“A Historical Book on Phuket” March 29, 2013 – 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 – until the dawn of empires: Funan spreading from Vietnam, Srivjaya from Sumatra and Chola from the Tamil Coromandel…

“Some Thoughts on the Dulang Washer” March 14, 2013 – Posted in: Reviews

Review by Susan Abraham What a superb book The Dulang Washer, that featured the gruelling industry of Malaya’s ancient tin-mining era, turned out to be. Here then lies an expansive work of essential historical fiction, thoughtfully and painstakingly composed by Irish writer, Paul Callan in his promising debut career as a novelist. The Dulang Washer – meaning an old-term description of a washerwoman who pans for tin sediments at the water’s edge – is published…

“Between Lives”: A Book Review March 5, 2013 – Posted in: Reviews

Review by Karishma Attari Between Lives begins with an intriguing prospect. A young Malaysian girl working at the Social Reconstruction Department is selected, perhaps for people skills, but probably for her knowledge of Tamil, to handle the eviction of an old woman who refuses to surrender valuable forestland for the construction of a theme park. Sumitra is eager to participate in “the wind of change that is at last unsettling old habits of thought and behaviour.”…

“The Planter’s Bungalow” Review March 3, 2013 – Posted in: Reviews

Review by Simon Hutchinson On first seeing this handsomely produced, lavishly illustrated book one would take it for one of those ‘coffee-table’ volumes displayed for visitors to admire and perhaps glance through rather than actually read. The title may suggest an almost eccentric specialization (Book about bungalows?! Who on earth would want to read it?’) but open this book at any page and you will be drawn into a fascinating journey through once familiar times…