This post is a follow-up (of sorts) to my review of the book The New Tourist by Paige McClanahan. While The New Tourist took a broader look at the tourism industry, its impact, and how we view ourselves as tourists, The World in a Selfie takes an even broader look to consider what tourism says… Read More Book Review: The World in a Selfie by Marco D’Eramo
I first heard about Dr Gwen Adshead when she was the lecturer for the BBC’s Reith Lectures. Her four talks on the problem of violence were so insightful that after I immediately put a reservation for a copy of her book: The Devil You Know. For me, the book and the talks complemented each other.… Read More Book Review: The Devil You Know by Gwen Adshead
Hello friends! As you know, I’ve been tired lately, and I even talked about how I think I’ve piled too much on my plate. This is a bit of a recurrent topic for me, so I’ve been doing some reading on what I can do about it, and today I want to share five book… Read More Five Books That are Helping Me Slow Down and Refocus
After reading River Town, I decided to move on to another book about China – this one about the “return of religion after Mao” (according to the book’s subtitle). One thing I noticed in River Town was that while people didn’t like to criticise Mao Zedong overtly, they were rather willing to admit that he… Read More Book Review: The Souls of China by Ian Johnson
I had a business trip to Suzhou and Shanghai and was too ambitious about how much reading time I had, which is why I started River Town in China but finished it in Singapore. River Town is a memoir of Hessler’s two years in Fuling, a small town on the Yangtze river. Hessler was there… Read More Book Review: River Town by Peter Hessler
After listening to やさしい民俗学‘s series on the history of the kimono, I decided to read Kimono – A Modern History and brush up on my knowledge of the kimono. As the title indicates, this book is about the kimono from 1850 onwards, till about 2014 when the book was published. Split into six very long… Read More Book Review: Kimono – A Modern History by Terry Satsuki Milhaupt
While I was looking for books to borrow for my trip, I saw this and thought it would be a good fit. I might be going to the Near East and the Far East and yes, I am coming from Southeast Asia but all these countries have, in recent times, been heavily influenced by if… Read More Book Review: The Light of Asia by Christopher Harding
I first heard about this book on the Medieval podcast (link to episode) and it sounded so interesting that I put it on the TBR list. And then when I actually went on a fairly long trip, I decided to borrow and it and I was definitely glad I did because both countries that I… Read More Book Review: A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages by Anthony Bale
I admit, this wasn’t my first choice for a book about Morocco. What I really wanted to read was Lord of the Atlas, but the library only had In Arabian Nights (unless I wanted to read a travel guide). So although I had some reservations from reading the Goodreads reviews, I decided to borrow it,… Read More Book Review: In Arabian Nights by Tahir Shah
I am very late to this book because it has been hyped as THE book on inequality and poverty in Singapore and in general, I’m afraid of reading books that are too hyped. But my recent devotional series has been focused on inequality and injustice, and that prompted me to start learning more about inequality… Read More Book Review: This Is What Inequality Looks Like by Teo You Yenn