Paperback Travel
In preparation for this upcoming trip to Burma, my teacher Lila Wheeler (herself a writer, who spent time as a nun in Burma) gave me a reading list of some of her favorite “reference” books. I won’t have time to read them all before I go, but I’m already deeply engrossed in one of them: The Glass Palace, by Amitav Ghosh, which has been hailed as “Doctor Zhivago for the Far East.” If the others are as good as this one, I’ll definitely read them all!
Here’s her list:
Non-fiction
Buddhism and Society: A Great Tradition and its Burmese Vicissitudes, by Melford Spiro
From the Land of Green Ghosts, by Pascal Khoo Thew
Finding George Orwell, by Emma Larkin
The Trouser People, by Andrew Marshall
Letters from Burma, by Aung San Suu Kyi
Burmese Family, by Mi Mi Khaing
Native Tourist, by Ma Thanegi
Novels
The Glass Palace, by Amitav Ghosh
Burmese Days, by George Orwell
The Jewel Trader of Pegu, by Jeffrey Hantover
Graphic Novel
Burma Chronicle, by Guy Delisle