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Reading List (Southeast Asia)

Here are our favourite book recommendations to read before, during or after your travels to Southeast Asia.

Indochina

  • Brother Enemy – Nayan Chanda
  • Mekong – Milton Osbourne
  • The River’s Tale (A Year on the Mekong) – Edward A. Gargan
  • Highways to a War – Christopher Koch
  • A Dragon Apparent – Norman Lewis
  • Dancing in Cambodia, At Large in Burma – Amitav Ghosh

Vietnam

  • Insight Guide Vietnam (2005 edition) – West & Rutherford
  • The Quiet American – Graham Greene
  • Vietnam: A History – Stanley Karnow
  • Lonely Planet World Food Vietnam – Richard Sterling
  • When Heaven and Earth Changed Places – Le Ly Hayslip
  • Three Moons in Vietnam – Maria Coffey
  • A Bright, Shining Lie – Neil Sheehan
  • Shadows and Wind – Robert Templer
  • The Girl in the Picture – Denise Chong
  • Catfish and Mandala – Andrew X. Pham
  • The Tunnels of Cu Chi – Tom Mangold and John Penycate
  • Anatomy of a War – Gabriel Kolko
  • Hanoi Adieu – Mandaley Perkins
  • Down Highway One – Susan Downie
  • Novel Without A Name – Duong Thu Huong
  • Vietnam: The Australian Experience – J. Rowe

Cambodia

  • Angkor (Odyssey Guide, 5th edition) – Rooney & Danford
  • Insight Guide Laos & Cambodia (2003 edition) – Clare Griffiths
  • First They Killed My Father – Loung Ung
  • Red Lights and Green Lizards – Liz Anderson.
  • Cambodia Now: Life in the Wake of War – Karen J. Coates
  • A History of Cambodia – David Chandler
  • River of Time – Jon Swain
  • Brother Number One – David Chandler

Laos

  • Insight Compact Guide Laos – Simon Robson
  • A History of Laos – Martin Stuart Fox
  • Stalking the Elephant Kings – Christopher Kremmer
  • Ant Egg Soup – Natacha Du Pont De Bie
  • Shadow War: The C.I.A’s Secret War in Laos – Kenneth Conboy
  • Voices from the Plain of Jars – Fred Branfman
  • Short History of Laos: The Land In Between – Grant Evans