* indicates a book that appears in our feature "Around the World in 80+ Books"published in the April 2002 issue of National Geographic Traveler.
*A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East,by Tiziano Terzani (1997). New Delhi-based but Italian by birth, journalist Terzani is a walking United Nations. When a Hong Kong fortune-teller told him in 1976 not to travel by plane, he took her warning perhaps too literally: he set off by foot, boat, bus, car, and train for a year of escapades in a dozen countries.
The Lost Heart of Asia,by Colin Thubron (1994). In the early 1990s, the five "Stans" of Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan) were abandoned by their former Russian ruler. Author Thubron travels 6,000 miles through Samarkand and Bukhara, through the Kazakh steppes and the Pamir mountains, relating vibrant accounts of living in this Central Asian region in transition.
Riding the Iron Rooster, by Paul Theroux (1988). In this travel classic, the often grouchy Theroux spends a year exploring late 1980s China and Tibet, mostly by train. The legacy of the Cultural Revolution looms large in his insightful discussions with ordinary Chinese along the way.
River Dog: A Journey Down the Brahmaputra,by Mark Shand (2002). Named for the Hindu god of creation, the Brahmaputra begins as a tiny glacial stream in Tibet and winds 1,800 miles (2,897 kilometers) to the mighty Bay of Bengal. Shand journeys down the river—in what he calls the "last great Asian adventure"—with only the aid of kind strangers, a peculiar riverboat captain, and Bhaiti, an ancient pedigree of hunting dog.
A River's Tale: A Year on the Mekong, by Edward Gargan (2003). "[Rivers] flow past societies and civilizations, mute witness to human events," writes Gargan, former foreign correspondent for the New York Times. Gargan returns to Asia almost 30 years after the Vietnam War to traverse the 3,000-mile Mekong River, one of the only things that binds the countries of Southeast Asia together.
Shadow of the Silk Road,by Colin Thubron (2007). "To follow the Silk Road is to follow a ghost," says Thubron. This memoir of his 7,000-mile journey from China to Antioch on bike, camel, bus, and foot retraces the steps of ancient cultures but also journeys into a modern Asia of political upheaval and SARS.
*South Southeast,photographs by Steve McCurry (2000). McCurry is the maker of the shot seen 'round the world—that is, the piercing-green-eyed Afghan girl whose photo all but embodies the essence of the National Geographic Society. In this title, he invites readers on an achingly beautiful visual journey through Southeast Asia.
Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond, by Pankaj Mishra (2006). Through eight travelogues, Mishra explores how the West has influenced South Asian countries. From Nepal to Afghanistan, with characters from Bollywood to Kashmir, Mishra's book is filled with political insight and cultural reflection of a rapidly changing region.
Travels in the East, by Donald Richie (2007). Japan-based scholar Richie's newest collection of incisive and insightful travel essays ranges all over Asia and the Pacific, from Mongolia to Borneo.
Turkestan Solo: A Journey through Central Asia, by Ella Maillart (1934). Maillart trekked from Moscow to Bokhara, through the Tian Shan mountains of Mongolia and the legendary cities of Tashkent and Samarkand, down the Amu Daria river, and through the harsh Desert of Red Sands—solo, in 1932.
Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment,by Richard Bernstein (2002). Bernstein journeys through Central Asia in the centuries-old footsteps of Hsuan Tsang, a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled from China to India in search of the shrines of Buddhism. His detailed and inspiring account takes him to Kashgar, Samarkand, and the Ganges River, and other places far from the paths of most tourists.
*Video Night in Kathmandu: and Other Reports from the Not-So-Far East,by Pico Iyer (1988). The contents page of this tour de force reads like a backpacker's fantasy—Bali, Tibet, Nepal, China, the Philippines, Burma, Hong Kong, India, Thailand, Japan. Indeed, this crafty, kinetic, outrageous book by Iyer—an earnest sort of smart-ass—continues to intoxicate wanderlusters.
You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When It Monsoons, by Mo Willems (2006). A picture being worth a thousand words, the award-winning Mo Willems relives his 1990 around-the-world backpacking trip through the cartoons he sketched along the way. As he travels through 28 countries, Willems offers a humorous look at what it's like to travel off the grid. But be careful: His doodles of monkeys in Nepal and mountains in Indonesia may cause itchy feet in the nomadically inclined reader.
Baechtold's Best: Afghanistan: The Ultimate Visual Travel Guide,by Claude Baechtold, et. al. (2005). Eschewing the lengthy descriptions found in most travel guides, Baechtold goes for visual guideposts. Interested in seeing for real the Khadji Sattar poppies that fill one of the pages? A map below the images pinpoints the poppy field's location. This quirky photo book is full of such iconic Afghan sights.
The Kite Runner,by Khaled Hosseini (2003). In Afghanistan's peaceful, affluent Wazir Akbar Khan district in northern Kabul during the 1970s, boyhood pals Amir and Hassan are inseparable. But after an unspeakable event occurs, Amir and his father flee to the United States. This heartbreaking, richly drawn debut novel follows Amir from his childhood days flying kites in his poplar-lined neighborhood to his present-day search through orphanages in war-torn Kabul—illuminating the personal turmoils behind today's headlines.
*An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan,by Jason Elliot (1999). Afghanistan is on our minds these days, but it has been in Elliot's thoughts since 1979, when he fought for the mujahideen. A subsequent visit to the war-torn land only heightened his perceptions of the paradoxes of this ancient place.
Armenia
Passage to Ararat,by Michael J. Arlen (1975). Winner of the 1976 National Book Award, England-raised Arlen tells his personal story of traveling to the peasant villages of Transcaucasia, located in the shadow of Mount Ararat, to learn what his and his father's Armenianheritage means.
Borneo
All Elevations Unknown: An Adventure in the Heart of Borneo,by Sam Lightner, Jr. (2001). Rock-climbing enthusiast Lightner is determined to find and climb an uncharted peak in Borneo that is referenced in World Within, a 1958 travelogue written by WWII British officer Tom Harrison. With intuition based on Kelabit legend, and a map labeled "all elevations unknown," Lightner and German-climbing partner Volker trek deep into Borneo jungles in search of this legendary peak.
*Stranger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo, by Eric Hansen (1988). Hansen is like a brainy little brother. His audacious spin through the dwindling forests of Borneo (with no visa, no passport, and severely limited local vocabulary) was fueled entirely by his resilience, humor, and friends made along the way, some of whom had never been beyond the fringes of the forest.
Bhutan
Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan, by Jamie Zeppa (2000). Zeppa leaves Canada to teach for two years in the Himalayas, and what she discovers is very different from her small-town life. "You walk through a forest and come out in a village, and there's no difference, no division. You aren't in nature one minute and in civilization the next," she says of her new home. Her memoir details her clumsy attempts to fit into a Buddhist culture and culminates in her falling in love with Bhutan and one young man in particular.
Buttertea at Sunrise: A Year in the Bhutan Himalaya,by Britta Das (2007). "Time has made this sanctuary one with the mountains," Das says of a Bhutanesechorten, a Buddhist stone monument. "Tall grasses and mosses have covered the flat roof in patches of green, and the once whitewashed stones have returned to their original yellow and brown." Close observations spark this memoir of a year spent working as a physiotherapist in the remote village of Mangar—a mission that evolves into a personal quest of self-discovery.
Dreams of the Peaceful Dragon: A Journey Through Bhutan,by Katie Hickman (1987). "Bhutan is a country that every traveller dreams of: a tiny mountaintop kingdom, the great buttresses of the Himalayas surrounding it like a fortress," Hickman writes. With photographer Tom Owen Edmunds, she explores unknown eastern Bhutan, encountering abbots, the mountain-dwelling Bragpa people, and a reincarnation of the Buddha.
Cambodia
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers,by Loung Ung (2000). See Cambodia through a child's eyes during Pol Pot's regime in the late 1970s. Now the spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World, Ung proves with this memoir how a country's beauty can still shine through the darkness of war.
*Off the Rails in Phnom Penh: Into the Dark Heart of Guns, Girls, and Ganja,by Amit Gilboa (1998). Tired of gentility? Gilboa is. "Cambodia is a place where the usual restraints on behavior—legal, financial, social—are noticeably absent," he writes. Israel-born Gilboa's account of expat humanitarian relief workers living badly ($2 brothels, marijuana pizzas, etc.) makes for zesty reading.
China
Behind the Wall, by Colin Thubron (2004). Thubron takes readers on an adventure from urban centers like Shanghai, to lesser-known cities like the canal city of Suzhou, to the many other quiet hillside villages of China. His tale is complete with ritual-performing monks, tribal nomads, and an art school where only Ming Dynasty painting is taught. Thubron breaks cultural barriers with his fluent Mandarin and paints an intimate picture of modern Chinese culture.
China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power, by Rob Gifford (2007). China's Route 312 is the Route 66 of the East, spanning from crowded Shanghai, touching the Silk Road, and ending in Kazakhstan. As NPR's China correspondent for over six years, Gifford is drawn to the people that make up this burgeoning superpower—from businessmen to peasants—in an attempt to understand modern China.
The Drink and Dream Teahouse,by Justin Hill (2001). This first novel by a former English teacher in China traces how three generations in the small town of Shaoyang are affected by the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and its political aftermath. The cast of affectionately drawn rural eccentrics includes the neighbor lady who sings Chinese opera every morning and a prostitute at a teahouse who doesn't know that her ex-lover (and father of her child) has returned to their small town from the big city a rich man.
Fried Eggs with Chopsticks,Polly Evans (2005). Renowned British travel writer Polly Evans makes her way across China by bus, train, plane, boat, bike, mule, and car, exploring the simultaneously humorous, human, and concerning conundrums that define modern China—from the botched embalming of Chairman Mao to the rushed rebuilding of Beijing for the 2008 Olympics.
The Garlic Ballads,by Mo Yan (1995). Mo Yan (Red Sorghum) writes with aching, even shocking lyricism about a garlic farmer's plight when his lover dies and he is wrongfully imprisoned by a corrupt government. This gritty epic set in 1980s rural China was banned by the Chinese government after the Tiananmen Square massacre.
The Good Earth,by Pearl Buck (1931). This 1932 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel tells the story of Chinese peasant farmer Wang Lung and his family. Buck, who was the daughter of missionaries, grew up in China. The book depicts Chinese culture and customs (it begins with Wang Lung's wedding day) and the social upheavals of early 20th-century China.
The Heart of the World,by Ian Baker (2004). Ian Baker travels to the bottom of the world's deepest and most forbidding canyon, the Tsangpo Gorge, in search of Tibet's fabled "hidden-lands of Pemako." Baker is a Buddhist scholar as well as an explorer, and the rigor of his spiritual journey matches the physical challenges of the expedition, echoing the book's introductory words, written by the Dalai Lama: "From a Buddhist perspective, sacred environments such as Pemako are not places to escape the world, but to enter it more deeply."
Here be Yaks,by Manosi Lahiri (2006). "Any and every place in the world has a past," Lahiri begins her quest. "This is even truer of Tibet than most other places." Mourning the recent loss of her husband, Lahiri travels from Lhasa up the Tasam Highway to circumambulate Mount Kailash, an ancient focus of Tibetan pilgrimage. On her journey of self-discovery, and with the use of an old map, Lahiri finds the true source of the Sutlej river, a controversial geographical dilemma that has plagued geographers for centuries. Includes a foreword by the Dalai Lama. The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan (1995). The story's narrator, Olivia, is born to a Chinese father and an American mother. Shortly after her father's death, Olivia meets her Chinese half-sister, Kwan Li. Olivia, who is a photographer, and her estranged husband, a writer, travel to China with Kwan as their interpreter. While Olivia tells her story, Kwan tells historical tales about Manchu China.
*Iron and Silk, by Mark Salzman (1986). American martial arts expert Salzman spent his days teaching English in Changsha, China, but devoted his mind to the study of contemporary Chinese society. His unpretentious and probing manner paves the way for genuine friendships with local Chinese.
The Noodle Maker,by Ma Jian (2005). In this political satire, Chinese dissident Ma Jian offers a glimpse into life in post-Tiananmen China. Two men—one a professional blood donor, the other a writer of political propaganda—meet for dinner each week. One night, the writer tells the stories he would write if he had the courage.
Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present,by Peter Hessler (2006). Hessler reveals modern China through the narratives of everyday people. After ten years of living in China, Hessler's many adventures take him to an underground city in Anyang, Falun Gong demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, and anti-American protests in Nanjing.
Peony in Love,by Lisa See (2007) In her fifth novel, See (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan) immerses us in 17th-century China where 15-year-old Peony Chen is set to enter an arranged marriage she doesn't want. Events, as they tend to do, turn tragic. Mirroring Tang Xianzu's famous opera The Peony Pavilion (1598), and based on real diaries, See's book delves into the lives of women in the Qing and Ming dynasties, and is rich with scenes of festivals and rituals of 17th-century high-society China.
Red Dust: A Path Through China, by Ma Jian (2001). In the 1980s, writer and photographer Ma Jian quit his job and set out to explore sparsely traveled parts of China, Tibet, and Myanmar (Burma). His three-year journey, documented here, starts in Beijing and takes him to the Yellow River of Inner Mongolia, China's western desert, the jungles of Yunnan, the mountains of the Golden Triangle, and beyond.
*The River at the Center of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time, by Simon Winchester (1996). Historian Winchester seems to know everything, but he's such an engaging raconteur you can hardly begrudge him his smarts. Here he travels the 3,434-mile (5,526-kilometer) Yangtze River, reflecting on the historic importance of the river and the social straits in which the Chinese now find themselves.
River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze,by Peter Hessler (2001). One of two foreigners to visit Fuling in over 50 years, Hessler travels to China's Sichuan province to teach English at the local university. He soon becomes the student—learning about the complexities of life in a small, rural, Chinese river town.
*Seven Years in Tibet, by Heinrich Harrer (1953). In 1943, German mountain climber Heinrich Harrer—no, not Brad Pitt, as in the film—escaped captivity in India and headed across Himalayan passes to the Forbidden City of Lhasa in Tibet, where he became friends with the 14-year-old Dalai Lama. This book truly captures mystical pre-Chinese-invasion Tibet.
Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land,by Patrick French (2003).French first encountered the Dalai Lama when French was a young boy, and has had a fascination with Tibet ever since. French visited Tibet in 1999 and interviews Tibetans about life in the far reaches of the Himalayas. He combines travel narrative, history, and reporting in this cultural and political overview of China's forgotten land.
Waiting,by Ha Jin (1999). Winner of a National Book Award in fiction, Ha Jin's second novel tells the story of Lin Kong, a Chinese military doctor in an arranged marriage. The doctor falls in love with a nurse at the hospital where he works, but—under the Communist government's rules—has to wait 18 years before he is free to marry again. This love story paints a portrait of daily life in provincial China.
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China,by Jung Chang (1991). In order to understand complex 21st-century China, one must understand the people who survived 20th-century communist rule. Through three generations of women—her grandmother a concubine, and her mother a prominent member of the Communist Party—Chang takes readers on an intimate tour of China through the rise and fall of Mao's regime.
Wolf Totem, by Jiang Rong (2004). In this semi-autobiographical novel, protagonist Chen Zhen moves to the grasslands of Inner Mongolia from the city in the mid-1960s, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. There he quickly becomes fascinated with the wolf, at once the adversary and the totem of the local Mongolian people. The wolf becomes a key for Chen to unlock the intricate riches of grasslands life. This long and dense book is a literary triumph, but even more impressively, it is a triumph of cross-cultural connection and understanding.
Hong Kong
Golden Boy,by Martin Booth (2004). Imagine Tom Sawyer. Now place this rambunctious youth in the lively streets of Hong Kong in the 1950s, and savor the mischief that ensues. This is the experience of reading Martin Booth's memoir. In addition to the rickshaws and street monkeys, the young Booth discovers Hong Kong's more sinister underbelly as he befriends a local mobster and tours an opium den. Beneath the action on the streets are the cultural tensions embodied by Booth's parents, who disagree over how to raise a white child in an Asian country.
*Hong Kong, by Jan Morris (1989). The ever-piquant Morris masterfully unravels the enigma that is Hong Kong, from its Sino-British bipolarity to its megalithic economic structure, its hypercrowded urban landscape to its surprisingly under-explored nature reserves.
The Li Dynasty,by Frank Ching (1999). The story of one of Hong Kong's most prominent families starts from the patriarch's arrival in Hong Kong through the family's rise in the city's shipping and banking sectors. The author recounts how generations of Li Shek-pang's descendants have branched into the fields of law, politics, and civic service.
Kowloon Tong,by Paul Theroux (1997). In this novel set in the waning years of British rule over Hong Kong, a young British man wrestles with his fate and that of the city.
Shopping for Buddhas,by Jeff Greenwald (1996). On a quest in Kathmandu for the perfect statue of Buddha, writer Jeff Greenwald describes his adventures—with a flying lama, an electrocuted crow, and Kathmandu's first escalator—with humor and a traveler's eye. He yields insight into Nepalese religion and art, yet doesn't shy away from mentioning the smuggling and human rights abuses that plague the country as well.
White Ghost Girls,by Alice Greenway (2006). This debut novel tells the story of two sisters' coming of age in Hong Kong during the summer of 1967. The girls enjoy the simple life of Pok Fu Lam village, collecting sea urchins from the harbor and playing in bamboo gardens. The tranquility of these lush landscapes is disrupted, however, when the Maoist revolution moves close to home, and the girls experience firsthand turmoil that they had previously known only through photographs.
The Age of Shiva, by Manil Suri (2008). A young woman in 1950s Bombay trapped in a disappointing marriage lavishes all her care and attention on her son—with consequences that echo the struggles of post-independence India. Beneath a Marble Sky,by John Shors (2004). Evocative of the fantastical stories and sensual descriptions of One Thousand and One Nights, Beneath a Marble Sky is the story of Jahanara, the daughter of the 17th century Mughal emperor who built India's Taj Mahal. What sets this novel apart is its description of Muslim-Hindu politics, which continue to plague the subcontinent today.
*City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi, by William Dalrymple (1993). Although Dalrymple spent only 12 months in Delhi, his tour covers some 3,000 years—from the ancient (temples, palaces, despots) to the modern (ubiquitous pigeons and insane taxi drivers). Part archaeological dig, part travelogue, this book is equal parts authoritative and fun, as is his In Xanadu.
The Elephanta Suite: Three Novellas,by Paul Theroux (2007). Loosely linked in plot—characters from one story reappear as asides in another—each of Theroux's three illuminating novellas revolves around Americans who have journeyed to India on a quest. Against three distinctly different backdrops, from a seemingly tranquil New Age retreat to the seamy underbelly of Mumbai to the Americanized sheen of Electronics City, Theroux transports us into the heart of the country, and illuminates the Indian panorama—and paradox—with a piercing light.
The House of Blue Mangoes,by David Davidar (2002). Read Davidar's sweeping novel chronicling three generations of the Dorai family in the seaside Indian village of Chevathar for its poetic prose and a strong sense of place. The novel's ambitious scope (1899-1947) covers the fall of the British Raj, subsequent caste wars, the rise of Gandhi, and independence.
India, by Olivier Follmi (2005). In vivid reds, sun-kissed yellows, and rain-soaked greens, Follmi's images open a window into India's soul. A young couple splashes in a Mussoorie waterfall, a little girl looks longingly at her mother's jewelry in Gujarat. You sense the truth in what Radhika Jha writes in the book's forward: "You don't visit India; India begins to visit you."
The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857,by William Dalrymple, (2006). Enriched by newly opened documents and eyewitness accounts, Dalrymple transforms historical writing in his empathetic documentation of the British siege of Delhi in 1857. He makes clear where his sentiments lie in his portrait of the last Mughal, Shah Zafar II, a mystic, poet, and calligrapher who built an empire based on art and culture.
Maximum City: Bombay Lost & Found, by Suketu Mehta (2005). After a 21-year absence, Mehta returns to his native Bombay (now Mumbai), "the biggest, fastest, richest city in India." In documentary style, Mehta travels the criminal underworld with the help of a local cop, explores the Bollywood subculture, and gets an insider's look at Hindu and Muslim gangs.
*Slowly Down the Ganges, by Eric Newby (1966). We like A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush—Newby's breathless adventure in northeast Afghanistan (1958)—but we love his 1,200-mile (1,931-kilometer) journey down India's great river. Traveling with Newby is like traveling with Jeeves: He's a brilliant, stiff-upper-lipped companion, but he probably won't carry your bags.
The Twentieth Wife: A Novel, by Indu Sundaresan (2002). Step inside the lush, lavish imperial harem of the Mughal Empire as empress-to-be Mehrunissa falls in love with Crown Price Salim. Sundaresan's descriptions of 17th-century Mughal India are heady and overwhelming.
Indonesia
Bali, Java, in My Dreams, by Christine Jordis (2003). In a walking tour of two Southeast Asian islands, Jordis takes readers on a modern and historic adventure through places like Jakarta and Sanur. Her book, translated from French and illustrated by Sacha Jordis, blends history and art and the result is a beautiful combination of cultural insight and travel guide.
Japan
36 Views of Mount Fuji,by Cathy N. Davidson (1993). Taking its title from a series of Hokusai woodblock prints (most of which are reproduced in the book), Cathy Davidson's beautifully written memoir of her relationships with the Japanese she meets forms a composite portrait of Japanese culture, centered around the powerful and elusive symbol of mist-shrouded Mt. Fuji.
The Budding Tree, by Aiko Kitahara (trans. by Ian MacDonald) (2007). Six fictional stories of love (and not-love) play out in Edo-period Japan, each tale focused on an enterprising woman finding her independent way in a changing society.
The Commoner, by John Burnham Schwartz (2008). Love's mettle is tested against implacable centuries of Japanese tradition in this novel set in post-war Japan and inspired by the life of Empress Michiko, the first commoner to marry into the imperial family.
Geisha, by Liza Dalby (1983). Cultural anthropologist Dalby turns in her American dress for kimonos and tabi (split-toed socks) to become the only American to be trained as a geisha. Studying in the Pontocho district, Dalby details the fascinating life of a geisha amidst cherry trees and white powder in modern Japan.
Hitching Rides with Buddha, by Will Ferguson (1998). "Nowhere on earth does spring arrive as dramatically as it does in Japan. When the cherry blossoms hit, they hit like a hurricane," writes Ferguson. Hitchhiking the entire length of Japan, from southern Cape Sata to the northern tip of Hokkaido, Ferguson follows the blossoming of Japan's sakura, the country's aesthetic symbol of spring.
Japan: A Traveler's Literary Companion,edited by Jeffery Angles and J. Thomas Rimer (2006). This collection of short stories by Japanese authors highlights the diversity of a nation commonly understood as homogeneous—from the cold of Northern Honshu hamlets to lively Tokyo to the temples of Kyoto. Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa,by Karin Muller (2005). At the age of 34, Muller, a documentary filmmaker and practitioner of judo, heads to Japan on a quest for wa, or harmony. During her year there, Muller makes a pilgrimage to Buddhist temples and tries to "discover the ancient heart of modern Japan."
The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto, by Pico Iyer (1991). Travel writer Iyer spent a year in Kyoto with the goal of learning about Zen Buddhism and Japan. While living there, Iyer befriends Sachiko, a Japanese housewife, and they go sightseeing together. The book is as much about their relationship as the culture of modern Japan.
Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden (1997). Arthur Golden has degrees in both Japanese art and history, and spent almost a decade researching geisha culture to write this best-selling first novel. Set in Kyoto, in the geisha district of Gion, Golden's novel is rich with delicate details—the pouring of sake, elaborate kimonos, and graceful social maneuvers—that transport the reader to the Japan of ages past.
Road Through Miyama, by Leila Philip (1991). American Leila Philip paints an enchanting portrait of life and social mores in the rural Japanese town of Miyama in Southern Kyushu, while also detailing her life as a master potter's apprentice.
*The Roads to Sata: A 2,000-Mile Walk through Japan, by Alan Booth (1985). By turns whimsical and poignant, Booth's artfully irreverent look at his adopted homeland sheds light on a culture that can be tough for Westerners to understand.
Wrong About Japan,by Peter Carey (2005). Carey, the author of eight novels and a Booker Prize winner, offers to take his 12-year-old son, Charley, to Japan. His son agrees, on the condition that they'll see Japanese anime and cool, weird stuff rather than temples and museums. The resulting book is part father-son tale, part tour of contemporary Japan.
In Search of Kazakhstan: The Land that Disappeared,by Christopher Robbins (2007). Before venturing to Kazakhstan, Robbins could only associate the country with a few rehearsed details: Genghis Khan, the Silk Road, miles of steppe. But on his journey to a country the size of Western Europe, Robbins eats sushi and sheep's head with the president, and listens to the "Kazakh Beatle" play guitar. Robbins stuffs his travelogue with history and unusual facts—like Kazakhstan's claim to be the home of both King Arthur and the apple—and his story is told with true appreciation of a little-known country.
Korea
A Distant and Beautiful Place, by Yang Kwija (2002). Set in one of Seoul's satellite cities in the 1980s, this book of linked stories takes on Korea's middle class and their strivings for a better life. Author Yang won one of Korea's highest fiction awards in 1992.
Mongolia
Hearing Birds Fly: A Nomadic Tale in Mongolia,by Louisa Waugh (2003). After living for two years in Mongolia's capital, Waugh trades her urban life for a ger (yurt) to live amongst camel herders, Mongol Halkhs, and Muslim Kazakhs in the remote western town of Tsengel. In a land of vast deserts, upland steppes, and high mountain ranges, Waugh survives long winters and short summers and learns that a nomadic, Siberian life is controlled by the seasons.
Myanmar
Finding George Orwell in Burma, by Emma Larkin (2004). American journalist Larkin sets off to Southeast Asia in order to trace the steps of George Orwell, who lived in British-ruled Burma (now Myanmar) during the 1920s. Larkin is able to learn of secret libraries and a country's fascination with books, all while revelling in the spirit of the people of an Orwellian land. "All you had to do, it seemed," writes Larkin, "was scratch the surface of one of the town's smiling residents and you would find bitterness or tears."
Nepal
The Great Himalayan Passage, by Michel Peissel (1975). Peissel ventures to the Himalayas of Nepal on a two-year expedition to be the first to travel the vast land on Hovercraft, to learn the ways of the people along the Kali Gandaki river, and to discover who built the "skyscraper-like networks of caves dug out by some long-forgotten race into the cliffs in Mustang."
Shopping for Buddhas,by Jeff Greenwald (1996). On a quest in Kathmandu for the perfect statue of Buddha, writer Jeff Greenwald describes his adventures—with a flying lama, an electrocuted crow, and Kathmandu's first escalator—with humor and a traveler's eye. He yields insight into Nepalese religion and art, yet doesn't shy away from mentioning the smuggling and human rights abuses that plague the country as well.
*The Snow Leopard,by Peter Matthiessen (1978). Matthiessen is a multi-task traveler. In this book—one of many fine ones he's written—he and zoologist friend George Schaller trek through Nepal in physical search of Himalayan blue sheep and the rare snow leopard, and in spiritual search (Matthiessen is a Zen Buddhist) of the Lama of Shey at the ancient Buddhist shrine on Crystal Mountain. Enlightenment, anyone?
North Korea
The Ginseng Hunter,by Jeff Talarigo (2008). Talarigo's harrowing novel of life under North Korea's oppressive regime is set in a rugged border town between North Korea and China.
North Korea,by Phillipe Chancel (2006). With 129 photographs focusing mainly on capital Pyongyang, Chancel explores the little-known reality of this socialist nation, which has "not yet broken away from the cult of the appearance of normality." Some of his most mystifying photographs are of the Arirang Massed Games, held in the 150,000-seat May Day Stadium.
Pakistan
Salt and Saffron,by Kamila Shamsie (2000). After graduating from an American college, Aliya returns home to Pakistan. In this witty novel full of delectable descriptions of local dishes and stories-within-stories, Aliya struggles to walk the tightrope between the traditional Pakistani values of her aristocratic family and 21st-century American thinking.
The Philippines
Dream Jungle, by Jessica Hagedorn (2003). Set in the jungles of the Philippines in the 1970s, and centered around the filming of a Vietnam war movie (meant as a parody of Apocalypse Now), Hagedorn's novel explores the collision between a country of rich natural beauty and the modern, globalizing world.
Dusk: A Novel,by F. Sionil José (1984). Buffalo-plowed fields, village life, and the punishing cycle of monsoon rains and drought form the backdrop to this story about a late 19th-century Filipino peasant who flees his hometown in northern Luzon for a new life in the central plains of Pangasinan. Written by one of the Philippines' most eminent authors, Dusk is the first of a five-novel historical saga spanning a century of the islands' tumultuous past.
Playing with Water: Passion and Solitude on a Philippine Island, by James Hamilton-Paterson (1987). A British writer gets into the rhythms of a Filipino fisherman's life in this lyrical memoir of years on a light-drenched Philippine islet in the 1980s.
When the Elephants Dance, by Tess Uriza Holthe (2002). Best-selling writer Holthe weaves native myths into the story of a group of people thrown together in WWII as they struggle to survive in the Japanese-occupied Philippines.
Among the Russians,by Colin Thubron (1985). "I had been afraid of Russia ever since I could remember," begins Thubron in his 1981 journey to the villages and cities of the Soviet Union. In order to discover the real Russia, he travels 10,000 miles (16,090 kilometers) by car through Estonia, Belarus, Georgia, and Western Russia. His account is an inspiring look into the people and culture of the Soviet Union, and Thubron's story is told in awe of the vast landscape and with admiration for the people he meets along the way.
Fifty Russian Winters: An American Woman's Life in the Soviet Union, by Margaret Wettlin (1992). After traveling to Russia in 1932 to teach, Wettlin fell in love and stayed in Europe for another 50 years. Before leaving the States, a friend asked, "'How do I know you will not come back a Communist?'" Wettlin writes, "That was one of the reasons for my going, to find the answer to this question." Her memoir details life in cities from Mongolia to Latvia, although she calls Moscow home, and how her family survived—with no regrets—during a time of Soviet uncertainty.
*In Siberia, by Colin Thubron (1999). "Siberia: it fills one-twelfth of the landmass of the whole Earth, yet this is all it leaves for certain in the mind. A bleak beauty, and an indelible fear," begins Thubron, who journeyed 15,000 miles along the Trans-Siberian Railway. His freeze-frame portrait penetrates the contradictions of this brutal landscape.
Reeling in Russia, by Fen Montaigne (1998). With only a duffle bag and fishing gear, Montaigne sets off on a three-month, 7,000-mile fly-fishing expedition to the far reaches of Russia. "From the very beginning, I was drawn to her dilapidated landscape, inhabited by people who knew hardship as intimately as we might a member of the family," he writes. His journey from the west to the east crosses ten time zones and is filled with encounters of ancient monasteries and Kolyma slave mines, and adventures on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
River of No Reprieve: Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny,by Jeffrey Tayler (2006). In the summer of 2004, Tayler traveled down the Lena River on a custom-built raft. The author's 2,400-mile-journey was a partial re-creation of a voyage the Cossacks made some 400 years ago. Tayler, the Moscow correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, offers insights into the history and contemporary life of a remote part of Russia. Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal, by Peter Thomson (2007). "Absoliutno blagopoluchnoe ozero Baikal!" a Russian scientist tells environmental journalist Thomson. "Lake Baikal is perfect!" But Baikal's famous self-cleansing ecosystem isn't so perfect anymore, and Thomson wants to find out why. He meets with everyone from environmental scientists to a community of Raskolniki in Ulan-Ude, in pursuit of the ecological and cultural importance of Baikal, one of the world's most mysterious lakes.
Sri Lanka
Cinnamon Gardens: A Novel,by Shyam Selvadurai (1999). In this Jane Austen-inspired novel, heroine Annalukshmi is forced to choose between marriage and fulfilling her dream to be a teacher in Colombo. Author Selvadurai juxtaposes religious, political, and cultural insight with a 1927 romance, and the result is an inspiring historical novel about British-colonized Sri Lanka. *Running in the Family, by Michael Ondaatje (1982). This is a nonfiction (with hefty poetic license) depiction of the author's early life in Sri Lanka. For Ondaatje (who wrote The English Patient), a return to his roots brings back elaborate memories of his Dutch-Ceylonese family.
Thailand
Bangkok 8, by John Burdett (2003). This crime thriller paints a vivid, unsentimental, and empathetic picture of Bangkok's gritty street life, with an insider's understanding of its workings and motivations. Its narrator is an original voice in the noir genre: Thai detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, a world-weary Buddhist cop whose mother is a Thai ex-prostitute and unknown father an American G.I. The plot stumbles at the end, but readers should enjoy the wild ride getting there.
The Dream of a Thousand Lives: A Sojourn in Thailand,by Karen Connelly (1993). After moving from Calgary, Canada, to Denchai, Thailand, for one year, Connelly's life is consumed by torrential rains, swampy jungles, and Buddhist ways. Her journal-style narrative chronicles her journey as she travels from Denchai to Chiang Mai and Bangkok, and as she struggles to understand and become a part of rural Thai life.
Jasmine Nights,by SP Somtow (1995). This delightful novel by Thai-born, Eton-educated Somtow illuminates Thai culture through the eyes of a 12-year-old Thai boy, who becomes friends with an African-American boy in 1960s Thailand.
Sightseeing,by Rattawut Lapcharoensap (2005). A collection of short stories by this award-winning Thai-American author deals with modern Thai culture and its interaction with Western people and ideas.
Taiwan
Wild Kids, by Chang Ta-Chun (2000). This book gathers in translation two novellas from one of Taiwan's most celebrated and popular contemporary authors. Both stories are written in the blunt, engaging voice of a teenage delinquent dealing with adult hypocrisy and set adrift amid the rapid cultural changes taking place in 1980s Taiwan.
Lessons in Essence,by Dana Standridge (2006). Middle-aged Teacher Li trades the traffic and alarming headlines of daily life in contemporary Taipei for the mountains of Yangmingshan in order to write a traditional scholarly treatise on beauty. This is an ambitious, closely observed, good-humored first novel by an author who spent more than 12 years living in Taiwan.
Tibet
The Open Road,by Pico Iyer (2008). Through the prism of the Dalai Lama, Iyer's luminous book presents a poignant portrait of three Tibets: the eternal Tibet, where monks still debate esoteric ideas in vigorous courtyard battles; the contemporary Tibet, where an inexorable influx of Han Chinese threatens to extinguish traditional culture and practice; and the Tibet in exile of present-day Dharamsala, in northwestern India.
Vietnam
Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam, ed. by Linh Dinh (2006). These 12 short stories from some of Vietnam's best writers (both in Vietnam and émigré) provide an interesting—if bleak—introduction to the voices of post-war Vietnam. In one compelling story, a young woman hires a baby boy from his homeless mother to gain sympathetic handouts from passersby at a Hanoi train station.
No Man's Land: A Novel, by Duong Thu Huong (2005). Dealing with life in post-war central Vietnam, this not-quite-romance by a famed dissident writer focuses on the choice a woman must make between her current husband and the one she thought died during the war.
Over the Moat,by James Sullivan (2004). Biking from Saigon to Hanoi, Sullivan makes a stop in Hue and meets a beautiful Vietnamese shop girl who lives over a moat and within the walls of Vietnam's old imperial capital. Despite cultural differences and the lobbying of other suitors for Thuy's hand, their true-life romance unfolds across villa courtyards, exquisite meals, and leisurely bike rides.
