Reading the World discussion

About the Book:
"Sightseeing is a masterful new work of fiction, a collection of stories set in contemporary Thailand and written with a grace and sophistication that belie the age of its young author. These are generous, tender tales of family bonds, youthful romance, generational conflicts, and cultural shiftings beneath the glossy surface of a warm, Edenic setting. Rattawut Lapcharoensap offers a diverse, humorous, and deeply affectionate view of life in a small Southeast Asian country that is inevitably absorbing the waves of encroaching Westernization...

Through his vivid assemblage of parents and children, natives and transients, ardent lovers and sworn enemies, Lapcharoensap dares us to look with new eyes at the circumstances that shape our views and the prejudices that form our blind spots. Gorgeous and lush, painful and candid, Sightseeing is an extraordinary reading experience, one that powerfully reveals that when it comes to how we respond to pain, anger, hurt, and love, no place is too far from home."

About the author:
"Rattawut Lapcharoensap was born in Chicago in 1979 and raised in Bangkok. He currently lives in Brooklyn and teaches high-school English...His short-story collection Sightseeing was selected for the National Book Foundation’s ‘5 Under 35’ programme, won the Asian American Literary Award and was also shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award."

I don't know who else is going to get in on this one, but I am looking forward to reading it :)

I'm going to try! But it will be the third of the three if I can pull it off. If not in April, then likely May. It does sound good. I already own the other two...

So I take it back. I have open time this month and I'm going to read it now. I'll save my comments for later or, better yet so I don't forget, I'll just put them in one big spoiler.

Amanda, this is a great pick! I'm about halfway through. So far my favorites are Sightseeing and Priscilla. Very, very well done. I almost wish both of them had been turned into novella's!

I finished and of the 7 short stories, "Sightseeing" and "Priscilla the Cambodian" are still my absolute favorites, which I've rated each a 5.

All the others rated a 4, with the exception of "Cockfight", which I rated a 2. I did not enjoy that one at all and was grateful it was the last in the book. It was not a case of his writing at all but the topic.

What stood out to me for the first five stories is that each are narrated by a young man/child who is never named. The stories are edgy and sad, but in some he softens the hit from that with tiny bits of humor: naming the pig Clint Eastwood in "Farangs", the Cambodian mother slapping the boys in the back of the head and then offering them something in "Priscilla", inadvertently teaching the grandkids to say "ass" in "Don't Let Me Die...".

The most poignant, meaningful for me was the moment in "Sightseeing" when the son and mother can see the Indian and Pacific Oceans at the same time. "...Ma and I know that if things were different, if our lives were simply following their ordinary course, we would never have taken the time to notice such sights."

I'm grateful to Amanda for nominating this lovely book and hoping I can find other works by this author.

I'm glad you loved it Gail! I'm 75% done and really enjoying it too.

I just finished the book and I agree, this was a great collection and such a different take on the stereotypical westerner's view of Thai life. I also thought Sightseeing and Priscilla were the strongest but also felt that Draft Day captured a powerful sense of guilt that is difficult to convey in words. The last story of Cockfighting was difficult to take and also the female character wasn't quite as well drawn as the boy narrator/main character in the rest of the stories. Thanks Amanda

I'm glad the society of Gails enjoyed lol. I didn't know if it was going to be good when I nominated it, so luckily I also thought it was a great read. I agree with the standout stories mentioned here, but I also really liked the first one about the differences between tourists and their assumptions of Thai life and how the people really live and perceive them.

Amanda wrote: "I'm glad the society of Gails enjoyed lol. ..."

Funny!! And I agree with you on the first one. And I hope this doesn't sound maudlin, but I was just taking the spoiler designation off my review and saw again what I wrote for "Sightseeing". How coincidental is it that I wrote the review the morning of the day I first noticed my "ailment"... Weird, weird, weird.

GailW wrote: "Funny!! And I agree with you on the first one. And I hope this doesn't sound maudlin, but I was just taking the spoiler designation o..."

I hear you, I also have chronic medical issues and sometimes I also find weird things I've posted or texted before things hit the fan. I hope you are recovering or at least adapting, Gail. I have trouble reading/writing off and on so I get how you feel.

I've been preoccupied lately that it is almost my "sepsis anniversary" and am thinking about baking a 1 year "I survived" cake lol.

Amanda wrote: "...am thinking about baking a 1 year "I survived" cake lol."

Oh, do it! You won't believe how cathartic it could be. And take a picture! My older son and a very close friend both had to have their colons removed within a year of each other (they were in their mid-30's). For my son's first "anniversary" his wife made them both a large "colon cake". The guys loved it! And there is a picture! (Of course, these two crazies also did the "tough mudder" (https://toughmudder.com) and continued to mountain climb to prove that people with bags can do anything...

There is no recovery sadly, but I really like your word "adapting". That is a much better answer than my standard "I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine!"

I love the idea of the colon cakes lol! Good for them. I'll do it and post pics then ;)

And I hear you, my condition isn't curable either, so I like to tell people to consider that I'm adaptive instead. People mean well, but after hearing "when are you going to get better? ...it gets better right?" or "WHEN you are better" as an assumption starts to get grating at some point, so I'm trying to get people to see it from a different framework. Glad that's helpful to you too!