An absolute must-read November 29, 2018 – Posted in: Reviews

Alasdair Forbes reviews Colin Mackay’s rollicking history of Phuket First, a declaration of interest: I edited an early version of Colin Mackay’s A History of Phuket and the Surrounding Region. I thought then that it was an excellent piece of work. The final product is just plain superb. Mackay spent five or six years researching the book, unearthing memoirs, official documents, love letters and even an epic poem, in Thai, English, Dutch, Russian, German, Portuguese,…

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A historical book on Phuket – Posted in: Reviews

Colin Mackay’s A History of Phuket and the Surrounding Region (White Lotus, Bangkok, 2012, 418pp) is a magnificent achievement: a towering work of erudition leavened with sly humor and fascinating side-bars. While destined to be the standard reference text for the island’s history, the book is so vividly written that it deserves to be a raging best-seller. Mackay covers the early waves of migration down the Malay peninsula – Negrito, Malay, Mon, Burmese, Thai –…

Exciting Indie Publishers of Penang November 1, 2018 – Posted in: In The News

Areca Books Founded by Khoo Salma Nasution and her husband Abdur-Razzaq Lubis, Areca Books, an independent publisher cum bookstore, set up shop in 2005. The publishing house has over 40 titles focusing on social history, biographies, cultural heritage, architecture, the environment and visual arts to its name. “We are very interested in the subject of Malaysiana. Our cultural diversity has been sadly reduced to a trichotomy of Malay, Indian and Chinese, but our social history…