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Travel Literature
Canadian poet Karen Connelly realistically yet poetically chronicles a year of small town living in northern Thailand, in The Dream of a Thousand Lives: A Sojourn in Thailand (2001).
Thailand Confidential (2005), by ex-Rolling Stone correspondent Jerry Hopkins, weaves a loving expose of everything expats and visitors love about Thailand and much they don't, and thus makes an excellent read for newcomers.
Charles Nicholls, Pico Iyer, Robert Anson Hall and several other well-known and not-so-well-known authors have contributed modern travel essays to Travelers' Tales Thailand: True Stories, recently updated in 2002. Savvy travel tips are sprinkled throughout.
A more serious collection of literature is available in Traveller's Literary Companion: Southeast Asia (1999), edited by Alastair Dingwall. The Thailand chapter is packed with excerpts from various works by Thai and foreign authors.
Anna Leonowens' The English Governess at the Siamese Court (1870) contained liberally embellished descriptions of Siamese life that were later transformed into three Hollywood movies and a Broadway musical.
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