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Aug 11, 2007
About My Library
These books don't constitute my library. I'm going to use Library Thing to keep track of what I've read, though I might throw in the occasional old faithful. Because I live abroad and have moved a lot, I try very hard not to accumulate books. It hasn't been so difficult. If I know a book is in one of the libraries in town, or that a friend owns it, that's almost as good as owning it. Sometimes I donate a book to one of these libraries, so I can retrieve it if need be. Books of the airport/beach reading variety are recycled back to a secondhand bookstore.

I've let myself collect the best reference works, mostly academic stuff, on Southeast Asia, especially Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. If it's marginal, I donate it to the library.
About Me
Most people finish reading a book and don't have an opinion of it. Reviewing a book forces you to have an opinion. That's a paraphrase, but V.S. Naipaul said that. At least Paul Theroux says so in Sir Vidia's Shadow.

I don't do much of it nowadays, but I used to review books for regional newspapers and magazines. For the most part, I reviewed history, politics and other nonfiction related to Asia. The habit Naipaul speaks of has remained with me. I never reach the finish line or the halfway mark with the standard Web review: I hated/loved/identified/related/couldn't identify. I have enough details and arguments to spew a review of a thousands words or more.

The reviews here aren't anything like my formal published reviews. They're just notes to myself. Maybe if I download them, I'll stop running the review in my head. These scattered thoughts might be useful someday.

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Thailand
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