Readings from the week: Hindu influences on Thai Buddhism

This week I finished Sightseeing, Thai Tales, and The Night Tiger. I’m still plugging away at Contes Populaires de Cambodge, du Laos, et du Siam—in fact I’m still reading the same story that I was last week (“Vorvong et Saurivong”), but I feel better about it because I realized this story makes up the entire second half of the book. So when I finish it, I’m done (thank God). I’ve gotten to the point where I’m assigning it to myself, like homework, and am only sticking it out because I’m so close to the end that I might as well finish it.

Continue reading

Last year’s books and next year’s plans

Well, it’s a new year, and although I usually make kind of half-assed, unspoken resolutions (except for the time I resolved to floss every day, which is also the only resolution I’ve ever kept for a full year), this year I’m going to lay out some specific goals for the blog—because I’m just sick of writing blog posts a year after reading the book (or, ok, two years at this point, which is just objectively ridiculous)—and I’m letting you know about it because if I manage to follow through, there will be a serious uptick in e-mail notifications and I don’t want anyone to be annoyed (at least not without being forewarned).

Continue reading