The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

September 2, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Francois Chau. Audible Studios, 2015. 13 hours, 53 minutes. Purchased. The narrator in Nguyen’s novel is a man serving in the South Vietnamese army as a caption and watching the collapse of his country in April 1975. He has grown increasingly disillusioned with the Vietnam War and the role of the Americans, whom he refers to as drug dealers now cutting off the supply. This disillusionment is further fostered by the fact the unnamed narrator […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Fiction, North America, United States, Vietnam • Tags: Francois Chau, Viet Thanh Nguyen

Southeast Asia Guidebooks

April 11, 2018 by Christina

‘Bangkok City Guide’ by Andrew Burke and Austin Bush. Nonfiction — print. Lonely Planet, 2010. 304 pgs. Library copy. ‘Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos’ by David W. Lloyd with Andrew Spooner. Nonfiction — print. Footprint Handbooks, 2015. 576 pgs. Library copy. The first leg of my upcoming trip to southeast Asia — or second, if you count a twelve hour layover in Hong Kong — will be centered around the capital of Thailand, Bangkok. Burke and Bush’s guidebook — written under the […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Chunkster, Nonfiction, Travel, Vietnam • Tags: Andrew Burke, Andrew Spooner, Austin Bush, David W. Lloyd

The Voice of Asia by James A. Michener

February 28, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Random House, 1951. 338 pgs. Purchased.  Before embarking on any trip — around the world or within the United States — I always look to see if James A. Michener wrote about the particular place I’m set to visit. I find his multi-generational, fictional stories make the nonfictional history of a particular geography accessible and intriguing in a way that guidebooks cannot. As I will be traveling throughout southeast Asia in April, I looked into Michener’s back […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, India, Japan, Nonfiction, Thailand, Travel, Vietnam • Tags: James A. Michener

Ten Favorite Reads From 2017

January 5, 2018 by Christina

I took an unplanned (yet needed) extended break from book blogging in 2017, but I thought I’d dust away the cobwebs and share ten of my favorite reads from the past year. I read 69 books in 2017 — a smaller number than is typical for me, but to be expected given how the year went for me. My list of ten includes three nonfiction titles and all but one was published after 2009. Half were actually selected by my […]

Categories: 2017 Reads, Africa, Asia, Bookish Notes, Europe, North America, Oceania, Russia, Scandinavia, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam • Tags: Amor Towles, Barbara Demick, Bill Browder, Fredrik Backman, Gail Honeyman, Jane Harper, Laurent Binet, Tim O'Brien, Trevor Noah, Yaa Gyasi

Vietnamerica by G.B. Tran

April 10, 2015 by Christina

Nonfiction – print. Villard, 2011. 288 pgs. Library copy. As the only member of his family born in the United States, Tran grew up largely indifferent to the experience of his immigrant family in Vietnam and how they came to the United States following the fall of Saigon in April 1975. Tran decides to return to Vietnam in April 2008 with his parents after much prodding on the part of the his mother and a decisive edict from his stereotypically […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Asia, Comics, Nonfiction, Vietnam • Tags: G.B. Tran

A Short History of South-East Asia by Peter Church

July 14, 2010 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Wiley, John & Sons, 2009. 5th edition. 210 pgs. Library copy. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, South-East Asia was skipped in my geography class, and I never felt like the textbook for that class did a good enough job explaining the culture and history of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Singapore, and Myanmar (Burma). Although I knew I wanted to learn more about this region, I wasn’t actively searching for a introductory book, […]

Categories: 2010 Reads, Asia, Nonfiction, Thailand, Vietnam • Tags: Peter Church

“How to Tell a True War Story” by Tim O’Brien

January 26, 2010 by Christina

Fiction — print. W.W. Norton, 1998. 174-83 pgs. Class handout. The first assignment in my Critical Approaches to Literature class, this short story is actually a chapter in O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. It examines the relationship between the experiences of war and the storytelling that comes after. Half is told from O’Brien’s point of view as a solder; the other half is from years later when he’s become a storyteller. But how do you tell a true war story? “If […]

Categories: 2010 Reads, Asia, Fiction, Textbook, Vietnam • Tags: Tim O'Brien