My husband and I will be taking a trip to SE Asia next June and I am looking for some recommendations for books to read in anticipation of the trip. I've got the guidebook part covered, but I am looking for recommendations for fiction, memoirs, biographies and that sort of thing - basically books set in the areas we will be visiting. They can be fiction or non-fiction, historical, current, mysteries, memoirs, action and suspense, coming of age stories, family sagas... I am not much into romance or horror, but pretty much any other genre is fair game.

Singapore is our main destination and while we are there, we are planning to make some side trips to Indonesia and Malaysia. Also, on the way there or back (we live in California), we are planning to spend a few days in Tokyo.

Any recommendations are greatly appreciated

My favorites are:
The Year of Living Dangerously, Christopher Koch
Indonesia just prior to the overthrow of Sukarno. Atmospherically perfect.

Saint Jack, Paul Theroux
Singapore during the Viet Nam era, before it was squeaky clean.

There is a good bit of decent fiction and non-fiction by Singaporean authors, the best place for these is any Singapore bookshop, so that portion may need to wait until you get to Singapore (for the return flight perhaps). Catherine Lim would be a good one to try for modern fiction writers. In any event, I would start with most anything by Maugham or the Clavell below to prime the pump, so to speak, before moving on to any modern fiction.

Somerset Maugham. Short stories Volumes 1-IV. He traveled extensively in SE Asia and lived at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore for several years.

James Clavell, King Rat. Excellent story of British POWs held captive at Changi prison during WWII.

Noel Barber, Tanamara. Fictionalized account of life in Singapore in the years leading up to WWII. Kind of like a Michener but not quite as much history; a bit of a trashy novel. He has written several other novels set in and around the region.

George Orwell, Burmese Days. Before he wrote Animal Farm, George Orwell lived and travelled in SE Asia.

James Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim. Both classics in their own right and good background about the region.

Anthony Burgess , The Malayan Trilogy. An interesting but IMO a bit depressing trilogy of fictional stories set in Malaysia by this author who lived in Malaya for a while in the middle of the last century.

Vyvyane Loh , Breaking the Tongue. A very interesting look at Singapore during the invasion and ensuring occupation by the Japanese in WW II from a Chinese view point.

You can also find collections of stories about an area under the Traveller's Tales series and other series of collected travel writing, look in bookshops in the travel section or try http://travelerstales.com/. Singapore bookshops again have excellent travel writing selections generally.

You should probably also read one of Lee Kwan Yew's books, some propaganda but you really kind of have to admire the guy for what he accomplished with a tiny country with absolutely no natural resources except very hard working people. You can also find various biographies of him. A biography of Sukarno, Suharto and Matathir would probably be very good background as well, I don't have particular reccos.

I am a huge fan of Jan Morris, both her travel writing and her history writing. She has written a trilogy of the British colonial experience in Asia, parts of which cover Singapore and Malaysia, which you may find interesting background. It's just excellent writing and interesting history generally, IMO. Look for the "Pax Brittana" series. She has a great book on Hong Kong. She wrote a short piece called "The Travelling Craft" which may change the way you travel as well. Next trip to Europe, if you have not done so, read one of her European books.

It is hard to find good fiction and even non-fiction in English about Indonesia. If anyone has suggestions, I would welcome them also. While not really about Indonesia, Simon Winchester's book Krakatoa is just a great read. You will learn somethings about the explosion and life in that part of Indonesia during that period. My one other suggestion would be Distant Islands by Charles Corn. There is also Island of Bali by by Miguel Covarrubias. It is dated, but his description of the life and people of Bali seems timeless.

Finally, I would also recomend the Culture Shock! books. There is one for eac of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan. They give a fairly comprehensive and in my view accurate picture of culture and customs in each place. The books are part of the Culture Shock series of books published by Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company. You can buy them on line from Amazon or your local bookstore can order it for you

All of the above, plus:

"Singapore Grip": J G Farrell
"The Great World": David Malouf

Both fiction.

These are two that I read on my last trip to Japan. They are non-fictionional accounts of the author's time in Japan. I really enjoyed them:

Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa by Karin Muller


Learning to Bow: Inside the Heart of Japan by Bruce Feiler

Thanks so much for the recommendations. I knew there was some really great stuff availible, just a matter of finding it. I always buy books on our trips, so I will definitely be stoping in to some bookshops in Singapore.

And of course, if anyone has any more recommendations, let me know.

Yeah...The Year of Living Dangerously is great. There's also the movie which you can rent. I read the book and own a copy of the movie. It's about Indonesia. I've seen the movie so many times until I've memorized many of the lines. Smiles. In the movie, the short, male character is played by the female actress that played the judge on The Practice...the one named Zoe, I think it was on The Practice. She did a remarkable job. Happy Travels!

The novel, This Earth of Mankind by Indonesian Pramoedya Ananta Toer. This book is the first of a series of four books known as the Buru Quartet, which Toer wrote while he was imprisoned by the Suharto government. Many believed that Toer would one day receive a Nobel Prize in Literature, but, alas, he died last year without ever receiving this honor.
If you enjoy Pico Iyer's travel writings, you might enjoy his more personal tale, The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto.
How about some classic Yukio Mishima? Such as Spring Snow or The Temple of the Golden Pavillion.
Kobo Abe's Women in the Dunes is also a classic.
My husband loved Into the Heart of Borneo by Redmond O'Hanlon. He kept laughing aloud as he read it.
If you are going to Singapore you might want to pick up a biography of Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore from 1959 to 1990. See:
http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/m...0823/lee1.html

And if you liked "The Year of Living Dangerously" (me too) then check out "The Road to War" by the same author, especially if you are going to Cambodia - but it's also a damn fine read.