Thailand’s Bhumibol Adulyadej, the only king ever born in the United States, came to the throne of his country in 1946 and is now the world’s longest-serving monarch. The King Never Smiles, the first independent biography of Thailand's monarch, tells the unexpected story of Bhumibol's life and sixty-year rule—how a Western-raised boy came to be seen by his people as a living Buddha, and how a king widely seen as beneficent and apolitical could in fact be so deeply political and autocratic. Paul Handley provides an extensively researched, factual account of the king’s youth and personal development, ascent to the throne, skillful political maneuverings, and attempt to shape Thailand as a Buddhist kingdom. Handley takes full note of Bhumibol's achievements in art, in sports and jazz, and he credits the king's lifelong dedication to rural development and the livelihoods of his poorest subjects. But, looking beyond the widely accepted image of the king as egalitarian and virtuous, Handley portrays an anti-democratic monarch who, together with allies in big business and the corrupt Thai military, has protected a centuries-old, barely modified feudal dynasty. When at nineteen Bhumibol assumed the throne, the Thai monarchy had been stripped of power and prestige. Over the ensuing decades, Bhumibol became the paramount political actor in the kingdom, silencing critics while winning the hearts and minds of his people. The book details this process and depicts Thailand’s unique constitutional monarch—his life, his thinking, and his ruling philosophy.
Author: Paul M. Handley
Hardcover:
512 pages
Company: Yale University Press
(2006-07-28)
ISBN: 0300106823 List Price: $38.00 Amazon Price: $23.58 Used Price: $19.95
Six years ago at the age of twenty-one, Jaed Muncharoen Coffin, a half-Thai American man, left New England's privileged Middlebury College to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in his mother's native village of Panomsarakram--thus fulfilling a familial obligation. While addressing the notions of displacement, ethnic identity, and cultural belonging, A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants chronicles his time at the temple that rain season--receiving alms in the streets in saffron robes; bathing in the canals; learning to meditate in a mountaintop hut; and falling in love with Lek, a beautiful Thai woman who comes to represent the life he can have if he stays. Part armchair travel, part coming-of-age story, this debut work transcends the memoir genre and ushers in a brave new voice in American nonfiction.
Author: Jaed Coffin
Paperback:
224 pages
Company: Da Capo Press
(2008-01-07)
ISBN: 0306815265 List Price: $16.00 Amazon Price: $7.70 Used Price: $5.15
Three decades ago in a cordoned-off corner of the developing world an angry Catholic priest armed only with pencil, paper, and crayons, declared a revolution. From a shanty school shared with Buddhists and Muslims in Bangkok's squatter slums, Father Joe Maier began his advance on abject poverty. Today, his Human Development Foundation and Mercy Centre charity is responsible for thirty-two preschools that have taught more than twenty thousand children how to read and write. Despite the crippling neglect found in impoverishment, he is raising international scholars and injecting a sense of purpose into shantytowns and squatter camps that used to have neither.
Author: Greg Barrett
Hardcover:
336 pages
Company: Jossey-Bass
(2008-03-28)
ISBN: 0470258632 List Price: $25.95 Amazon Price: $11.95 Used Price: $10.28
Anna Leonowens, a proper Englishwoman, was an unlikley candidate to change the course of Siamese (Thai) history. A young widow and mother, her services were engaged in the 1860's by King Mongkut of Siam to help him communicate with foreign governments and be the tutor to his children and favored concubines. Stepping off the steamer from London, Anna found herself in an exotic land she could have only dreamed of lush landscape of mystic faiths and curious people, and king's palace bustling with royal pageantry, ancient custom, and harems. One of her pupils, the young prince Chulalongkorn, was particularly influenced by Leonowens and her Western ideals. He learned about Abraham Lincoln and the tenets of democracy from her, and years later he would become Siam's most progressive king. He guided the country's transformation from a feudal state to a modern society, abolshing slavery and making many other radical reforms.
Weaving meticulously researched facts with beautifully imagined scenes, Margret Landon recreates an unforgettable portrait of life in a forgotten extotic land. Written more than fifty years ago, and translated into dozens of languages, Anna and the King of Siam (the inspiration for the magical play and film The King and I)continues to delight and enchant readers around the world.
Author: Margaret Landon
Paperback:
416 pages
Company: Harper Paperbacks
(1999-12-01)
(1999-11-03)
ISBN: 0060954884 List Price: $14.95 Amazon Price: $6.00 Used Price: $0.01
In the late 1970s, author Warren Fellows and two of his friends had the perfect scheme: they would traffic heroin between Australia and Thailand, concealing it flawlessly in high-tech, invisible compartments in suitcases. The money was there, and the process seemed foolproof--especially because they hadn't gotten caught in all their prior attempts at smuggling. But in 1978, all that would change, and Fellows would spend the next twelve years of his life enduring violations of his human rights of unimaginable hideousness.
Fellows, convicted in Thailand, spent these twelve years in Bangkok's infamous Bang Kwang prison, witnessing atrocities committed by both prison officials and his fellow inmates. He survived countless torturous beatings, was forced to eat rats, and endured solitary confinement under terrifyingly inhumane conditions. On a daily basis, Fellows also witnessed the torture and execution of those around him, their screams as common as the insects and vermin in his cell. Many of the prisoners in Bang Kwang turned to heroin--the vice that landed Fellows there in the first place--to escape their daily nightmares, and the prison guards often helped feed this deadly addiction.
Fellows, now a free man, has lived to write about these twelve ghastly years. He has captured the filth, pain, anger, hopelessness, and torture of life in a Thai prison with vivid, engrossing detail and brutal honesty.
Author: Warren Fellows
Paperback:
224 pages
Company: St. Martin's Griffin
(2000-04-01)
ISBN: 0312253648 List Price: $14.95 Amazon Price: $8.49 Used Price: $9.39
Having lived a successful life in Bangkok that included friends, two teaching jobs, and her own apartment, Sandra Gregory recounts how her life took a terrible turn in 1993 and how she experienced a journey from prison to renewal. While recuperating from dysentery and dengue fever, Gregory ran out of money. With mounting medical bills to pay, she met a heroin addict who offered her $1,000 to smuggle his personal supply of heroin to Japan. It was just enough to pay her medical bills and buy a ticket home, but Gregory was arrested at Bangkok airport before she even boarded the plane. Detailing the four and a half years she spent in the notorious Lard Yao prison, dubbed the "Bangkok Hilton," Gregory describes scenes of horrific brutality and suffering before being transferred to a British jail to serve the rest of her 22-year sentence. She tells of her daily fight for survival, of many women who died with no medical care or loved ones around them, and of her acceptance of her guilt and ultimate redemption.
Author: Sandra Gregory, Michael Tierney
Paperback:
280 pages
Company: VISION Paperbacks
(2003-06-12)
ISBN: 1904132278 List Price: $14.45 Amazon Price: $8.17 Used Price: $5.97
If you thought you knew the story of Anna in The King and I, think again. As this riveting biography shows, the real life of Anna Leonowens was far more fascinating than the beloved story of the Victorian governess who went to work for the King of Siam. To write this definitive account, Susan Morgan traveled around the globe and discovered new information that has eluded researchers for years. Anna was born a poor, mixed-race army brat in India, and what followed is an extraordinary nineteenth-century story of savvy self-invention, wild adventure, and far-reaching influence. At a time when most women stayed at home, Anna Leonowens traveled all over the world, witnessed some of the most fascinating events of the Age of Empire, and became a well-known travel writer, journalist, teacher, and lecturer. She remains the one and only foreigner to have spent significant time inside the royal harem of Siam. She emigrated to the United States, crossed all of Russia on her own just before the revolution, and moved to Canada, where she publicly defended the rights of women and the working class. The book also gives an engrossing account of how and why Anna became an icon of American culture in The King and I and its many adaptations.
Author: Susan Morgan
Hardcover:
296 pages
Company: University of California Press
(2008-06-30)
ISBN: 0520252268 List Price: $24.95 Amazon Price: $16.47
It is 1992, and the Burmese government's current war on its indigenous people runs into its fourth year. In neighboring Thailand, a small band of Buddhist monks harbors refugees from Burma inside their modest temple in the slums of Bangkok. The monks and refugees are all natives of the Burmese Mon State. All have the same residential status in Thailand: illegal. Under surveillance, and overwhelmed by the needs of their charges, the monks reach out to international aid agencies in Bangkok for help in ministering to the tortured, the wounded, the diseased, and the orphaned.
Singing to the Dead recalls a Catholic lay missioner's work alongside the Mon Buddhist monks of Bangkok. For more than two years, Victoria Armour-Hileman was a go-between for the monks, interceding with the world outside their temple walls for everything from a cornea transplant for a land mine victim to money to buy shoes for barefoot orphans. At the same time, Singing to the Dead details an aid worker's ongoing education: how to weave through an embassy bureaucracy, how to stave off burnout, how to pull money out of thin air at the eleventh hour, when to trust and when to be cautious, when to kowtow, when to pray.
As the centuries-old conflict between Burma and its Mon people worsens, police raids on the temple in Bangkok increase. Refugees have never been safe, but now even the monks' unofficial immunity seems tenuous. When one of the monks is threatened with repatriation to Burma and possible imprisonment and torture, Armour-Hileman begins the desperate race to secure a new home country for him. She knows that these final efforts are as selfish as they are humanitarian, for what kind of God, and what kind of universe, will she believe in if she fails?
Author: Victoria Armour-Hileman
Hardcover:
257 pages
Company: University of Georgia Press
(2002-06-12)
ISBN: 0820323586 List Price: $27.95 Amazon Price: $16.40 Used Price: $9.89
Among the 600 foreigners jailed in the 'Bangkok Hilton', one man resolves to do what no other has done: Escape. This is the true story of drug smuggler David McMillan's perilous break-out from Thailand's most notorious prison. After more than a year in prison and two weeks before a near-certain death sentence, McMillan escapes, never to be seen in Thailand again.
Author: David McMillan
Paperback:
288 pages
Company: Monsoon Books Pte. Ltd.
(2007-09-15)
ISBN: 9810575688 List Price: $15.95 Amazon Price: $12.28 Used Price: $10.95
Hard Travel to Sacred Places is the record of a personal odyssey through Southeast Asia, an external and internal journey through grief and the painful realities of a decadent age. Wurlitzer?novelist, screenwriter, and Buddhist practitioner?travels with his wife, photographer Lynn Davis, on a photo assignment to the sacred sites of Thailand, Burma, and Cambodia. Heavy Westernization, sex clubs, aging hippies and expatriates, and political dissidents provide a vivid contrast to the peace that Wurlitzer and Davis seek, still reeling from the death of their son in a car accident. As Davis with her camera searches for a thread of meaning among the artifacts and relics of a more enlightened age, Wurlitzer grasps at the wisdom of the Buddhist teachings in an effort to assuage his grief. His journal chronicles the survival of age-old truths in a world gone mad.
A wry account of the road from Harvard scholarship student to ordination as northern Thailand's first black Buddhist nun.
Reluctantly leaving behind Pop Tarts and pop culture to battle flying rats, hissing cobras, forest fires, and decomposing corpses, Faith Adiele shows readers in this personal narrative, with accompanying journal entries, that the path to faith is full of conflicts for even the most devout. Residing in a forest temple, she endured nineteen-hour daily meditations, living on a single daily meal, and days without speaking. Internally Adiele battled against loneliness, fear, hunger, sexual desire, resistance to the Buddhist worldview, and her own rebellious Western ego.
Adiele demystifies Eastern philosophy and demonstrates the value of developing any practice—Buddhist or not. This "unlikely, bedraggled nun" moves grudgingly into faith, learning to meditate for seventy-two hours at a stretch. Her witty, defiant twist on the standard coming-of-age tale suggests that we each hold the key to overcoming anger, fear, and addiction; accepting family; redefining success; and re-creating community and quality of life in today's world.
Author: Faith Adiele
Hardcover:
288 pages
Company: W. W. Norton & Company
(2004-04)
ISBN: 0393057844 List Price: $24.95 Amazon Price: $11.25 Used Price: $0.02
Anna Leonownes' memoir of her six year as a governess in the Royal Palace of Bangkok was the inspiration for the beloved Broadway musical The king and I, as well as two award-winning films. First published in 1870, Leonowens' memoir is the true story of a proper English governess who is hired by the King of Siam to tutor his many children. A delightful portrait of an unlikely friendship between two headstrong personalities, it is also a revealing peak at two very different cultures.
Author: Anna Leonowens
Mass Market Paperback:
320 pages
Company: Tor Books
(1999-11-15)
ISBN: 0812570626 List Price: $4.99 Amazon Price: $4.43 Used Price: $0.01
A Broad Abroad in Thailand follows a newlywed expat as she tries to settle in to her new home and a life full of unforeseen challenges. Soon after her arrival in this exotic land, her problems begin as she tries to learn the subtleties of the eastern squat toilet. Then there s the near fatal auto accident on the deadly Sukhumvit Highway, and the final insult bladder surgery performed by an inscrutable Thai doctor who decides to restore her virginity, while an intolerant nurse is after her with a vengeance and an enema tube. Further complicating her life is the need to be medivac d back to the States after surgery, while her catheter tube sways in the breeze. As if that s not enough to slow down even the most determined woman, she also has to deal with her new husband s insatiable testosterone level a textbook case of sexual fixation. Interwoven throughout her day-to-day life is the undercurrent of absolute control and jealousy perpetrated by a most unlikely source: the boss's wife, Ms. Anorexia, who manipulates the wives of the employees with her need to control every aspect: from shopping, to entertainment, to friends. In the end, an unflagging sense of humor sees her through all obstacles, from the first pitfalls and pratfalls in a land whose people she has come to respect and admire, through times of seemingly insurmountable challenges.
A Broad Abroad in Thailand was named a finalist in the "Humor " category by Foreward Magazine's Book of the Year Award.
Author: Dodie Cross
Paperback:
416 pages
Company: Four Ways West / Crossroads Publishing
(2007-09-01)
ISBN: 1885614756 List Price: $19.95 Amazon Price: $10.15 Used Price: $8.44
The True story of Anna Leonowens from Wales and who she served for six years in the Royal Palace in Bangkok Siam (modern Thailand) This is one of the most famous stories and was made into the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein musical "The King and I" as well as the movie "Anna and the King of Siam" with Jody Foster.
Author: Anna Harriette Leonowens
Kindle Edition:
Kindle Book
Company: LeClue22
(2008-03-09)
List Price: $0.99 Amazon Price: $0.99
From June 1942 to October 1943, more than 100,000 Allied POWs who had been forced into slave labor by the Japanese died building the infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway, an undertaking immortalized in the film "The Bridge on the River Kwai." One of the few who survived was American Marine H. Robert Charles, who describes the ordeal in vivid and harrowing detail in Last Man Out. The story mixes the unimaginable brutality of the camps with the inspiring courage of the men, including a Dutch Colonial Army doctor whose skill and knowledge of the medicinal value of wild jungle herbs saved the lives of hundreds of his fellow POWs, including the author.
Author: H. Robert Charles
Paperback:
240 pages
Company: Zenith Press
(2006-11-15)
ISBN: 076032820X List Price: $17.95 Amazon Price: $4.46 Used Price: $4.46
Phra Farangtells the story of Peter Robinson, a successful businessman, who at forty five, gave up his comfortable life in London to ordain as a Buddhist monk in Bangkok. But the new path he had chosen was not always as easy or as straightforward as he hoped it would be.
Author: Phra Peter Pannapadipo
Paperback:
384 pages
Import
Company: ARROW (RAND)
(2005-06-02)
ISBN: 0099484471 List Price: Amazon Price: $8.61 Used Price: $13.24
Best known for his novels and plays, Somerset Maugham also produced delightfully engaging and absorbing non-fiction, of which The Gentleman in the Parlour is a prime example. First published in 1935 it describes a journey the author took from Rangoon to Haipong. Whether by river to Mandalay, on horse through the mountains and forests of the Shan States to Bangkok, or onwards by sea, Maugham’s muse is in the spirit of Hazlitt, who wrote: “It is great to shake off the trammels of the world and public opinion...and to be known by no other title than The Gentleman in the Parlour.
Author: W Somerset Maugham
Paperback:
224 pages
Import
Company: Vintage Classics
(2001)
ISBN: 0099286777 List Price: Amazon Price: $10.91 Used Price: $9.95
Author: Kamala Tiyavanich
Paperback:
432 pages
Company: University of Hawaii Press
(1997-03)
ISBN: 0824817818 List Price: $30.00 Amazon Price: $21.00 Used Price: $19.95
This account of Kosa Panís journal describes in great detail the arrival in Brest in 1686 of the first full Siamese embassy to reach France. This fragment is apparently all that survives of a massive report of the activities of the embassy written for King Narai. It was discovered in Paris in the early 1980s, was published in Thai in 1984, and appears here in English for the first time.
A vibrant, growing, and highly visible set of female identities has emerged in Thailand known as tom and dee. A "tom" (from "tomboy") refers to a masculine woman who is sexually involved with a feminine partner, or "dee" (from "lady"). The patterning of female same-sex relationships into masculine and feminine pairs, coupled with the use of English-derived terms to refer to them, is found throughout East and Southeast Asia. Have the forces of capitalism facilitated the dissemination of Western-style gay and lesbian identities throughout the developing world as some theories of transnationalism suggest? Is the emergence of toms and dees over the past twenty-five years a sign that this has occurred in Thailand? Megan Sinnott engages these issues by examining the local culture and historical context of female same-sex eroticism and female masculinity in Thailand.
Drawing on a broad spectrum of anthropological literature, Sinnott situates Thai tom and dee subculture within the global trend of increasingly hybridized sexual and gender identities. Based on seven years of fieldwork, this empirically rich study explores this growing community in Thailand, tacking between the lives of individual toms and dees and the larger context of social norms and political events and discourses within Thailand. Thai toms and dees speak in their own voices about their identities, their relationships, and their struggles over the meanings of masculinity and femininity. A growing number of organizations and social clubs, web sites, and discussion groups provide a forum for contesting and transforming understandings of tom and dee.
Toms and Dees is a highly accessible work that should be of interest to the fields of Asian studies, gender studies, and the anthropology of sexuality.
Author: Megan J. Sinnott
Paperback:
261 pages
Company: University of Hawaii Press
(2004-07)
ISBN: 0824828526 List Price: $23.00 Amazon Price: $23.00 Used Price: $7.15
Loet Velmans was 17 when the Germans invaded his native Holland in 1940.Almost immediately, he and his family decided to escape to London, which they did on board the Dutch Coast Guard cutter, Seaman's Hope.Deciding theyt would be safer in the Far East, the family sailed to the Dutch East Indies-now Indonesia-where Loet joined the Dutch army.In March 1942, the Japanese invaded the archipelago, conquered it in a week, and made prisoners of the local Dutch soldiers.For the next three and a half years Loet and his fellow POW's were sent to slave labor camps to build a railroad through the dense jungle on the Burmese-Thailand border, to invade and conquer India.Some 200,000 POW's and slave laborers died in building this Railroad of Death.Loet, though suffering from malaria, dysentery, malnutrition, and unspeakable maltreatment, never gave up hope...and survived.Fifty-seven years later he returned to revisit the place where he should have died and where he had buried his closest friend.From that emotional visit came this stunning memoir.
Thaksin made a fortune of two billion dollars in four years. He was elected prime minister of Thailand in 2001 by a landslide. He narrowly escaped convicition for corruption. He believes he can take Thailand into the first world in eight years by running the country like a company.
To some, he is Thailand's best premier ever and a new leader for Asia. To others he is a threat to democracy, human rights, public morality, and the rule of law.
This book is the first serious study of Thaksin in English. It examines where he comes from, how he made his money, what he is trying to do, and his impact on Thailand's economy, society, and democracy.
Author: Pasuk Phongpaichit, Chris Baker
Paperback:
302 pages
Company: Silkworm Books
(2005-01-31)
ISBN: 9749575555 List Price: $22.50 Amazon Price: $14.29 Used Price: $12.50
Recounts the struggles of a young Thai woman to become a Buddhist nun and the challenges and rewards of that life.
Author: Sid Brown
Paperback:
180 pages
Company: State University of New York Press
(2001-10)
ISBN: 0791450961 List Price: $21.95 Amazon Price: $18.56 Used Price: $6.95
Years before he became a mythology expert and household name, Joseph Campbell journeyed to India. He was nearly 50, at a career crossroads, and after 10 years studying Indian art and philosophy he was finally going to India seeking the transcendent (Brahman), the mysteries of India. Instead he found the stark realities of baksheesh culture. His journal of those six months is the closest Campbell ever came to an autobiography. It's a diary of his adventures, insights, and ponderings; it's a window into the India of 1954 and the Joseph Campbell of 1954--both are intriguing places to visit.
Author: Joseph Campbell, Stephen Larsen, Robin Larsen, Antony Van Couvering
Hardcover:
314 pages
Company: HarperCollins Publishers
(1995-06)
ISBN: 0060168897 List Price: $25.00 Amazon Price: $4.75 Used Price: $2.52
The English Governess at the Siamese Court: Being Recollections of Six Years in the Royal Palace at Bangkok (1870) vividly recounts the experiences of one Anna Harriette Leonowens as governess for the sixty-plus children of King Mongkut of Siam, English teacher for his entire royal family, and translator and scribe for the King himself. Bright, young, and energetic, Leonowens was well-suited to these roles, and her writings convey a heartfelt interest in the lives, legends, and languages of Siam's rich and poor. She also tells of how she and the King often disagreed on matters domestic. After all, this was the first time King Mongkut had met a woman who dared to contradict him, and the governess found the very idea of male domination intolerable. Overworked and underpaid, Leonowens would eventually resign, but her exchanges with His Majesty--heated and otherwise--on topics like grammar, charity, slavery, politics, and religion add much to her diary's rich, cross-cultural spirit, its East-meets-West appeal.
Over the years, that appeal has only increased. Eighty years after it first appeared, this memoir inspired the popular book and film, Anna and the King of Siam, and a few years later the hit musical, The King and I. Now comes yet another version, Anna and the King, the new film starring Jodie Foster and Chow Yun Fat. Here, then, is the original tale, presented with many reproductions of the fine drawings that the King had offered as gifts to Leonowens. The English Governess at the Siamese Court remains engaging as a story of adventure, fascinating as a picture of nineteenth-century Bangkok, and intriguing as an account of life inside King Mongkut's palace.
Author: Anna Harriette Leonowens
Paperback:
338 pages
Company: Oxford University Press, USA
(1989-03-17)
ISBN: 0195888979 List Price: $9.95 Amazon Price: $4.61 Used Price: $1.01
A preacher must have common sense, knowing how to turn everyday life experience into Dharma lessons, and assess an audience to maximize communications with them. Sons of the Buddha shows how three boys evolved into remarkable exponents of this ideal. Filled with lively anecdotes and illustrations, and brimming with local color, the book shows how each worked successfully to change moral attitudes and Dharma practices, restore Buddhism’s social dimension, bridge the divide between laypeople and monastics, and champion tolerance toward other religions.
The mysterious circumstances surrounding Jim Thompson's disappearance in Malaysia sparked off what was to become a seven-year investigation. The subsequent media attention generated by the search triggered a number of theories, some proving to have rather sinister connotations.
In this intriguing book, the author seeks to evaluate most, if not all, of the speculative, and partially substantiated opinions which have been formed over the years.
Communist conspiracy, suicide or simple misadventure? Only after reading this amazing story are we in a position to decide.
Author: Edward Roy DeSouza
Paperback:
85 pages
Company: Word Association
(2004-06)
ISBN: 1932205896 List Price: $10.95 Amazon Price: $10.95 Used Price: $26.69
When New York chef Frank Visakay moved to Thailand, he quickly attracted the attention of beautiful Thai women. Or so he thought. In Jasmine Fever, Visakay offers hilarious revelations about his and his friends' relationships with Thai bargirls. As we learn from one of the eponymously named stories, perhaps he is 'looking for love in all the wrong places'.
Author: Frank Visakay
Paperback:
208 pages
Company: Monsoon Books Pte. Ltd.
(2008-03-15)
ISBN: 9810589735 List Price: $15.95 Amazon Price: $15.95 Used Price: $34.95
A true tale of courage, tragedy, and love. At the age of twenty-five, Petra Nemcova was leading a charmed life, complete with a busy modeling career (including a Sports Illustrated cover), a handsome and loving photographer boyfriend, and a jetsetting lifestyle. This was a far cry from her childhood, which she spent under the specter of communism in the former Czechoslovakia. But her world changed forever on December 26, 2004 when a powerful tsunami hit the resort of Khaolak, Thailand, where she was vacationing with her boyfriend, Simon Atlee. As he was swept away by the fierce waves, Petra managed to cling to a tree for nearly eight hours, even as her pelvis was shattered by the oceans ferocious power and her legs lost all feeling. Petras remarkable grace under pressure and the brave rescue by heroic Thai natives and tourists has been reported around the world. But now, for the first time, she will tell her entire story and share her amazing journey back: from her agonizing physical rehabilitation to confronting the pain of losing the love of her life to her tireless efforts to help with Thailand relief efforts. Petra will also reflect on her struggle through a poor childhood, and how, at eighteen, this shy young woman managed to launch a modeling career in the fashion capitals of the worlda glitzy and glamorous time in her life. But most of all, Love, Petra is the story of her love for Simon Atleea love that has not been extinguished by his untimely death. A heartbreaking, touching, and finally uplifting account, Love, Petra will share an inspirational message of hope, faith, and love to readers everywhere.
Author: Petra Nemcova, Jane Scovell
Hardcover:
208 pages
Bargain Price
Company:
(2005-12-05)
List Price: $23.95 Amazon Price: $13.85 Used Price: $6.43
Only 13 is my life story. At 13, I ran away from an impoverished, rural Thai village, only to become involved in the sex-tourist industry meeting American and European men. Child prostitution was the only way that I could find to send money to my impoverished family. My entrance into this world was selling my virginity, for which I earned $1,200. I did this to make up for my father s death for which I was blamed, which occurred while he was searching for me. I also needed to pay for my sisters schooling so that they would never have to see sex-tourists as I did. I spent five years in the sex-tourist industry in Thailand before marrying to go to Switzerland. That trip lasted only 12 days. Upon returning to Thailand, I met up with a former customer who took me to Germany where I worked in a massage parlor, while at the age of 19, I looked only 15 years old, and received a premium from my customers. A bad relationship in Germany led me to Sweden where I worked as a stripper for two years before returning to Thailand and writing my story. I am now living in England. You will learn what it is like to be born a poor girl in rural Thailand. You will think my thoughts, feel my fears, understand my views, suffer my pain, and share my victory of leaving the industry. You will learn what it is like to be me.
Author: Julia Manzanares, Derek Kent
Paperback:
362 pages
Company: Only 13 Publications
(2006-05-05)
ISBN: 0977284107 List Price: $14.95 Amazon Price: $14.95
The King of Thailand in World Focus: Articles and images from the international press 19462006 is a comprehensive account of the world¹s longest reigning living monarch viewed through the eyes of foreign media ‹ newspapers, magazines, wire services and photographers. This new, updated edition, published in conjunction with the King¹s 80th birthday, documents in some detail the intriguing story of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, from his birth and relatively carefree childhood spent abroad, to tragedy and sudden responsibility, through his formative years amidst domestic and regional turbulence, into his maturity as a champion of the have-nots and a king much admired and loved by his people. This is also a glimpse into the role of the king during critical moments in the country¹s political history. He remains perhaps one of the last monarchs in the world to wield real political influence, and remarkably, he does so not through the force of law, but through the tremendous trust and affection of his people.
Author: Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand
Hardcover:
260 pages
Company: Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand
(2008-01)
ISBN: 9747348543 List Price: $30.00 Amazon Price: $21.58 Used Price: $20.52
Author: Louis Braile, American Refugee Committee
Paperback:
330 pages
Company: Syren Book Company
(2005-02)
ISBN: 0929636341 List Price: $18.95 Amazon Price: $13.20 Used Price: $10.50
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu (1906-1993) is widely regarded as modern Thailand's most influential Buddhist philosopher. His thought had a profound intellectual impact in Thailand in the second half of the twentieth century. His life mission was to undertake a complete reexamination of Theravada Buddhist teachings. By returning to the Buddha's original teachings in the Suttapitaka and by drawing on aspects of Zen Buddhism, Buddhadasa crafted a vision of Thai Buddhism as a socially, politically, and intellectually progressive force. This vision of a modern Theravada Buddhism fit for a modern, democratic, and socially just Thailand continues to inspire large numbers of Thai people in the twenty-first century.
In this book Peter Jackson examines Buddhadasa's life work and thought, placing them in the context of the political, economic, and intellectual changes that transformed Thailand in the twentieth century. Combining biographical studies with critical philosophical and sociological analyses of Buddhadasa's reforms of Thai Buddhist teachings, Peter Jackson emphasizes the path-breaking and often radical ideas of one of the greatest Buddhist thinkers of the last century. This book is a revised and expanded edition of Peter Jackson's Buddhadasa: A Buddhist Thinker for the Modern World, published in 1988. It contains a new epilogue tracing the controversy surrounding Buddhadasa's death in 1993 and reflecting on the philosopher-monk's lasting legacy in Thailand.
Author: Peter A. Jackson
Paperback:
392 pages
Company: Silkworm Books
(2003-06)
ISBN: 9747551918 List Price: $22.50 Amazon Price: $22.27 Used Price: $15.00
Judging from their broad similarities, one is easily led to the impression that Pridi and Sulak were from the start the best of friends, fighting shoulder to shoulder and back to back against the encircling injustice. In the courageous and illuminating personal essay in this volume Sulak suggests otherwise. He recounts in vivid details his discord and ultimate unity with Pridi. Sulak's essay not only provides us with a valuable glimpse of Pridi's ideas and personality but also of his won background and intellectual development (more precisely, of an important turning point in his intellectual growth). Above all Sulak, in this essay, intends to disperse the dark, malicious clouds that have blackened Pridi Banomyong's reputation, hoping that the Thai people will ultimately come to recognize and appreciate the vital contributions of this man.
A Catholic priest works to save the war refugees in Vietnam and the Boat People in Thailand. One mans dedication to pursue a missionary life among the poorest of the poor in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War and afterwards.
Author: Raymond A. Devlin
Hardcover:
237 pages
Company: Nenagh Books
(2001-11-01)
ISBN: 0971093504 List Price: $25.95 Amazon Price: $8.99 Used Price: $5.98
Little Angelsis the real-life stories of the novice monks and reflects the lives of many youths in Thailand who are trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty, broken homes, illiteracy and drug abuse. When all else fails, Buddhism becomes their last resort: providing them with physical shelter and spiritual refuge. It heals their childhood traumas and gives them a moral framework for living and a better outlook on life.
Author: Phra Peter Pannapadipo
Paperback:
320 pages
Import
Company: ARROW (RAND)
(2005-06-02)
ISBN: 009948448X List Price: Amazon Price: $31.48 Used Price: $5.11
This digital document is an article from Yasodhara-Newsletter on International Buddhist Women's Activities, published by Thomson Gale on October 1, 2006. The length of the article is 851 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details Title: One step beyond.(The Venerable Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, Thailand's first female monk in the Theravada Buddhist tradition)(Biography) Author: Cynthia Good Publication:Yasodhara-Newsletter on International Buddhist Women's Activities (Newsletter) Date: October 1, 2006 Publisher: Thomson Gale Volume: 23 Issue: 1 Page: 5(3)
Article Type: Biography
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Author: Cynthia Good
Digital:
3 pages
HTML
Company: Thomson Gale
(2006-10-01)
(2007-01-25)
List Price: $9.95 Amazon Price: $9.95
The remarkable true story of a Anna Harriet Leonowens. Her charismatic teaching style transferred over to her other adventures. Her life in Canada, where she lived for 40 years, was also remarkable.
Author: Leslie Smith Dow
Paperback:
154 pages
Company: Pottersfield Press
(1992-03)
ISBN: 0919001696 List Price: $13.00 Amazon Price: $103.53 Used Price: $12.00
Author: Margaret Landon
Hardcover:
400 pages
Import
Company: HarperCollins Entertainment
(2000-01-04)
ISBN: 000226112X List Price: Amazon Price: Used Price: $53.25
True story of an American businessman arrested in Thailand, falsely accused of operating an international sex tour ring, and imprisoned for two years at the request of the US government.
Author: Steve Raymond, Mal Karman
Hardcover:
331 pages
Company: New Amsterdam Press
(1995-01)
ISBN: 0964253399 List Price: $19.95 Amazon Price: $95.00 Used Price: $12.00
Ha Pham Kim Nhung, her husband and six children fled their Saigon home destined for the United States to join Ha's mother. After a harrowing, two-week overland trek through Vietnam and Cambodia, the family finally made their way to the refugee camps in Thailand only to find the conditions in the camp nearly intolerable. This is the powerful and poignant story of their six months' struggle to escape the Communists in Vietnam. The family traveled through the killing fields of Cambodia only to find themselves in the Para refugee camps in Thailand, with their dehumanizing conditions. But all the while the family maintained their strength and love for one another and ultimately joined Ms. Ha's mother in the United States.
Author: Kim Ha
Hardcover:
246 pages
Company: McFarland & Company
(1997-01)
ISBN: 078640244X List Price: $35.00 Amazon Price: Used Price: $250.00
Author: N.A. McDonald, N. A. McDonald
Paperback:
128 pages
Company: White Lotus Co Ltd
(1999-02)
ISBN: 9748434028 List Price: $14.50 Amazon Price: Used Price: $12.50
This book concerns the French intervention in Siam, 1685-1688, particularly the cataclysmic last year, during which Phetracha, the usurper and future king, held the ailing King Narai prisoner until his death. Marcel Le Blanc was one of fourteen Jesuits who arrived in Siam at the request of King Narai to promote the study of mathematics and astrology, but he became inextricably involved in events surrounding Phetracha's coup d'etat. He was in Bangkok during the siege and the arrival of the King's favorite, Madame Phalkon, who was subsequently arrested and killed. He describes his departure from the country with the French troops, his capture by the Dutch at the Cape, and his imprisonment in Middleburg.
This new English edition of the book, first published in 1692, has been translated, introduced, and annotated by Michael Smithies, well-known scholar of the period.
Author: Marcel Le Blanc
Paperback:
240 pages
Company: Silkworm Books
(2004-02)
ISBN: 9749575296 List Price: $30.00 Amazon Price: $29.99 Used Price: $26.78
Thailand tells the story of a young man who travels into the wild of Southeast Asia, for adventure and for Peace. His journey leads him through cities, mountains, islands, oceans and spirits, in search of a treasure with no beginning and no end.
A biography of Field Marshal Phibunsongkhram, probably the most controversial political figure of modern Thai history, and Prime Minister from 1938-44 and from 1948-57. This represents the first serious attempt to privide a sensitive and objective assessment of his real contributions to Thai history.
Author: Kobkua Suwannathat-Pian
Hardcover:
360 pages
Company: Oxford University Press, USA
(1995-08-24)
ISBN: 9676530530 List Price: $38.00 Amazon Price:
Biography/ Sulak Sivaraksa, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and winner of the prestigious Right Livlihood Award, is a prominent and outspoken Thai Buddhist social critic and activist. In his memoirs, LOYALTY DEMANDS DISSENT, Sulak recounts his life as a "radical conservative" -- both contemplative and activist, traditionalist and modernist, loyalist and dissident. Sulak was born 65 years ago, the same year that Thailand emerged from absolute monarchy into democracy, and his life has been intimately bound up with his country's modern history. In this inspiring autobiography, we see Sulak's indefatigable efforts to bring people together into community, common work, and a shared vivion of a more enlightened world.
Two years after the 1685 French embassy to Siam led by Chaumont and Choisy, King Louis XIV sent a second embassy to Phra Narai led by the two envoys La Loubère and Céberet, and a third unofficial emissary, Father Tachard, who was working behind the scenes and often against his colleagues. Accompanying them were expeditionary troops to be installed in Bangkok and Mergui once a Franco-Siamese treaty could be negotiated.
This volume conveniently presents, in English translation, three important accounts of that second French embassy to Siam in 1687: Tachard's Second Voyage, published in 1689; Céberet's Journal du voyage de Siam, published in 1992; and Tachard's "Relation," an unpublished account of the tempestuous journey back to France.
Beginning with a listing of the dramatis personae and a general introduction to set the stage, Michael Smithies introduces each of the three accounts in turn, providing background information about the authors and their times before presenting the relevant sections of their texts. Written from different perspectives, these key documents, taken together, form a fuller picture of the events and issues of this embassy. The volume ends with an appendix on La Loubère, including the text of his many brief references to the embassy in his comprehensive work, The Kingdom of Siam.
Paperback:
288 pages
Company: Silkworm Books
(2003-02)
ISBN: 9747551616 List Price: $16.95 Amazon Price: $13.50 Used Price: $11.83
This digital document is an article from Contemporary Southeast Asia, published by Thomson Gale on December 1, 2007. The length of the article is 1522 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details Title: The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand's Bhumipol Adulyadej.(Book review) Author: P.W. Chambers Publication:Contemporary Southeast Asia (Magazine/Journal) Date: December 1, 2007 Publisher: Thomson Gale Volume: 29 Issue: 3 Page: 529(4)
Article Type: Book review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Author: P.W. Chambers
Digital:
6 pages
HTML
Company: Thomson Gale
(2007-12-01)
(2008-01-15)
List Price: $9.95 Amazon Price: $9.95
The 1932 Revoluntionist is back on stage again after eight years. Certain questions raised by the play remian unanswered. A warning from the play:
The Younger: October. It's October again. The Edler: That's history. The Younger: No, history is repeating itself.
This prophecy was eventually fulfilled in May 1992, against the backdrop of exploding gunfire and corpses that strewed Rajadamnern Road. At present, with an election coming up, several people have decided not o go out and vote. Some plan to go and drop a blank card as a gesture of protest. Others are bored to death with realpolitik. In the mean time, the academia is busy preparing for political reforms.
Eight years ago, the protagonist of the play, Pridi Banomyong, said:
"Please uphold and safeguard the comprehensive democratic aspirations of the October 14 martyrs."
The 1932 Revolutionist is a historical play overlaps into the present. There seems to be a yawning gap between 1932 and 1995. Yet, is we consider the development of democracy sixty years are a rather brief period. We must stop bickering among ourselves on what the definition is and instead ask where can we find it. This is fundamental if we want to reach our destination.
Author: Kamron Gunatilaka, S. J.
Paperback:
96 pages
Company: Lantern Books
(2000-06-21)
ISBN: 9747449196 List Price: $12.00 Amazon Price: $12.00 Used Price: $5.57
Here is a bold and entertaining account of the life of a European teak inspector working in the heart of the Thai countryside in the 1920s. Beginning with a description of his voyage, Campbell conveys the adventure and the loneliness, the beauty and the terror, that was the White Man's lot and sprinkles his narrative with pithy anecdotes about his various encounters. Teak-Wallah is an evocative tale of a world that still exists, but in which the European no longer has a role.
Author: Reginald Campbell
Hardcover:
312 pages
Company: Oxford University Press, USA
(1986-06-19)
ISBN: 0195826485 List Price: $14.95 Amazon Price: $29.99 Used Price: $3.16
Shopping Guide 
Three decades ago in a cordoned-off corner of the developing world an angry Catholic priest armed only with pencil, paper, and crayons, declared a revolution. From a shanty school shared with Buddhists and Muslims in Bangkok's squatter slums, Father Joe Maier began his advance on abject poverty. Today, his Human Development Foundation and Mercy Centre charity is responsible for thirty-two preschools that have taught more than twenty thousand children how to read and write. Despite the crippling neglect found in impoverishment, he is raising international scholars and injecting a sense of purpose into shantytowns and squatter camps that used to have neither. 
Having lived a successful life in Bangkok that included friends, two teaching jobs, and her own apartment, Sandra Gregory recounts how her life took a terrible turn in 1993 and how she experienced a journey from prison to renewal. While recuperating from dysentery and dengue fever, Gregory ran out of money. With mounting medical bills to pay, she met a heroin addict who offered her $1,000 to smuggle his personal supply of heroin to Japan. It was just enough to pay her medical bills and buy a ticket home, but Gregory was arrested at Bangkok airport before she even boarded the plane. Detailing the four and a half years she spent in the notorious Lard Yao prison, dubbed the "Bangkok Hilton," Gregory describes scenes of horrific brutality and suffering before being transferred to a British jail to serve the rest of her 22-year sentence. She tells of her daily fight for survival, of many women who died with no medical care or loved ones around them, and of her acceptance of her guilt and ultimate redemption.
If you thought you knew the story of Anna in The King and I, think again. As this riveting biography shows, the real life of Anna Leonowens was far more fascinating than the beloved story of the Victorian governess who went to work for the King of Siam. To write this definitive account, Susan Morgan traveled around the globe and discovered new information that has eluded researchers for years. Anna was born a poor, mixed-race army brat in India, and what followed is an extraordinary nineteenth-century story of savvy self-invention, wild adventure, and far-reaching influence. At a time when most women stayed at home, Anna Leonowens traveled all over the world, witnessed some of the most fascinating events of the Age of Empire, and became a well-known travel writer, journalist, teacher, and lecturer. She remains the one and only foreigner to have spent significant time inside the royal harem of Siam. She emigrated to the United States, crossed all of Russia on her own just before the revolution, and moved to Canada, where she publicly defended the rights of women and the working class. The book also gives an engrossing account of how and why Anna became an icon of American culture in The King and I and its many adaptations.
It is 1992, and the Burmese government's current war on its indigenous people runs into its fourth year. In neighboring Thailand, a small band of Buddhist monks harbors refugees from Burma inside their modest temple in the slums of Bangkok. The monks and refugees are all natives of the Burmese Mon State. All have the same residential status in Thailand: illegal. Under surveillance, and overwhelmed by the needs of their charges, the monks reach out to international aid agencies in Bangkok for help in ministering to the tortured, the wounded, the diseased, and the orphaned. 
Among the 600 foreigners jailed in the 'Bangkok Hilton', one man resolves to do what no other has done: Escape. This is the true story of drug smuggler David McMillan's perilous break-out from Thailand's most notorious prison. After more than a year in prison and two weeks before a near-certain death sentence, McMillan escapes, never to be seen in Thailand again.
Hard Travel to Sacred Places is the record of a personal odyssey through Southeast Asia, an external and internal journey through grief and the painful realities of a decadent age. Wurlitzer?novelist, screenwriter, and Buddhist practitioner?travels with his wife, photographer Lynn Davis, on a photo assignment to the sacred sites of Thailand, Burma, and Cambodia. Heavy Westernization, sex clubs, aging hippies and expatriates, and political dissidents provide a vivid contrast to the peace that Wurlitzer and Davis seek, still reeling from the death of their son in a car accident. As Davis with her camera searches for a thread of meaning among the artifacts and relics of a more enlightened age, Wurlitzer grasps at the wisdom of the Buddhist teachings in an effort to assuage his grief. His journal chronicles the survival of age-old truths in a world gone mad.
A wry account of the road from Harvard scholarship student to ordination as northern Thailand's first black Buddhist nun. 
A Broad Abroad in Thailand follows a newlywed expat as she tries to settle in to her new home and a life full of unforeseen challenges. Soon after her arrival in this exotic land, her problems begin as she tries to learn the subtleties of the eastern squat toilet. Then there s the near fatal auto accident on the deadly Sukhumvit Highway, and the final insult bladder surgery performed by an inscrutable Thai doctor who decides to restore her virginity, while an intolerant nurse is after her with a vengeance and an enema tube. Further complicating her life is the need to be medivac d back to the States after surgery, while her catheter tube sways in the breeze. As if that s not enough to slow down even the most determined woman, she also has to deal with her new husband s insatiable testosterone level a textbook case of sexual fixation. Interwoven throughout her day-to-day life is the undercurrent of absolute control and jealousy perpetrated by a most unlikely source: the boss's wife, Ms. Anorexia, who manipulates the wives of the employees with her need to control every aspect: from shopping, to entertainment, to friends. In the end, an unflagging sense of humor sees her through all obstacles, from the first pitfalls and pratfalls in a land whose people she has come to respect and admire, through times of seemingly insurmountable challenges. 
The True story of Anna Leonowens from Wales and who she served for six years in the Royal Palace in Bangkok Siam (modern Thailand) This is one of the most famous stories and was made into the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein musical "The King and I" as well as the movie "Anna and the King of Siam" with Jody Foster.
Author: Colin Martin
Phra Farang tells the story of Peter Robinson, a successful businessman, who at forty five, gave up his comfortable life in London to ordain as a Buddhist monk in Bangkok. But the new path he had chosen was not always as easy or as straightforward as he hoped it would be.
Best known for his novels and plays, Somerset Maugham also produced delightfully engaging and absorbing non-fiction, of which The Gentleman in the Parlour is a prime example. First published in 1935 it describes a journey the author took from Rangoon to Haipong. Whether by river to Mandalay, on horse through the mountains and forests of the Shan States to Bangkok, or onwards by sea, Maugham’s muse is in the spirit of Hazlitt, who wrote: “It is great to shake off the trammels of the world and public opinion...and to be known by no other title than The Gentleman in the Parlour.
Author: Kamala Tiyavanich
This account of Kosa Panís journal describes in great detail the arrival in Brest in 1686 of the first full Siamese embassy to reach France. This fragment is apparently all that survives of a massive report of the activities of the embassy written for King Narai. It was discovered in Paris in the early 1980s, was published in Thai in 1984, and appears here in English for the first time. 
A vibrant, growing, and highly visible set of female identities has emerged in Thailand known as tom and dee. A "tom" (from "tomboy") refers to a masculine woman who is sexually involved with a feminine partner, or "dee" (from "lady"). The patterning of female same-sex relationships into masculine and feminine pairs, coupled with the use of English-derived terms to refer to them, is found throughout East and Southeast Asia. Have the forces of capitalism facilitated the dissemination of Western-style gay and lesbian identities throughout the developing world as some theories of transnationalism suggest? Is the emergence of toms and dees over the past twenty-five years a sign that this has occurred in Thailand? Megan Sinnott engages these issues by examining the local culture and historical context of female same-sex eroticism and female masculinity in Thailand. 
Loet Velmans was 17 when the Germans invaded his native Holland in 1940.Almost immediately, he and his family decided to escape to London, which they did on board the Dutch Coast Guard cutter, Seaman's Hope.Deciding theyt would be safer in the Far East, the family sailed to the Dutch East Indies-now Indonesia-where Loet joined the Dutch army.In March 1942, the Japanese invaded the archipelago, conquered it in a week, and made prisoners of the local Dutch soldiers.For the next three and a half years Loet and his fellow POW's were sent to slave labor camps to build a railroad through the dense jungle on the Burmese-Thailand border, to invade and conquer India.Some 200,000 POW's and slave laborers died in building this Railroad of Death.Loet, though suffering from malaria, dysentery, malnutrition, and unspeakable maltreatment, never gave up hope...and survived.Fifty-seven years later he returned to revisit the place where he should have died and where he had buried his closest friend.From that emotional visit came this stunning memoir.
Thaksin made a fortune of two billion dollars in four years. He was elected prime minister of Thailand in 2001 by a landslide. He narrowly escaped convicition for corruption. He believes he can take Thailand into the first world in eight years by running the country like a company. 
Recounts the struggles of a young Thai woman to become a Buddhist nun and the challenges and rewards of that life.
Author: William Warren
The English Governess at the Siamese Court: Being Recollections of Six Years in the Royal Palace at Bangkok (1870) vividly recounts the experiences of one Anna Harriette Leonowens as governess for the sixty-plus children of King Mongkut of Siam, English teacher for his entire royal family, and
Author: Chavoret Jaruboon
The mysterious circumstances surrounding Jim Thompson's disappearance in Malaysia sparked off what was to become a seven-year investigation. The subsequent media attention generated by the search triggered a number of theories, some proving to have rather sinister connotations. 
When New York chef Frank Visakay moved to Thailand, he quickly attracted the attention of beautiful Thai women. Or so he thought. In Jasmine Fever, Visakay offers hilarious revelations about his and his friends' relationships with Thai bargirls. As we learn from one of the eponymously named stories, perhaps he is 'looking for love in all the wrong places'.
A true tale of courage, tragedy, and love. At the age of twenty-five, Petra Nemcova was leading a charmed life, complete with a busy modeling career (including a Sports Illustrated cover), a handsome and loving photographer boyfriend, and a jetsetting lifestyle. This was a far cry from her childhood, which she spent under the specter of communism in the former Czechoslovakia. But her world changed forever on December 26, 2004 when a powerful tsunami hit the resort of Khaolak, Thailand, where she was vacationing with her boyfriend, Simon Atlee. As he was swept away by the fierce waves, Petra managed to cling to a tree for nearly eight hours, even as her pelvis was shattered by the oceans ferocious power and her legs lost all feeling. Petras remarkable grace under pressure and the brave rescue by heroic Thai natives and tourists has been reported around the world. But now, for the first time, she will tell her entire story and share her amazing journey back: from her agonizing physical rehabilitation to confronting the pain of losing the love of her life to her tireless efforts to help with Thailand relief efforts. Petra will also reflect on her struggle through a poor childhood, and how, at eighteen, this shy young woman managed to launch a modeling career in the fashion capitals of the worlda glitzy and glamorous time in her life. But most of all, Love, Petra is the story of her love for Simon Atleea love that has not been extinguished by his untimely death. A heartbreaking, touching, and finally uplifting account, Love, Petra will share an inspirational message of hope, faith, and love to readers everywhere.
Author: Bua Boonmee, Nicola Pierce
Only 13 is my life story. At 13, I ran away from an impoverished, rural Thai village, only to become involved in the sex-tourist industry meeting American and European men. Child prostitution was the only way that I could find to send money to my impoverished family. My entrance into this world was selling my virginity, for which I earned $1,200. I did this to make up for my father s death for which I was blamed, which occurred while he was searching for me. I also needed to pay for my sisters schooling so that they would never have to see sex-tourists as I did. I spent five years in the sex-tourist industry in Thailand before marrying to go to Switzerland. That trip lasted only 12 days. Upon returning to Thailand, I met up with a former customer who took me to Germany where I worked in a massage parlor, while at the age of 19, I looked only 15 years old, and received a premium from my customers. A bad relationship in Germany led me to Sweden where I worked as a stripper for two years before returning to Thailand and writing my story. I am now living in England. You will learn what it is like to be born a poor girl in rural Thailand. You will think my thoughts, feel my fears, understand my views, suffer my pain, and share my victory of leaving the industry. You will learn what it is like to be me.
The King of Thailand in World Focus: Articles and images from the international press 19462006 is a comprehensive account of the world¹s longest reigning living monarch viewed through the eyes of foreign media ‹ newspapers, magazines, wire services and photographers. This new, updated edition, published in conjunction with the King¹s 80th birthday, documents in some detail the intriguing story of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, from his birth and relatively carefree childhood spent abroad, to tragedy and sudden responsibility, through his formative years amidst domestic and regional turbulence, into his maturity as a champion of the have-nots and a king much admired and loved by his people. This is also a glimpse into the role of the king during critical moments in the country¹s political history. He remains perhaps one of the last monarchs in the world to wield real political influence, and remarkably, he does so not through the force of law, but through the tremendous trust and affection of his people.
Author: Louis Braile, American Refugee Committee
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu (1906-1993) is widely regarded as modern Thailand's most influential Buddhist philosopher. His thought had a profound intellectual impact in Thailand in the second half of the twentieth century. His life mission was to undertake a complete reexamination of Theravada Buddhist teachings. By returning to the Buddha's original teachings in the Suttapitaka and by drawing on aspects of Zen Buddhism, Buddhadasa crafted a vision of Thai Buddhism as a socially, politically, and intellectually progressive force. This vision of a modern Theravada Buddhism fit for a modern, democratic, and socially just Thailand continues to inspire large numbers of Thai people in the twenty-first century. 
Judging from their broad similarities, one is easily led to the impression that Pridi and Sulak were from the start the best of friends, fighting shoulder to shoulder and back to back against the encircling injustice. In the courageous and illuminating personal essay in this volume Sulak suggests otherwise. He recounts in vivid details his discord and ultimate unity with Pridi. Sulak's essay not only provides us with a valuable glimpse of Pridi's ideas and personality but also of his won background and intellectual development (more precisely, of an important turning point in his intellectual growth). Above all Sulak, in this essay, intends to disperse the dark, malicious clouds that have blackened Pridi Banomyong's reputation, hoping that the Thai people will ultimately come to recognize and appreciate the vital contributions of this man.
A Catholic priest works to save the war refugees in Vietnam and the Boat People in Thailand. One mans dedication to pursue a missionary life among the poorest of the poor in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War and afterwards.
Little Angels is the real-life stories of the novice monks and reflects the lives of many youths in Thailand who are trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty, broken homes, illiteracy and drug abuse. When all else fails, Buddhism becomes their last resort: providing them with physical shelter and spiritual refuge. It heals their childhood traumas and gives them a moral framework for living and a better outlook on life.
Author: Margaret Landon
True story of an American businessman arrested in Thailand, falsely accused of operating an international sex tour ring, and imprisoned for two years at the request of the US government.
Ha Pham Kim Nhung, her husband and six children fled their Saigon home destined for the United States to join Ha's mother. After a harrowing, two-week overland trek through Vietnam and Cambodia, the family finally made their way to the refugee camps in Thailand only to find the conditions in the camp nearly intolerable. This is the powerful and poignant story of their six months' struggle to escape the Communists in Vietnam. The family traveled through the killing fields of Cambodia only to find themselves in the Para refugee camps in Thailand, with their dehumanizing conditions. But all the while the family maintained their strength and love for one another and ultimately joined Ms. Ha's mother in the United States.
This book concerns the French intervention in Siam, 1685-1688, particularly the cataclysmic last year, during which Phetracha, the usurper and future king, held the ailing King Narai prisoner until his death. Marcel Le Blanc was one of fourteen Jesuits who arrived in Siam at the request of King Narai to promote the study of mathematics and astrology, but he became inextricably involved in events surrounding Phetracha's coup d'etat. He was in Bangkok during the siege and the arrival of the King's favorite, Madame Phalkon, who was subsequently arrested and killed. He describes his departure from the country with the French troops, his capture by the Dutch at the Cape, and his imprisonment in Middleburg. 
Author: Jackie McKinley
Thailand tells the story of a young man who travels into the wild of Southeast Asia, for adventure and for Peace. His journey leads him through cities, mountains, islands, oceans and spirits, in search of a treasure with no beginning and no end.
Biography/ Sulak Sivaraksa, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and winner of the prestigious Right Livlihood Award, is a prominent and outspoken Thai Buddhist social critic and activist. In his memoirs, LOYALTY DEMANDS DISSENT, Sulak recounts his life as a "radical conservative" -- both contemplative and activist, traditionalist and modernist, loyalist and dissident. Sulak was born 65 years ago, the same year that Thailand emerged from absolute monarchy into democracy, and his life has been intimately bound up with his country's modern history. In this inspiring autobiography, we see Sulak's indefatigable efforts to bring people together into community, common work, and a shared vivion of a more enlightened world.
Author: Dhammakaya Foundation
Two years after the 1685 French embassy to Siam led by Chaumont and Choisy, King Louis XIV sent a second embassy to Phra Narai led by the two envoys La Loubère and Céberet, and a third unofficial emissary, Father Tachard, who was working behind the scenes and often against his colleagues. Accompanying them were expeditionary troops to be installed in Bangkok and Mergui once a Franco-Siamese treaty could be negotiated. 
Author: Skye Sinclair
Author: Chai Pinit
Author: Debbie Singh
Author: Florence Ione Howlett, Sandra L. Zaugg
The 1932 Revoluntionist is back on stage again after eight years. Certain questions raised by the play remian unanswered. A warning from the play: