After a slow couple of years, reading-wise, I finally finished my Burma reading list in January (only three years and change after I commenced), and then, feeling newly motivated, I motored through Laos in two months. Someday soon I hope to go back and write about all the books I read from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Burma—but just in case I don’t get to it, I highly recommend Malaysian novels The Rice Mother, Evening Is the Whole Day, The Ghost Bride, and The Terracotta Bride, Singaporean literary fiction Ponti and the Crown Colony mysteries of Ovidia Yu (also, Crazy Rich Asians doesn’t really need my plug, but I read the whole series and enjoyed every minute of it), the absolutely brilliant Bangkok Wakes to Rain from Thailand (plus short story collections Bright and Sightseeing and the classic novel Monsoon Country), and from Burma, the charming travelogues of Ma Thanegi, as well as the memoir From the Land of Green Ghosts—but for now, I want to make some quick notes about my Laotian reads while my memory is still fresh.