Canterbury Tales Guesthouse

[Daveo]

Foreign Devils in the Flowery Kingdom (Tales of Old China)

by Carl Crow & Paul French..

 

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Originally published in 1940, this is Carl Crow’s entertaining autobiography, the story of his more than 25 years of adventures and success in Shanghai during the tumultuous early decades of the 20th century.

This book is a tale of East meets West set in the wild and heady days of inter-war China.

It is an account of how two cultures clashed, bickering over business deals and social norms as they tried to find a way to live with each other.

[Daveo]

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin

 

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A major literary debut that explores class, culture, power, and Desire among the ruling and servant classes of Pakistan.

 

In the spirit of Joyce's Dubliners and Turgenev's A Sportsman's Sketches, Daniyal Mueenuddin's collection of linked stories illuminates a place and a people through an examination of the entwined lives of landowners and their retainers on the Gurmani family farm in the countryside outside of Lahore, Pakistan.

An aging feudal landlords household staff, the villagers who depend on his favor, and a network of relations near and far who have sought their fortune in the cities confront the advantages and constraints of station, the dissolution of old ways, and the shock of change.

 

Mueenuddin bares, at times humorously, at times tragically the complexities of Pakistani class and culture and presents a vivid picture of a time and a place, of the old powers and the new, as the Pakistani feudal order is undermined and transformed.

[Daveo]

The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón....

 

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This book in Asia books costs 589 baht - from us 140 baht - plus you receive 50% in credit off your next book when you have finished with it....

 

Barcelona, 1957.

It is Christmas, and Daniel Sempere and his wife Bea have much to celebrate.

They have a beautiful new baby son named Julian, and their close friend Fermín Romero de Torres is about to be wed.

But their joy is eclipsed when a mysterious stranger visits the Sempere bookshop and threatens to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades in the city's dark past.

His appearance plunges Fermín and Daniel into a dangerous adventure that will take them back to the 1940's and the dark early days of Franco's dictatorship.

The terrifying events of that time launch them on a journey fraught with jealousy, suspicion, vengeance, and lies, a search for the truth that will put into peril everything they love and ultimately transform their lives.

 

Full of intrigue and emotion, The Prisoner of Heaven is a majestic novel in which the threads of The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game converge under the spell of literature and bring us toward the enigma of the mystery hidden at the heart of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a collection of lost treasures known only to its few initiates and the very core of Carlos Ruiz Zafón's enchanting fictional world.

[Daveo]

The Sins of the Father by Allan Massie..

 

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In 1964, famous economist and Holocaust survivor Dr. Eli Czinner lives in Argentina with his English wife, Nell, and their daughter Becky.

In the years following the war, he lost his sight, an appropriate fate for a man who was metaphorically blind during the fascist period, when "he had combined his contempt for the Nazis with his happy confidence that he could influence them, even lead them by the nose, save himself and his people by making himself useful."

But his contribution to Germany's economic reconstruction prompted whispers of collaboration that have haunted him ever since.

 

Introduced to Becky's fiance, Franz, and his father, Rudi, Eli recognizes the older man's voice as that of a former SS officer and mass murderer.

Rudi's eventual trial in Israel lays on Franz and Becky the weight of their fathers' past sins - a burden that will never leave them, the novel's final section reveals. Massie (A Question of Loyalties) adroitly varies first- and third-person narrative voices in a story that to plumb the foundations of truth and tragedy, history and memory, in a tale of one generation's painful legacy to the next.

[Daveo]

Addresses , A SIAMESE MEMOIRS, story of a Siamese boy growing up in wartime England and post-war Europe and Siam. The way the author has combined his memoirs with recent history makes ‘FASCINATING READING’

by Teddy Spha Palasthira. . . . . .

 

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What was it like growing up as a Siamese boy in London during the Second World War?

Witnessed the war and post-war years through the eyes of a young Siamese boy, Teddy Spha Palasthira, follow the author's childhood through a series of addresses.

A book written on war and peace, plainly and honestly told, with nostalgic anecdotes, rare photographs, descriptive maps and simple sketches.

"This is a personal story of a Siamese boy growing up in wartime England and post-war Europe and Siam.

The way he has combined his memoirs with recent history makes 'FASCINATING READING'" Anand Panyarachun, Former Prime Minister of Thailand Synopsis The number of Thais living Britain in 1942 was not more than 65 people.

This is the story of one Thai family who lived in England throughout the Second World War, their experiences as Free Thais, their remarkable survival from the bombs during the Blitz, and the deprivations of wartime England and post-war France, Italy and Siam.

All this is seen through the eyes of a Siamese boy who was born and raised in England.

The war was a formative experience for most of our generation.

As events unfold, we follow Teddy's childhood through a series of addresses, somewhere he had lived, others where his father, a Siamese diplomat, had worker.

It is the story of a young boy's relationship with the people he met, both Thai and European, and the effect they had on him.

Teddy has drawn both figuratively and literally from his experiences, vividly describing the different places where he lived, from the dilapidated houses which became his home to his schools and teachers, and encompassing the social and political changes of the time.

It is a personal story of war and peace, simply told through the reminiscences of a Thai boy caught up by events that shook the world in the last century.

[Daveo]

Letters from Thailand by Botan & Susan Fulop Kepner .

 

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This book in Asia books costs 495 baht - from us 180 baht - plus you receive 50% in credit off your next book when you have finished with it....

 

When the original Thai version of Letters from Thailand appeared in Bangkok in 1969, it was promptly awarded the SEATO Prize for Thai Literature.

This new English translation reveals it as one of Thailand's most entertaining and enduring modern novels, and one of the few portrayals of the immigrant Chinese experience in urban Thailand.

 

Letters from Thailand is the story of Tan Suang U, a young man who leaves China to make his fortune in Thailand at the close of World War II, and ends up marrying, raising a family, and operating a successful business.

The novel unfolds through his letters to his beloved mother in China.

 

In Tan Suang U's lively account of his daily life in Bangkok's bustling Chinatown, larger and deeper themes emerge: his determination to succeed at business in this strange new culture; his hopes for his family; his resentment at how easily his children embrace urban Thai culture at the expense of the Chinese heritage which he holds dear; his inability to understand or adopt Thai ways; and his growing alienation from a society that is changing too fast for him.

[Daveo]

Disco For The Departed by Colin Cotterill

 

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Dr. Siri Paiboun, reluctant national coroner of the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos, is summoned to a remote location in the mountains of Huaphan Province, where for years the leaders of the current government had hidden out in caves, waiting to assume power.

Now, as a major celebration of the new regime is scheduled to take place, an arm is found protruding from the concrete walk that had been laid from the President’s former Cave hideout to his new house beneath the cliffs.

Dr. Siri is ordered to supervise the disinterment of the body attached to the arm, identify the corpse and discover how he died.

 

The autopsy provides some surprises but it is his gift as a shaman that enables the seventy-two-year old doctor to discover why the victim was buried alive and, eventually, the identity of his killer.

[Daveo]

The Falcon of Siam (The Falcon of Siam #1) by Axel Aylwen.

 

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The Falcon of Siam: An action-adventure thriller that weaves historical fiction, epic storytelling and high drama into an unforgettable journey where a young Greek stowaway on a British East India Company ship finds his destiny in opulent 17th-century Thailand.

[Daveo]

Battle of Normandy by Guide Gallimard.....

 

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Official guide, the D - Day Landings and the battle of Normandy, full colour, lovely book.

[Daveo]

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[Daveo]

Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire

by Alex von Tunzelmann

 

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This book in UK costs 8.99 - from us 160 baht - plus you receive 50% in credit off your next book when you have finished with it....

 

A re-creation of one of the key moments of twentieth-century history: the partition and independence of India, and the final days of the Raj.

[Daveo]

The Prayer Room by Shanthi Sekaran....

 

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This book in US costs $14.00 - from us 160 baht - plus you receive 50% in credit off your next book when you have finished with it.

 

In 1974, the young and callow Englishman George Armitage goes to Madras in the hopes of returning with at least the beginning of his Ph.D. dissertation.

Instead, he comes home with a bride named Viji, an Indian woman he barely knows.

This seemingly unlikely pair eventually wind up in Sacramento, where they buy a ranch house and give birth to triplets.

 

In this new American world of shag carpets and pudding pops, Viji seeks consolation in her prayer room, which she visits frequently to gossip, sass, and seek advice from the framed portraits of her dead relatives.

It is here where Viji feels most herself and where these deceased family members feel “as real to her as she’d been to them.”

 

A hilarious and heartfelt debut, The Prayer Room re-examines the meaning of family, the people who live down the hall, the people who exist only in our memories, and the people who roll their eyes at you from within their picture frames.

[Daveo]

Burmese Days by George Orwell

 

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Set in the days of the Empire, with the British ruling in Burma, this book describes corruption and imperial bigotry.

Flory, a white timber merchant, befriends Dr Veraswami, a black enthusiast for the Empire, whose downfall can only be prevented by membership at an all-white club.

[Daveo]

Proteus by Morris L. West...

 

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John Spada publicly runs an enormous multinational corporation, privately he heads Proteus, a clandestine resistance movement.

His aim is to free prisoners of conscience wherever they may be.

As the story unfolds, Spada himself becomes an outlaw, and holds the world hostage.

[Daveo]

Katharine Hepburn by Barbara Leaming....

 

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Hollywood has produced many stars, but no one compares to Katharine Hepburn.

She is the last of the great ones: a celebrated actress, a brilliant personality, an original.

 

Barbara Leaming has discovered thousands of never-before-seen documents that finally illuminate the mystery of this enigmatic, fascinating woman.

Based on letters by Hepburn, her friends, and her family, as well as interviews with Hepburn herself, Leaming's book is a family story that brings alive three generations of fearless women, personal and political crusaders who shaped the history of women in our century.

[Daveo]

Manchu (Imperial China #2) by Robert S. Elegant

 

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This novel transports the reader back to the savagery and the passion, to the opulence and sensuality, and to the great adventure of the last days of a dying dynasty.

[Daveo]

Musashi (Musashi Complete) by Eiji Yoshikawa. . . . .

 

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The classic samurai novel about the real exploits of the most famous swordsman.

Musashi is a novel in the best tradition of Japanese storytelling.

It is a living story, subtle and imaginative, teeming with memorable characters, many of them historical.

Interweaving themes of unrequited love, misguided revenge, filial piety and absolute dedication to the Way of the Samurai, it depicts vividly a world Westerners know only vaguely.

[Daveo]

Strong Medicine by Arthur Hailey.....

Very good condition hardback traded in @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop * Book exchange...

Miracle drugs save lives and ease suffering, but for profit-motivated companies, the miracle is the money they generate...at any cost.  
Billions of dollars in profits will make men and women do many things, lie, cheat, even kill.  
Now one beautiful woman will be caught in the crossfire between ethics and profits, as Celia Jordan's fast-track career sweeps her into the highest circles of an international drug company, she begins to discover the sins and Secrets hidden in the research lab...and in the marketplace.  
Now the company's powerful new drug promises a breakthrough in treating a deadly disease. 
But Celia Jordan knows it may deliver a nightmare.

[Daveo]

Trade Wind by M.M. Kaye. . . . .

 

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The scene is teeming Zanzibar just before the American Civil War, when the Isle of Cloves was a center of African slave trade.

To it comes Hero Athena Hollis, a Boston bluestocking filled with self-righteousness and bent on good deeds.

Then she meets Rory Frost, a cynical, wicked, shrewd and good-humored trader in slaves.

What is Hero to make of him (and of her feelings for him)?

 

"Tightly plotted, crammed with detail and irresistibly romantic."

 

Note: M.M. Kaye is the author of The Far Pavilions, one of the great stories to emerge from British India.

[Daveo]

Paradise Raped by James R Mancham....

 

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[Daveo]

Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics by Anonymous - Joe Klein.

 

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A brilliant and penetrating look behind the scenes of modern American politics, Primary Colors is a funny, wise, and dramatic story with characters and events that resemble some familiar, real-life figures.

When a former congressional aide becomes part of the staff of the governor of a small Southern state, he watches in horror, admiration, and amazement, as the governor mixes calculation and sincerity in his not so above board campaign for the presidency.

[Daveo]

Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman - by Malidoma Patrice Some. . . . .

 

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Maliodoma Patrice Some was born in a Dagara Village, however he was soon to be abducted to a Jesuit school, where he remained for the next fifteen years, being harshly indoctrinated into european ways of thought and worship.

The story tells of his return to his people, his hard initiation back into those people, which lead to his Desire to convey their knowledge to the world.

Of Water and the Spirit is the result of that desire; it is a sharing of living African traditions, offered in compassion for those struggling with our contemporary crisis of the spirit.

[Daveo]

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

 

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This book in Hong Kong costs HK$124.00 - from us 160 baht - plus you receive 50% in credit off your next book when you have finished with it....

 

Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote northern Wisconsin.

For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a fictional breed of dog whose thoughtful companionship is epitomized by Almondine, Edgar's lifelong friend and ally.

But with the unexpected return of Claude, Edgar's paternal uncle, turmoil consumes the Sawtelles' once peaceful home. When Edgar's father dies suddenly, Claude insinuates himself into the life of the farm and into Edgar's mother's affections.

 

Grief-stricken and bewildered, Edgar tries to prove Claude played a role in his father's death, but his plan backfires—spectacularly.

Forced to flee into the vast wilderness lying beyond the farm, Edgar comes of age in the wild, fighting for his survival and that of the three yearling dogs who follow him.

But his need to face his father's murderer and his devotion to the Sawtelle dogs turn Edgar ever homeward.

 

David Wroblewski is a master storyteller, and his breathtaking scenes the elemental north woods, the sweep of seasons, an iconic American barn, a fateful vision rendered in the falling rain, create a riveting family saga, a brilliant exploration of the limits of language, and a compulsively readable modern classic.

[Daveo]

Noble House (Asian Saga: #5) by James Clavell

 

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The tai-pan, Ian Dunross, struggles to rescue Struan's from the precarious financial position left by his predecessor.

To do this, he seeks partnership with an American millionaire, while trying to ward off his arch-rival Quillan Gornt, who seeks to destroy Struan's once and for all.

Meanwhile, Chinese communists, Taiwanese nationalists, and Soviet spies illegally vie for influence in Hong Kong while the British government seeks to prevent this.

And nobody, it seems, can get anything done without enlisting the aid of Hong Kong's criminal underworld.

Other obstacles include water shortages, landslides, bank runs and stock market crashes.

[Daveo]

White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India

by William Dalrymple. . . . .

 

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White Mughals is the romantic and ultimately tragic tale of a passionate love affair that crossed and transcended all the cultural, religious and political boundaries of its time.

James Achilles Kirkpatrick was the British Resident at the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad when in 1798 he glimpsed Kahir un-Nissa, 'Most excellent among Women' the great-niece of the Nizam's Prime Minister and a descendant of the Prophet.

Kirkpatrick had gone out to India as an ambitious soldier in the army of the East India Company, eager to make his name in the conquest and subjection of the subcontinent. Instead, he fell in love with Khair and overcame many obstacles to marry her, not least of which was the fact that she was locked away in purdah and engaged to a local nobleman.

Eventually, while remaining Resident, Kirkpatrick converted to Islam, and according to Indian sources even became a double-agent working for the Hyderabadis against the East India Company.

 

It is a remarkable story, involving secret assignations, court intrigue, harem politics, religious and family disputes.

But such things were not unknown; from the early sixteenth century, when the Inquisition banned the Portuguese in Goa from wearing the dhoti, to the eve of the Indian mutiny, the 'white Mughals' who wore local dress and adopted Indian ways were a source of embarrassments to successive colonial administrations.

William Dalrymple unearths such colourful figures as 'Hindoo Stuart', who travelled with his own team of Brahmins to maintain his temple of idols, and who spent many years trying to persuade the memsahibs of Calcutta to adopt the sari; and Sir David Ochterlony, Kirkpatrick's counterpart in Delhi, who took all thirteen of his wives out for evening promenades, each on the back of their own elephant.

 

In White Mughals, William Dalrymple discovers a world almost entirely unexplored by history, and places at its centre a compelling tale of love, seduction and betrayal.

It possesses all the sweep and resonance of a great nineteenth-century novel, set against a background of shifting alliances and the manoeuvring of the great powers, the mercantile ambitions of the British and the imperial dreams of Napoleon.

White Mughals, the product of five years' writing and research, triumphantly confirms Dalrymple's reputation as one of the finest writers at work today.