Sawat dee Krab!
Welcome to my latest bit of blog on one of my most favorite of all things Thai next to Thai food, my books! Sometimes I’d almost rather have my nose in a good book more than even a plate of Pad Grapao smelling all that spicy, basilly Thai goodness. I guess you can say that’s one way to diet!
Long before I became a Thaiphile I was a bibliophile I’ve always loved books and collecting books too. As a kid I was the reclusive and introspective sort so diving into books (at least ones that didn’t bore me) was a natural fit. Would it sound too geeky to say some of my best friends were books? Well they were at least in high school where it was easier to escape into a good book then deal with the pressures of my high schools social life (or lack there of!)
Most of the time things were cool but sometimes constantly buried in a book was an invitation to get the snot beat out of me by some of the Neanderthal jerks at my school. Back then I was into science fiction books like the Martian landscape of Edgar Rice Burrows or Ray Bradbury and Carl Sagans books on science and everything out there among the “billions and billions of star stuff.”. Even though I was a poor student reading those books marked me as being ‘brainy’ and an instant target for those of the knuckles-dragging-the-ground mindset. I can just imagine what my tormentor’s reaction would be to seeing me reading books about Thailand. “You readin’ books on wha’? TIE-land?” Oh I could hear the bad attempts at humor now *shudder*
I didn’t have a clue back then about my adopted country but all that has changed due to my passion for reading. That plus my determined drive to get my hands on anything I could find on the subject! So today I thought I’d write about my collection of books I have on Thailand. At my most recent count I have about one hundred books on darn near just about anything and everything to do with the Land of Smiles. In fact I joking tell folks I probably have the largest privately owned Thai library in DC not counting Wat Thai or the Thai Embassy here. Too bad that’s too big to fit on a business card 😉
