Discover GEEO’s recommended books to read before you travel to Thailand, Laos, & Vietnam. Our book club is a way for travelers to learn through literature about the places they’ll be visiting.

These are some of our favorites about Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, so if you’re heading there, take a look (the GEEO book club is not a required element of our programs, just a bit of added fun)! We hope you will enjoy the books we have selected and they will enhance your experience.

You should be able to find most of our selections through the links below and in your local library system as well. Do you have any feedback on our selections or suggestions for additions? Contact us and let us know!

Recommended books to read before traveling to Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam:

Fiction:

• A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain: Stories by Robert Olen Butler (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The River’s Tale: A Year on the Mekong by Edward Gargan (Bookshop.org | Amazon)

Nonfiction:

• The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Buddhadasa: Theravada Buddhism and Modernist Reform in Thailand by Peter Jackson (Bookshop.org | Amazon)

For those looking for more suggestions, here are some other books you may want to consider:

Thailand:

• Buddhism in Thailand (Families and Their Faiths) by Frances Hawker (K-3 book) (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand’s Bhumibol Adulyadej by Paul M. Handley (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Bangkok 8: A Royal Thai Detective Novel by John Burdett (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Beach by Alex Garland (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• A History of Thailand by Chris Baker (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Hush! A Thai Lullaby by Ho Minfong (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Silk Umbrellas by Carolyn Marsden (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap (Amazon)

Laos:

• Traditional Recipes of Laos by Phia Sing (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Cooking from the Heart: the Hmong Kitchen in America by Sami Scripter (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Bamboo Palace: Discovering the Lost Dynasty of Laos by Christopher Kremmer (Amazon)
• Another Quiet American: Stories of Life in Laos by Brett Dakin (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Ant Egg Soup: The Adventures of a Food Tourist in Laos by Natacha Du Pont De Bie (Amazon)
• The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carre (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Lao Folktales by Steven Jay Epstein (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill (Bookshop.org | Amazon)

Vietnam:

• The Headmaster’s Wager by Vincent Lam (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances FitzGerald (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Shadows and Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam by Robert Templer (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• My Vietnam: Stories and Recipes by Luke Nguyen (Amazon)
• The Gangster We Are All Looking For by Le Thi Diem Thuy (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Ugly American by William J. Lederer (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood by Kien Nguyen (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam by Andrew X. Pham (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman’s Journey from War to Peace by Le Ly Hayslip (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Quiet American by Graham Greene (Bookshop.org | Amazon)

GEEO utilizes both Bookshop.org and Amazon Associates links for the above-suggested books. If you purchase a book through one of the links above, you’re supporting us as a nonprofit and helping more teachers travel through GEEO!