The Malay Annals: Getting Back on the Horse

Sejarah Melayu, Tun Seri Lanang, 1612 (approx), trans. John Leyden

I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a quandary about this blog. I started out behind–I was writing about books roughly a year after I’d read them. I thought I would catch up, but I remained about a year behind for nearly four years, through moving to the US and having my first kid. But then we moved again, had a second child, the pandemic hit, and for a little while I didn’t read very much and wrote almost nothing at all. When the dust settled, I found that I remembered very little about the books I had been reading when this blog timed out. I’ve continued to read–I’m currently on Taiwan, which means I have almost all of Southeast Asia to write about, as well as Macau and Hong Kong. I have told myself that I should just write about what I’ve read most recently and come back to the other stuff later at some point, but I find that I am constitutionally incapable of moving on out of order. I did it once, with Laos, and it just didn’t feel right.

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The Book of Luelen: The thought collector

The Book of Luelen, Luelen Bernart, 1977 (written in 1934-46)

  • Federated States of Micronesia, #1
  • Borrowed from SF Library
  • Read January 2017
  • Rating: 2/5 (BUT: this rating reflects only my reading enjoyment and is not a reflection of the inherent quality of the book. The reason for this distinction will become clear further on)
  • Recommended for: ethnobotanical historians and sociocultural anthropologists

Annotations to the Book of Luelen, John L. Fisher, Saul H. Reisenberg, Marjorie G. Whiting (eds.), 1978

  • Borrowed from SF Library
  • Read January 2017
  • Rating: 3/5
  • Recommended for: as above, only more so

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East Timor: False starts

Funu: The Unfinished Saga of East Timor, Jose Ramos-Horta, 1987

  • East Timor, #1
  • Borrowed from SF Library
  • Rating: 2/5
  • Read: April 2017
  • Recommended for: Experts

The Crossing, Luis Cardoso, 1997

  • East Timor, #2
  • Borrowed from SF Library
  • Rating: 3/5
  • Read: April 2017
  • Recommended for: Exiles

Beloved Land: Stories, Struggles, and Secrets from Timor-Leste, Gordon Peake, 2013

  • East Timor, #5
  • Borrowed from SF Library
  • Rating: 2.5/5
  • Read: April 2017
  • Recommended for: Expositors

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Les Immémoriaux

Les Immémoriaux (A Lapse of Memory), Victor Segalen, 1907

  • French Polynesia, #1
  • Kindle, french edition, free from amazon.com
  • Read July 2015
  • Rating: 3/5
  • Opening Line: Cette nuit là — comme tant d’autres nuits si nombreuses qu’on n’y pouvait songer sans une confusion — Térii le Récitant marchait, à pas mesurés, tout au long des parvis inviolables.
  • Recommended for: scholars and cynics (and cynical scholars)

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