Canterbury Tales Guesthouse

[Daveo]

Patty’s Guide to Thai Ladies & All Men By Tony Crossley

Find a few of Tony's books @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

Patty’s Guide to Thai Ladies & All Men A foolproof guide to the mating game and a humorous look at Thailand's modern Miss. A definitive look at the man-woman relationship in Thailand. Avoid ‘Expat Syndrome’, Know ‘The Bar - code’.

[Daveo]

The Night Ferry by Michael Robotham. . . .

Traded in recently @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

Struggling detective Alisha Barba is trying to get her life back on track after almost being crippled by a murder suspect.

Now on her feet again she receives a desperate plea from an old school friend, who is eight months pregnant and in trouble.

On the night they arrange to meet, her friend is run down and killed by a car and Alisha discovers the first in a series of haunting and tragic deceptions. Determined to uncover the truth, she embarks upon a dangerous journey that will take her from the East End of London’s to Amsterdam’s murky red light district and into a violent underworld of sex trafficking, slavery and exploitation.

[Daveo]

Violence: Six Sideways Reflections by Slavoj Žižek. . .

This book UK cost - 345 baht our price 140 baht @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange...plus the 50% trade in for credit when you finished with it..

Philosopher, cultural critic, and agent provocateur Slavoj Žižek constructs a fascinating new framework to look at the forces of violence in our world. Using history, philosophy, books, movies, Lacanian psychiatry, and jokes, Slavoj Žižek examines the ways we perceive and misperceive violence.

Drawing from his unique cultural vision, Žižek brings new light to the Paris riots of 2005; he questions the permissiveness of violence in philanthropy; in daring terms, he reflects on the powerful image and determination of contemporary terrorists. Violence, Žižek states, takes three forms - subjective (crime, terror), objective (racism, hate-speech, discrimination), and systemic (the catastrophic effects of economic and political systems) and often one form of violence blunts our ability to see the others, raising complicated questions. Does the advent of capitalism and, indeed, civilization cause more violence than it prevents?

Is there violence in the simple idea of "the neighbour"? And could the appropriate form of action against violence today simply be to contemplate, to think? Beginning with these and other equally contemplative questions, Žižek discusses the inherent violence of globalization, capitalism, fundamentalism, and language, in a work that will confirm his standing as one of our most erudite and incendiary modern thinkers.

[Daveo]

Bangkok Days by Lawrence Osborne. . . .

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A PASSIONATE, AFFECTIONATE RECORD OF ADVENTURES AND MISADVENTURES IN THE WORLD’S HOTTEST METROPOLIS Tourists come to Bangkok for many reasons - a sex change operation, a night with two prostitutes dressed as nuns, a stay in a luxury hotel.

Lawrence Osborne comes for the cheap dentistry. Broke (but no longer in pain), he finds that he can live in Bangkok on a few dollars a day and so the restless exile stays. Osborne’s is a visceral experience of Bangkok, whether he’s wandering the canals that fill the old city; dining at the No Hands Restaurant, where his waitress feeds him like a baby; or launching his own notably unsuccessful career as a gigolo.

A guide without inhibitions, Osborne takes us to a feverish place where a strange blend of ancient Buddhist practice and new sexual mores has created a version of modernity only superficially indebted to the West.

Bangkok Days is a love letter to the city that revived Osborne’s faith in adventure and the world.

[Daveo]

All Over the Map & Out of the Loop by Morgan McFinn. . . .

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More Amusing Ways and Woes of Morgan McFinn, the World's Most Committed Leisure Activist .. A year after the publication of his 'paradise journal' Out of the Loop, slacker extraordinaire Morgan McFinn finally relinquishes his hammock on the glorious shores of Koh Samui in the Gulf of Siam.

In an attempt to widen his orbit of earthly experiences, McFinn sets off to other exotic locales around Southeast Asia and even further afield.

Taking up residence in a series of charming hotels, he attempts, as usual, to make himself as comfortable as possible ... Several sojourns take our man to Phnom Penh, where he stays at the hotel Paradise, hobnobs with members of the ex-pat community, and undertakes a daunting philanthropic enterprise.

On an island in Greece, he stays at the hotel Rex, visits his old friend the "hermit-poet" of Patmos, and wades through the choppy waters of two holiday romances.

At the hotel Rockholm by the Arabian Sea in Southwest India, McFinn does his best to rekindle the pleasures of a bygone era when the British Raj was the toast of the town. And in the midst of all this, our boy even manages to inject some action into his idle and idyllic lifestyle - by planning a murder in Marrakesh ...

[Daveo]

Bangkok Express by James Newman..

Look out for this and more of James Newman books @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

"PULP NOIR writer JAMES A. NEWMAN gives us a guided tour into the criminal underground of Bangkok, Thailand in Bangkok Express.

It's a tropical pulp fiction with an international cast of characters caught in a spider web of corruption, with cold blooded murder for cash at the center.

Newman's depiction of Bangkok makes the city come alive in all its beautiful savagery.

It is strange place that is both burning with poverty and drowning with dirty money.

There's no such thing as corruption in Bangkok - You either swim with the sharks or get eaten by piranhas.

If you got no money, you'll get no mercy.

[Daveo]

White Shotgun: The Sicilian Mafia in Their Own Words by Attilio Bolzoni

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For thirty years Attilio Bolzoni has reported on the shadowy activities of Cosa Nostra.

Now, for the first time, he has collected together a powerful anthology of rare interviews, court proceedings and phone taps that together capture the essence of this most hidden of secret society.

[Daveo]

Moscow 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March by Adam Zamoyski. . .

This book UK cost - 9.99 - our price 160 baht @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange...plus the 50% trade in for credit when you finished with it..

 

Napoleon dominated nearly all of Europe by 1810, largely succeeding in his aim to reign over the civilized world.

But Britain eluded him. To conquer the island nation, he needed Russia's Tsar Alexander's help.

The Tsar refused, and Napoleon vowed to teach him a lesson by intimidation and force.

The ensuing invasion of Russia, during the frigid winter of 1812, would mark the beginning of the end of Napoleon's empire.

Although his army captured Moscow after a brutal march deep into hostile territory, it was a hollow victory for the demoralized troops.

Napoleon's men were eventually turned back, and their defeat was a momentous turning point in world affairs. Dramatic, insightful, and enormously absorbing, Moscow 1812 is a masterful work of history.

[Daveo]

How Lucky I Was: 35 Missions in a Lancaster Bomber by Rex Kimlin,

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At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Rex Kimlin was a 16 year old school kid living a quiet life in suburban Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

By August 1944 he was a wireless operator air gunner in a Lancaster bomber over western Europe.

This is the story of his enlistment and induction into the formidable war machine that was RAF Bomber Command. In his own words Rex tells how his life moved on from the leafy streets of Wynnum North, through experiences of violent death in training to the ultimate ordeal over heavily defended targets in Germany's Ruhr Valley.

Rex's never before published memoir of thirty-five missions in "Lancs" makes compelling reading.

His matter-of-fact descriptions of apocalyptic scenes are chilling. For example: "Attacking the target at night was like flying into an inferno.

Fires blazing on the ground, searchlights all around and what looked like an impenetrable wall of flak, in yellowy red bursts, and heavy smoke from previous flak explosions. Tracers lazily drifting up towards you, and then zipping by at high speed, and now and then a plane or two going down in flames, or exploding in mid-air, either by a direct hit on their bombs in the belly, or by collision or bombs dropped from above through the stream, by chicken aircraft flying higher than they were supposed to, to avoid the flak, to the detriment and danger of all aircraft doing the right thing. It was a mad hectic 10 to 15 minutes, from the time you started the straight and level bombing run, until you were able to turn away and clear the target area." In a happy miracle of fate Rex returned unharmed to tell his story, a testament to the courage of the 125,000 air crew of Bomber Command - ordinary men catapulted into extraordinary situations. It is also a memorial to the 55,000 who did not return.

[Daveo]

This Is the Beat Generation: New York, San Francisco, Paris by James Campbell

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Beginning in New York in 1944, James Campbell finds the leading members of what was to become the Beat Generation in the shadows of madness and criminality. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs had each seen the insides of a mental hospital and a prison by the age of thirty.

A few months after they met, another member of their circle committed a murder that involved Kerouac and Burroughs as material witnesses. This book charts the transformation of these experiences into literature, and a literary movement that spread across the globe. From "The First Cut-Up" - the murder in New York in 1944, we end up in Paris in 1960 with William Burroughs at the Beat hotel, experimenting with the technique that made him notorious, what Campbell calls "The Final Cut-Up." In between, we move to San Francisco, where Ginsberg gave the first public reading of Howl.

We discover Burroughs in Mexico City and Tangiers; the French background to the Beats; the Buddhist influence on Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and others; the "Muses" Herbert Huncke and Neal Cassady; the tortuous history of On the Road; and the black ancestry of the white hipster.

[Daveo]

The Evening Star by Larry McMurtry

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Here old age and death catch up with some beloved McMurtry characters familiar to readers since Terms of Endearment .

Willful, tart-tongued Aurora Greenway and her outspoken maid and confidante, Rose Dunlup, yes are in their 70's when this book begins; Aurora's lover, Gen. Hector Scott, is nearing 90.

Their eccentricities have been exacerbated by the passing of years.

Still greedy for life and sexual fulfillment, Aurora convinces Hector that they need psychoanalysis to ensure his better performance; then she begins an affair with the therapist, who is 30 years her junior.

Aurora's grandchildren, the legacy of her dead daughter, Emma, are painfully neurotic: former dope dealer Tommy is in prison for manslaughter; though trying maintain mental stability with Jane and their adorable baby, Teddy again comes close to breakdown; pregnant Melissa's feckless boyfriend abandons her for a woman with a Ferrari.

[Daveo]

Ghost by James Swallow. . .

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A terrible threat from the depths of the dark net.

A devastating betrayal at the heart of a covert strike force.

A deadly pursuit across a digital battlefield.

A ruthless terrorist fuelled by revenge.

As devastating attacks unfold across the globe, Marc Dane must call on all his skills and ingenuity to track down the mysterious figure behind it all - a faceless criminal known only as "Madrigal".

Before they plunge the world into war . .

[Daveo]

Falcon: At The Court of Siam by John Hoskin.

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Set toward the end of the seventeenth century, Falcon at the Court of Siam recounts the true story of Constantine Phaulkon, a Greek of low birth who spectacularly rose to fame, and infamy, as King Narai's favorite courtier - and in effect, if not name, First Minister of Siam.

No other foreigner, before or since, has ever held such a position of power and influence in Siam.

Fleeing from his home on Cephalonia at the age of 11, the Greek became a seaman on English merchant ships for the next twenty years, and then enjoyed a meteoric rise to power in Siam, all the time walking a political tightrope between the ill-fated wooing of English and then French allies, and his attempts to outwit dangerous enemies at the Siamese Court who were inflamed by jealousy and anger at his arrogance and ambition.

Against a backdrop of pageantry and peril, Phaulkon pursued a destiny of greatness that he believes was his. Was he a man who would become king?

A loyal servant to King Narai?

Or simply an arrogant, conniving foreigner bent on his own material gain?

[Daveo]

Neon Angel by Cherie Currie,

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The author recounts her teenage years as the lead singer of the all-girl rock band, the Runaways, her career as a movie actress, and her battle with drugs and alcohol.

[Daveo]

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale. . . .

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The dramatic story of the real-life murder that inspired the birth of modern detective fiction.

In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection, ironically destroying, in the process, the career of perhaps the greatest detective in the land.

At the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking, as Kate Summerscale relates in her scintillating new book, that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.

Whicher quickly believed the unbelievable—that someone within the family was responsible for the murder of young Saville Kent. Without sufficient evidence or a confession, though, his case was circumstantial and he returned to London a broken man. Though he would be vindicated five years later, the real legacy of Jonathan Whicher lives on in fiction: the tough, quirky, knowing, and all-seeing detective that we know and love today…from the cryptic Sgt. Cuff in Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone to Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher is a provocative work of nonfiction that reads like a Victorian thriller, and in it Kate Summerscale has fashioned a brilliant, multilayered narrative that is as cleverly constructed as it is beautifully written.

[Daveo]

Battleground (Code Red #6) by Chris Ryan.

 

Canterbury Tales Cafe Pattaya

This action packed book just 100 baht@ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange - plus 50% trade in for credit when you finished with it.

Fourteen-year-old Ben Tracy goes to Pakistan with his environmental-activist mother, who then travels across the border into Afghanistan, leaving Ben behind, where it’s safe.

But Ben and his new friend, Aarya, are kidnapped and find themselves caught up in a terrifying planned Taliban attack that could destroy Southern Afghanistan killing thousands. And when Ben sees their kidnappers are carrying some sort of weapon that looks like a suitcase, he realizes that their lives are in serious danger.

Edited August 24, 2019 by Daveo

[Daveo]

Liberation Day by Andy McNab. . . .

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Former SAS commando Andy McNab unleashes a non-stop whirlwind of action and intrigue in this book -featuring top-secret operative Nick Stone.

Desperate to gain American citizenship and start a new life with the woman he loves, Nick Stone agrees to do one last job for the CIA.

He must infiltrate an Arab republic, kill a money-laundering local businessman, and bring back gruesome proof of his death.

He doesn’t know why, and he doesn’t care.

Too late, Stone realizes the truth about his real mission - which has only just begun. In the shadowy French underworld, he’s caught in the deep end of a very dirty war against al-Qaeda operatives.

And as one bloody twist leads to another, Stone soon finds himself on his deadliest assignment yet - and confronted by the most lethal dilemma a man could face.

[Daveo]

Downfall by Jeff Abbott. . . .

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She is a good mother.

She will do what she must to ensure that her daughter Diana has a perfect life, just as perfect as the one they've led for the past seven years. No matter who has to die. DOWNFALL...... The simplest beginnings can unravel a life.

For Sam Capra, it is the moment a beautiful young woman walks into his San Francisco bar. Sam doesn't want trouble - an ex-CIA agent, his only Desire now is to build a quiet, peaceful home for himself and his infant son.

But Diana Keene is no ordinary customer. She's pursued by two gunmen, and when she finds Sam, she whispers an urgent, desperate plea: "Help me." And without any warning, Sam is thrust into a fight for his life.

For Diana is being hunted by a deadly network-a shadowy alliance of select, influential men and women who use their connections, their authority, and their wealth to bend the world to their will.

Now, this network aims its relentless fury against the man interfering with their plans to seize a new level of power: Sam Capra. Threatened on all sides, Sam has only one hope to survive the network's all-consuming attack and return to his life with his son....he must destroy the man who owns the people who run the world.

[Daveo]

The Somnambulist (Domino Men #1) by Jonathan Barnes....

This book UK cost - 7.99 - our price 140 baht @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange...plus the 50% trade in for credit when you finished with it..

Once the toast of good society in Victorian England, the extraordinary conjurer Edward Moon no longer commands the respect that he did in earlier times.

Still, each night he returns to the stage of his theater to amaze his devoted, albeit dwindling, audience, aided by his partner, the Somnambulist, a silent, hairless, hulking giant who, when stabbed, does not bleed.

But these are strange, strange times in England, with the oddest of sorts prowling London's dank underbelly.

And the very bizarre death of a disreputable actor has compelled a baffled police constabulary to turn once again to Edward Moon for help, inevitably setting in motion events that will shatter his increasingly tenuous grasp on reality.

[Daveo]

Jeeves and the Wedding Bells by Sebastian Faulks...

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A gloriously witty novel from Sebastian Faulks using P.G. Wodehouse’s much-loved characters, Jeeves and Wooster, fully authorised by the Wodehouse estate. Bertie Wooster, recently returned from a very pleasurable sojourn in Cannes, finds himself at the stately home of Sir Henry Hackwood in Dorset. Bertie is more than familiar with the country house set-up: he is a veteran of the cocktail hour and, thanks to Jeeves, his gentleman's personal gentleman, is never less than immaculately dressed. On this occasion, however, it is Jeeves who is to be seen in the drawing room while Bertie finds himself below stairs - and he doesn't care for it at all. Love, as so often, is at the root of the confusion. Bertie, you see, has met Georgiana on the Côte d'Azur. And though she is clever and he has a reputation for foolish engagements, it looks as though this could be the real thing.

However, Georgiana is the ward of Sir Henry Hackwood and, in order to maintain his beloved Melbury Hall, the impoverished Sir Henry has struck a deal that would see Georgiana becoming Mrs Rupert Venables. Meanwhile, Peregrine ‘Woody' Beeching, one of Bertie's oldest chums, is desperate to regain the trust of his fiancée Amelia, Sir Henry's tennis-mad daughter. But why would this necessitate Bertie having to pass himself off as a servant when he has never so much as made a cup of tea? Could it be that the ever-loyal, Spinoza-loving Jeeves has an ulterior motive?

[Daveo]

Mafia Princess by Marisa Merico...

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Marisa Merico, the daughter of one of Italy's most notorious Mafia Godfathers, was dazzled by her father, Emilio DiGiovine. To her he was all powerful, sophisticated and loving; to the rest of the world he was staggeringly ruthless. Marisa knew her father would do anything for her, but she hadn't expected just how much he would ask in return. Born to an English mother, Marisa turned her back on her quiet life in Blackpool to join her charming father, Emilio DiGiovine, who had spent years trying to tempt her back to Italy. Arriving in Milan, Marisa had no idea she was returning to the heart of one of the most notorious drugs, arms and money laundering empires in the world. At first her father shielded her from the family operations and Marisa was overwhelmed by the attention and gifts he lavished on her. But soon the temptation of a new recruit was too great and Marisa was drawn ever deeper into the family's sinister and brutal regime, witnessing things she was too scared to believe. The day she eloped with her father's chief henchman was the day her father decided she was ready to be initiated into the true nature of the family business. Suddenly Marisa saw there was no limit to what he would expect her to do for him. She knew it was wrong, she knew she had to get out, but she had no idea how she could break the sacred Coda Nostra – and survive. Marisa's extraordinarily story is the most powerful portrayal of a Mafia family to emerge in recent years. It's the perfect balance of shocking violence, dangerous betrayals and enduring love.

[Daveo]

The Boys: The Story of 732 Young Concentration Camp Survivors by Martin Gilbert...

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Fewer than 100,000 Jews survived the death camps.

This is the story of 732 of those Jews, all under the age of sixteen in 1945.

It is the story of what they lost, of what they, as children, suffered, and, most of all, of what they overcame.

Robbed of their childhoods, orphaned by violence and bestiality, they ought to have become sociopaths.

Instead, they rebuilt their lives and dedicated them to the memory of those who were not as lucky.

Told in their voices, The Boys bears witness to the power of the human spirit.

[Daveo]

Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis

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Bret Ellis, the narrator of Lunar Park, is a writer whose first novel Less Than Zero catapulted him to international stardom while he was still in college.

In the years that followed, he found himself adrift in a world of wealth, drugs, and fame, as well as dealing with the unexpected death of his abusive father.

After a decade of decadence, a chance for salvation arrives; the chance to reconnect with an actress he was once involved with, and their son.

But almost immediately his new life is threatened by a freak sequence of events and a bizarre series of murders that all seem to connect to Ellis’s past. Reality, memoir, and fantasy combine to create not only a fascinating version of this most controversial writer but also a deeply moving novel about love and loss, parents and children, and ultimately forgiveness.

[Daveo]

In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson. . .

We have a good selection of Bill's books @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out.

His previous excursion along the Appalachian Trail resulted in the sublime national bestseller A Walk in the Woods.

In A Sunburned Country is his report on what he found in an entirely different place: Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest, driest weather, and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife to be found on the planet.

The result is a deliciously funny, fact-filled, and adventurous performance by a writer who combines humor, wonder, and unflagging curiosity. Despite the fact that Australia harbors more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than anywhere else, including sharks, crocodiles, snakes, even riptides and deserts, Bill Bryson adores the place, and he takes his readers on a rollicking ride far beyond that beaten tourist path.

Wherever he goes he finds Australians who are cheerful, extroverted, and unfailingly obliging, and these beaming products of land with clean, safe cities, cold beer, and constant sunshine fill the pages of this wonderful book. Australia is an immense and fortunate land, and it has found in Bill Bryson its perfect guide.

[Daveo]

Entry Island by Peter May. . .

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When Detective Sime Mackenzie boards a light aircraft at Montreal's St. Hubert airfield, he does so without looking back. For Sime, the 850-mile journey ahead represents an opportunity to escape the bitter blend of loneliness and regret that has come to characterise his life in the city. Travelling as part of an eight-officer investigation team, Sime's destination lies in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Only two kilometres wide and three long, Entry Island is home to a population of around 130 inhabitants - the wealthiest of which has just been discovered murdered in his home. The investigation itself appears little more than a formality. The evidence points to a crime of passion: the victim's wife the vengeful culprit. But for Some the investigation is turned on its head when he comes face to face with the prime suspect, and is convinced that he knows her - even though they have never met. Haunted by this certainty his Insomnia becomes punctuated by dreams of a distant past on a Scottish island 3,000 miles away. Dreams in which the widow plays a leading role. Sime's conviction becomes an obsession. And in spite of mounting evidence of her guilt he finds himself convinced of her innocence, leading to a conflict between the professional duty he must fulfil, and the personal destiny that awaits him.