By Marilia Albanese

Published by White Star Publishers

Available at Asia Books, Bt795

This book is the latest addition to the gallons of ink that have been used in the effort to give punters like you and I an insight into the enigmatic temples of Angkor.

It passes the first test for any guidebook: it's well organised, with attractive photos that make it easily thumb-able.

The first chapter gives an overview spanning the four centuries of the Khmer empire, before the book goes on to focus in on the tangible remnants of this once vast civilisation, the temples, carvings, palaces and basins that litter a few square miles of modern-day Cambodia.

The temples are sorted under five chapter headings that reflect the elements they best exemplify. Angkor Wat, for example - which dwarfs its neighbours - is one of the temples that comes under the heading of "The Royal Foundations", a chapter that emphasises the message of the divine status of the king that these monuments once mythologised in stone.

The chapter "Masterpieces of Carving" contains pictures and information on Ta Prohm, emblematic of Angkor with its crumbling architecture strangled by tree roots.

The book has a mix of scholarly fact and evocative pictures that will satisfy the armchair enthusiast, as well as an easy-to-use feel that should make it a good companion for anyone fortunate enough to be planning a visit.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THAI MASSAGE: A COMPLETE GUIDE TO TRADITIONAL THAI MASSAGE AND ACUPRESSURE

By C Pierce Salguero

Published by Silkworm Books

Available at www.marymartin.com, US$15

Though it has much in common with Japanese shiatsu massage and Indian ayurvedic therapies (which are its ancient roots), Thai massage is not nearly as well known outside its native country as these, its more fashionable cousins.

This book does a good job redressing that balance, with an approach that combines the scholarly with the practical.

It begins by explaining the historical origins of Thai massage, the different lineages and the Buddhist spirit that imbues the therapy known as nuat boran.

It goes on to cover the basic techniques, and the steps of the classic Thai massage routine, before giving instructions on more advanced methods of applying stretches and pressure.

We are told that, like shiatsu and ayurveda, Thai massage seeks to correct imbalances in the flow of energy through meridians that crisscross the body. Easy-to-follow diagrams of these meridians, or sen lines, along with their acupressure points, are incorporated into guides to the various routines used to treat specific disorders.

The routines are also accompanied by photos which give clear directions for the techniques described. Yoga enthusiasts might find the many parallels drawn between yoga and Thai massage of interest.

AN ASIAN DESTINY

By Gwendolyn Chabrier

Published by Orchid Press

Available at Asia Books, Bt395

We join our narrator, the impossibly precocious three-year-old Sabrina, daughter of a rich socialite divorcee, one late afternoon in 1950s New York.

She's unconcerned by news of her mother's whim to jet off for dinner at Buckingham Palace next Saturday night, in search of the hand of "the most eligible bachelor in Europe".

With the marriage quickly secured, Sabrina joins her mother and stepfather "Didi" in London. Here, with the innocent candour of an Alice in Wonderland, she meets and befriends a young Prince Charles.

Didi is determined to show Sabrina the world, and so begins our heroine's whistlestop tour through Europe and Asia, stopping only to meet and befriend the great and the good in this fictional treatment of recent history.

We follow her to Bangkok, where silk magnate Jim Thompson is on hand to give her a potted history of Thailand, with some stuff on the silk trade thrown in.

The next stop is Burma, where Sabrina's education in Buddhism - and by extension ours - begins.

This is breathless stuff, but my are we learning!

Surprise, surprise, Sabrina bumps into a girl called Aung San Suu Kyi and the tribulations of Burma's recent history are elucidated through the girls' conversations.

She doesn't stay long though before she's whipped off to India where more meetings with royalty ensue, along with instruction in the ins and outs of Hindu ethics and cosmology.

This novel doesn't pretend to in-depth character analysis or psychological insights. Instead, Sabrina's adventures are a pretext for a series of informative essays on subjects that range from the origins of jazz to the politics of Thailand, from Indian culture to the recent history of Burma.

In the second half of the book, Sabrina returns to the West, where she grows up, marries and has two children. These events are dealt with in the same matter-of-fact tone that governs in the rest of the story. Sabrina's reaction to the death of the person she is closest to, her stepfather Didi, is given a short paragraph before we are rushed on.

Finally, we follow the now-grown-up Sabrina back to Burma where the reader gets to listen in when she hears the inside story of the country's Orwellian rule from Aung San Suu Kyi.

This novel-cum-travelogue packs a lot of information into its 268 pages, but a work of fiction's job is to transport the reader. This reviewer was left standing.