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Hidden Bhutan: Entering the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon, by Martin Uitz

Bhutan is a country unknown to most of the world, but if there is one thing most people do know about the small Himalayan mountain

Stupid Guy Goes to India, by Yukichi Yamamatsu

As I’m fairly intimate with both Japan (having lived there for nineteen months some years ago) and India (numerous research trips and travels), the clashing

Mustang Bhot in Fragments, by Manjushree Thapa

Any book nerd who has spent enough time in Canberra knows that the most exciting (twice-) annual event (yes, even more exciting than Floriade) is

Secret Places: New Writing from Nepal, ed. Frank Stewart, Samrat Upadhyay, and Manjushree Thapa

Another gem courtesy of the Canberra Lifeline Book Sale. This special edition of Manoa, a literary journal produced by the University of Hawai’i, is one of the

The Carpet Wars, by Christopher Kremmer

I have a particular liking for travel reportage, and Christopher Kremmer’s The Carpet Wars is very enjoyable, though unsatisfying in several important ways. The subtitle on the

Dreaming in Hindi, by Katherine Russel Rich

I picked up this book after a rather long hiatus from my own Hindi learning, feeling the need to get back into it and wanting

Karma Cola, Gita Mehta

Karma Cola is a hilarious, if troubling, set of vignettes of the backpacker-ashram-hippy-trail India of the 1970s. But, unlike much writing about westerners, “spiritual tourists”,

From Heaven Lake: Travels through Sinkiang and Tibet, by Vikram Seth

From Heaven Lake is a brilliant, classic account of Vikram Seth’s 1981 journey through China when he was a 29 year old student at Nanjing

Curfewed Night: A Memoir of War in Kashmir, by Basharat Peer

Basharat Peer’s Curfewed Night is a moving memoir of an ordinary, middle-class, Muslim Kashmiri who has witnessed the destruction of his homeland. Writing on and

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