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 makes this a popular tourist destination. 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 is seeking answers to this strange secret. The family is part of a Christian community that traces itself 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 her other literary heroes and hopes 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 the war. Despite food shortages and total disregard for the Geneva Convention, the trio works hard to keep hope alive in their own minds and for all the inmates. 

When We Had Wings is historical fiction based on the true story of the “Angels of Bataan.”

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 back 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 full of friendship, laughter, and romance.

Book Summary

In the 1920s, Lakshmi enjoyed a carefree childhood among the coconut and mango trees of Ceylon (which later became a part of Sri Lanka). But at the age of 14, she was sent across the ocean to Malaysia and forced into a marriage with a much older man. Lakshmi was promised a life of riches and luxury, but instead, they struggle to get by as Lakshmi gives birth to six children by the age of 19. 

Throughout her life, Lakshmi endures incredible hardship and suffering, but draws upon her incredible strength to face each new challenge. This includes finding a way to keep her daughters safe during the Japanese occupation of WWII.

Rich with traditional folklore, Eastern magic, Indian celebrations, and Malaysian cuisine – this long novel spans 85 years and four generations as it tells one family’s saga. Although Lakshmi (the “Rice Mother”) is the main character of this story, each chapter is narrated by a different member of the family. This provides readers with different perspectives on various events, creating even greater depth and layering to the story, while maintaining a consistent plot from beginning to end.

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 seems to know her and has a story to tell her 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 parent’s 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

In this family saga, Shahryar is on a work visa in the United States. Soon, he will be forced to return to Bangladesh without his young American daughter. As he tries to cherish his final weeks with her, he also ponders his family history and how it intertwines with his home country. 

This novel weaves together a large cast of major and minor characters to cover Bangladesh’s history from WW2 Burma to the present day. The storylines include the Partition of India in 1947, the 1970 Bhola Cyclone, and Bangladesh’s becoming an independent country in 1972. 

While these stories span history, they also discuss Shahryar’s struggles as a modern-day immigrant in Washington, D.C.

Book Summary

While this novel takes place in contemporary Vietnam, the interwoven stories of three characters show the lingering effects of war. 

Maggie is an art curator born in Vietnam but living 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 dreams of a marriage that will increase her family’s status AND 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 trios for decades, giving us a glimpse into the long-lasting effects of growing up in 1960s Laos.

Book Summary

Rachel is a New Yorker who 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 gives a very entertaining look at the lifestyle of the 1% from both the 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 so they can finally have some 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

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 lead her from Pakistan to the UN. She also became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate. 

Book Summary

The Sri Lankan civil war lasted for 25 years, from 1983 to 2009. During that time, between 70,000 and 100,000 lives were lost. This novel takes us beyond those numbers to tell the heartbreaking story of how the war impacted the lives of two families.

Yasodhara and her siblings had an idyllic childhood in Colombo, where their Sinhala family was fortunate to have everything they could ask for. She was only subtly aware of the differences between the Tamil and Sinhala people. Saraswathie, on the other hand, lived in the active war zone of Sri Lanka. She dreamed of becoming a teacher, but those dreams were shattered when she was arrested by a group of Sinhala soldiers and pulled into the heart of the conflict.

As the war rages on between the Sinhala and Tamil cultures, Yasodhara’s family escapes to Los Angeles (where they struggled to assimilate). By then, her life has already become intertwined with Saraswathie’s, and she’ll ultimately be led back to her homeland to help those most affected by the war.

Book Summary

On the isolated island of Belitong, on the east coast of Sumatra, Muhammadiyah Elementary must have ten students enrolled to stay open. Ikal – the narrator who is just six years old when the book opens – is relieved when the tenth student shows up just in time to keep the school open, preventing him from being sent to work. 

The poverty-stricken school constantly faces the threat of government closure, greedy mining magnates, and natural disasters. However, the ten young students (nicknamed the Rainbow Troops) are led by two dedicated teachers (one just fifteen years old) whose dedication ensures that they receive the education they deserve.

The Indonesian author, Andrea Hirata, once promised his teacher that he would one day write a book in her honor. This nearly-autobiographical novel is that promise fulfilled. Originally published in the language of Bahasa, this book sold a record-breaking five million copies in Indonesia.

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 World War II Japanese occupation, 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 the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. 

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 told to her by her father.

Book Summary

Despite never traveling outside North America, Canadian Jaime Zeppa sets off on a solo adventure to teach in Bhutan, a Buddhist country 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 large financial requirements, make this all-access peek into this remote, unspoiled location and its culture rare. Luckily, she describes her experiences in a way that will make you feel like you are right there with her throughout this travel memoir.