Thailand ชมรมคนรักเมืองไทย Message Board

thanks for inviting me! i look forward to learning more about books and writers from thailand ...

You're welcome, indeed. Greetings and สวัสดี, present and future members. Apologies for using Thai if you can't read it, but by all means, copy-and-paste it into thai2english.com, it will give you a general idea of the meaning. The Thai at the end of the group name says "The Folks-Who-Love-Thailand Group" (more or less).

There's so much possibility here, it's funtastic (sic)!

So let's get things started before they're dead in the water. What is your experience with/interest in Thailand?

I lived there for two years as a missionary for the LDS church. Fell in love with the language and the country. Since then I went back for a few months to do research on my undergraduate thesis, about Thai lexicography.

My wife is Thai, and Thai is the primary language of communication for us, because I enjoy speaking it with her. :)

Next year I'll be going back Bangkok for a while to work at a research center that develops electronic dictionary tools for SE Asian languages, emphasizing for now on Thai.

I (somewhat obsessively) collect (or rather, amass) books on the Thai language, Thailand, Thai literature, Southeast Asia and her languages, etc. I particularly enjoy acquiring Thai translations of books that I enjoy. I'm pretty good at reading in Thai, but it's still much slower than reading English. So far I've read the first Harry Potter in Thai, I'm 1/3 through the second one, and I'm also a couple chapters into the Hobbit. I'm a very schizophrenic reader.

That's not to say all of my books about Thailand are in Thai, far from it. The key to my Thai tags is this:
"Thai" = the book is in Thai, or partially in Thai (includes grammars and dictionaries
"Thailand" = the book is related to Thailand (in any language)
"Thai language" = the book has to do with the Thai language and its use

I think I've used those consistently, although I've probably missed a few here and there. So if the + - operators are working in searches again, the way to see books of mine that are about Thailand but in English would be to search +"Thailand" -"Thai"... but I don't think they are, sadly.

I'm happy to report that multiple tag searching issues have been worked out--at least to some degree. And so far, it only works from the main search page and not in the catalogue view search box (Christopher said on the Google Group that these two places are currently using different code but that that will change soon). So that means I can search my own library for multiple tags, but apparently you can't yet. :P

So follow this permanent link: http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?searchbox=thailand+--thai&Search=Sea...

Sorry for the ugly link, but I'm not sure what markup these boards support yet, and we can't edit, so I'd rather not have to repost with a fixed link.

The link I gave is for a "thailand --thai" search, which turns up English language books about Thailand from my library.

Now, one could be clever and change the user and/or search terms to be able to search more robustly in anyone's library. I think that works. :)

i live in malaysia. i've been here 22 years. have visited thailand several times and look forward to going back again. i well understand your love for the country.

i know just a few words of thai - mostly food and buying stuff related.

i collect books on malaysia and south-east asia in general. would love to know which books you feel capture the essence of the country.

recently read Sightseeing by Rattawat Lapcharoensaep, and was very impressed with it. has anyone else here read it? i love the way he writes about asia without exoticising it.

recently read Sightseeing by Rattawat Lapcharoensaep, and was very impressed with it.

I read it and loved it! I, too, was impressed with the short stories of this young Thai author in his first book. I especially liked the story called "Farangs" and the one called "Sightseeing". Do you remember those? I didn't think anyone else has ever read much less heard of this book. I'm glad you enjoyed it too.

I look forward to the day this author publishes his first novel. I just know it will be good.

It was kind of funny to read your post. It's usually me praising the writing of Lapcharoensap to others who've never heard of him.

I love Thai music, food, dance... Literature seems to be the next stop for me!

It's usually me praising the writing of Lapcharoensap to others who've never heard of him.

I have that book, too, but I've only read the first three stories. I like what I've read so far, but as I was reading I wondered if people less familiar with the culture and language of Thailand found any of it confusing. It used several Thai words that were simply transliterated without explanation (unless I missed it?). Not a problem for me, but maybe for some. Then again, maybe they expect the audience to be largely those who already know the culture or language.

The two that come first to mind that I saw were 'luk' ลูก and 'phuan' เพื่อน.

Hi, new to librarything and to this group. Mom to two boys adopted from Thailand, I have at least a bookshelf or two of books on Thailand--yet to llist here--including Sightseeing. Actually, Rattawat Lapcharoensaep did his MA here in Ann Arbor (U of MI) and so I was able to take my oldest son (then 17, and (still) an aspiring fantasy writer) to a reading. RL was very kind to my son--apparently he began writing fantasy as a young man.

Hello

My name is Danny and I run the DCOThai online bookshop. I am interested in English language publishing in Thailand and some of the now out-of-print titles that are hard to find. I would be happy to help others in this pursuit.

The next Thai related book I intend to read is Kingdom of Make Believe by Dean Barrett. Recently finished Six Years in the Malay Jungle by Carveth Wells.

Danny

Thanks for letting me join the group!

-T