Books Set in Asia: Southern Countries

Book Summary

This suspenseful saga is set both during the war and in present-day Việt Nam. Trang and Quỳnh are sisters from a rural village, and like many in the region, their parents are struggling to survive. In 1969, the daughters take the desperate step of becoming “bar girls” in Sài Gòn, drinking, flirting (and more) with American GIs in return for money.

Trang becomes involved with a charming helicopter pilot named Dan. Decades later, we’ll see Dan return to Việt Nam with his wife in an attempt to heal from his PTSD and reckon with secrets from his past.

Also, in the present day, we’ll meet Phong as he tries to find his parents, a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese woman. He was abandoned at an orphanage as a baby, and grew up being called names because he was a “child of the enemy”. He dreams of finding a way to America in hopes of a better life for his family.

Book Summary

Sang Ly and her husband, Ki Lim, live in a shantytown built upon Cambodia’s largest municipal waste dump, where they make their living by picking recyclables from the trash.

Their poor living conditions are made even more challenging by their struggles to care for their chronically ill son and to pay their ill-tempered “rent collector” named Sopeap. But when Sang discovers a secret about Sopeap, the two strike a deal that will change both of their lives.

Book Summary

Kerala, on India’s southern coast, is a slender, coastal state with almost 373 miles of Arabian Sea coast and beaches. Being surrounded by water, this destination is a popular tourist spot. But for the family at the heart of this novel, being surrounded by water has plagued three generations. In every generation, at least one person dies by drowning.

This new literary fiction epic is a tale of love, faith, and medicine, in which the family seeks answers to this mysterious secret. The family is part of a Christian community that traces its roots to the time of the apostles, but times are shifting, and the matriarch of this family, known as Big Ammachi, literally “Big Mother,” will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life.

Book Summary

The Binat family has been the subject of a vicious rumor, which destroyed their wealth along with the marriage prospects of their daughters. This doesn’t matter to their second daughter, Alys, who is happy working as a teacher. She worries that many of her female students will get married and drop out of school before graduation, so she teaches them about Jane Austen and other literary heroes, hoping to inspire the girls to dream of more.

When Mrs. Binat gets an invitation to the biggest wedding in years, she’s certain the family’s luck is going to change, and she’ll find husbands for her daughters. The oldest sister, Jena, catches the eye of wealthy entrepreneur Fahad “Bungles” Bingla, but his friend, Valentine Darsee, is unimpressed by the Binat family. As the days go by, Alys sees that Darsee’s brusque manner may be hiding who he really is.

Book Summary

When journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer stood at the summit of Mt. Everest in 1996, he had no idea that a “murderous storm” was headed for the mountain. In this bestselling non-fiction title, he provides an epic and guilt-ridden account of the disaster that would ultimately claim five lives.

The book follows Krakauer’s entire journey, including how he paid for the expensive climb, the preparations required, and his step-by-step quest to the summit. Additionally, you’ll learn about the local sherpas and how they are impacted both positively and negatively by the influx of climbers each year.

Book Summary

At the Army Navy Club, three nurses are trying to escape their own past and think they’ve found the perfect assignment in paradise. However, the new friends, U.S. Navy nurse Eleanor Lindstrom, U.S. Army nurse Penny Franklin, and Filipina nurse Lita Capel, are soon caught between the U.S. military and the Imperial Japanese Army. 

As fighting comes to the island, they find themselves first in conflict conditions, and then as the first female prisoners of war. Despite food shortages and total disregard for the Geneva Convention, the trio works hard to keep hope alive in their minds and for all the inmates. 

Book Summary

Travel back in time to 1950s India to meet Lakshmi. After fleeing from an abusive marriage, she settles in the vibrant city of Jaipur. Her talents as a henna artist enable her to survive on her own. She becomes a confidant to her clients in the wealthy upper class. 

As her reputation grows as someone who provides both beautiful henna work and sound advice, she helps her clients in new ways as an herbalist. Then, Lakshmi is shocked when her past resurfaces. The husband she escaped arrives in Jaipur, along with a girl he says is Lakshmi’s 13-year-old sister.  

The book covers a full year in Lakshmi’s life. You’ll find yourself absorbed by the vivid descriptions of the culture and scenery, and enamored with Lakshmi’s strength.

Heads Up: Abortions are part of the plot.

Book Summary

In the 1970s, author Chantha Nguon became a refugee when dictator Pol Pot began the Cambodian genocide. In this memoir, she recounts her experiences, which included the loss of her house, her country, and her family.

Her journey begins and ends in Cambodia, with years spent as a refugee in Saigon, war-ravaged Vietnam, and Thailand before finally returning home to a changed Cambodia. Along the way, she survived by any means necessary, including cooking in a brothel, serving drinks in a nightclub, making and selling street food, becoming a suture-nurse treating refugees abused by Thai authorities, and weaving silk. 

Through it all, she relied on memories of her mother’s kitchen to keep her connection to her country. But above all, her mother’s “slow noodles” approach to healing and cooking, which prioritizes time and care over expediency, kept her going.

Book Summary

Jaelee has a high-pressure PR job in Miami and desperately needs the sabbatical she has scheduled in Bali. So when her boss calls to demand that she return early, she quits.

She’s determined to make the most of her new freedom in this gorgeous setting before returning to her real life in Miami. Within two months, Jaelee has found a new group of friends and connected with a Scottish man named Alistair in this uplifting novel, which is full of friendship, laughter, and romance.

Book Summary

When Julia’s dad, a successful New York attorney, disappears, she has no idea what could have happened. Four years later, she finds an old love letter he wrote to a woman in Burma. Determined to follow every lead, Julia travels to Burma to investigate her father’s past. 

After traveling to Kalaw, the village of the woman from the letter, Julia meets a man named U Ba, who appears to know her and has a story to share about her father and his past.

Book Summary

In this split timeline mystery, you’ll travel to Bangkok and experience Thailand in both the early 70s and present day. Reclusive artist Laura is watching her mom slide into dementia when a stranger contacts her. He claims to be her brother, who disappeared 40 years earlier. 

Despite warnings from her sister that the call is a scam, Laura visits Bangkok in search of the truth. 

The book alternates between Laura’s investigative travels and her parents’ time in Bangkok, where they tried to create an American life in an exotic location. While they strived to keep up perfect appearances, both parents kept secrets from those around them.

Book Summary

While this novel is set in contemporary Vietnam, the interwoven stories of three characters reveal the lasting effects of war. 

Maggie is an art curator born in Vietnam, but currently residing in the US. When she returns to her birth country looking for clues in her father’s disappearance, she meets Hung, who has run a pho stall for decades. He provides a meeting place for dissident artists like her dad. One of Hung’s regular customers is Tu’, a young tour guide who leads American vets on war tours. 

The three very different characters come together as Maggie tries to piece together her past in this complex story of art, love, loss, and hope.

Book Summary

Independence takes you into the lives of three sisters during a traumatic period of history – partition, in which India became only for Hindus and a carved-out area became Pakistan, which was assigned to Muslims. It was one of the largest human displacements in history. 

Sister Priya is intelligent and determined to follow in her father’s footsteps to become a doctor, even though that isn’t a normal path for a woman. Deepa is considered the beautiful one, and she dreams of a marriage that will not only increase her family’s status but also bring her joy. Jamini is a talented quiltmaker with deep passions she doesn’t reveal to her family. 

When Deepa falls in love with a Muslim and partition is declared, the sisters are separated and propelled onto different paths. They fear for themselves, but also for what could happen to each other.

Book Summary

As kids, Prany and his sister Noi, along with their friend Alisak, were three of the hundreds of thousands impacted by the nine years of bombing in Laos as the CIA, with the Royal Lao Government, fought the Communist Pathet Lao. When the kids take shelter in a bombed-out field hospital, they meet Vang, a doctor dedicated to helping the wounded at all costs.

They begin working as motorcycle couriers, navigating both unexploded bombs that litter the land and the endless barrage from the sky, until Vang secures their evacuation on the last helicopters leaving the country.

This evacuation sets them on disparate and treacherous paths across the world. The novel follows the trio for decades, offering a glimpse into the lasting effects of growing up in 1960s Laos.

Book Summary

Rachel, a New Yorker, agrees to spend the summer in Singapore, her boyfriend Nick’s home country. He just failed to mention one crucial aspect of his life. He is considered Singapore’s most eligible bachelor, and his family is crazy rich. The family is essentially royalty, with younger generations expected to comply with the older generations’ wishes for their life (and spouse) choices.

This book is rich with descriptions of Singapore’s sights, sounds, and tastes. It offers a very entertaining glimpse into the lifestyle of the 1% from both inside and outside perspectives. According to Angela’s Singaporean friends, these crazy stories are actually not so far-fetched.

Book Summary

Gabby has a career in London, along with two sons out of the house and in university. Her husband has always traveled extensively for work, so when he takes a new job in Pakistan, she decides to join him, allowing them to spend some quality time together. 

Pakistan is a country of contradictions, with danger looming from the Taliban, gorgeous landscapes, and welcoming locals. 

While in Pakistan, Gabby receives a shocking letter about her childhood on the Cornish coast. The book includes flashbacks to Cornwall that will also take you to experience the English coast as she tries to reconcile her memories with those of her sister.

Book Summary

Living in British-colonized Malaya in the mid-1930s, Cecily Alcantara wanted more than anything to be more than just a housewife to her low-level bureaucrat husband. After a chance meeting with a handsome Japanese general, she found herself in an unlikely life of espionage. She hated the way the British treated the locals and was drawn in by the Japanese promise of an “Asia for Asians.” Not until it was too late would she realize she was helping to usher in a brutal occupation by the Japanese.

A decade later in 1945, with WWII nearing its climax, Cecily’s actions have caught up with her, and her family is paying the price. Her 15-year-old son has disappeared, her youngest daughter is forced to hide out at home to avoid being forced to work at the comfort stations, and her older daughter, who works at a tea house serving drunk Japanese soldiers, is growing angrier by the day.

Book Summary

This remarkable autobiography tells the story of Malala Yousafzai, who refused to give up on her right to an education when the Taliban took control of her region of northern Pakistan in 2012. Although she was only 15, her voice was enough of a threat to cause her attempted murder on her way home from school. 

Miraculously, she survived, and the attack emboldened her instead of silencing her. Her ongoing efforts to support education for girls led her from Pakistan to the UN. She also became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate. 

Book Summary

Ah Boon is growing up in the last days of British rule in Singapore. He lives in a small fishing village but would rather play with the girl next door, Siok Mei, than go fishing. Despite his disinterest in fishing, he discovers that he has an uncanny ability to locate uncharted islands, which are rich with fish. 

By the time Ah Boon and Siok Mei are teenagers, the Japanese army has arrived and occupied Singapore as part of WW2. This coming-of-age story is set against the backdrop of Singapore’s legacy of British colonialism, the Japanese occupation during World War II, and the pursuit of modernity. Readers say the beautiful writing transports you to a different time and place and includes a hint of magical realism to emphasize the human-land connection.

Book Summary

Seven-year-old Raami lived in a carefully guarded world of royal privilege until her father brought home news about the civil war raging in the streets of Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital. 

Over the next four years, Raami endures starvation, forced labor, and survives the genocide that killed more than ¼ of the population of the country, including many of her family members. Throughout it all, she finds comfort only in the mythical legends and poems her father shares with her.

Book Summary

Despite never having traveled outside North America, Canadian Jaime Zeppa embarked on a solo adventure to teach in Bhutan, a Buddhist country located in the Himalayas. In this autobiography, she shares her day-to-day experiences in this emerging tourist destination and her bigger-picture personal realizations during her time in the country. 

Tight government restrictions on tourists, including substantial financial requirements, make this all-access peek into this remote, unspoiled location and its culture a rare opportunity. Luckily, she describes her experiences in a way that will make you feel like you are right there with her throughout this travel memoir.