly mobile, globalised world. Brown suffers from geographic agnosticism. She clearly loves life on the back roads of Asia and would be all but lost in the Far East, if it were not for her children back home in Seattle. She is torn between being close to her sons and following her urge to sail away into the unknown. Of course, her two longings can never be satisfied simultaneously and it is the resulting tension between missing the joys of home and not quite giving in to insatiable wanderlust which informs the author’s observations and adventures and adds a very personal dimension to the text.

Almost Home is a quiet, charming book, thought up and written far away from our million-miles-an-hour sensory overload culture. It’s a book that deserves to be read in print format; it’s a strange, wondrous object from the East, to be cherished and kept. Open Almost Home on almost every page and the everyday sounds, sights and smells of the Far East virtually jump, float and thud off the page and invite the reader to submerge her/himself in the visions and thoughts of what used to be called an ‘old Asia hand’ when books were still printed exclusively on paper.

Almost Home: The Asian Search Of A Geographic Trollop, by Janet Brown, is available for Kindle from Amazon.com at $10.42.