By the gas pump's red glare

A timely and fascinating survey of global oil's role in lubricating economies, politics and war

NO, NOT JUST ANOTHER BARGIRL NOVEL EXTOLLING DECADENCE
David Young has written six bargirl novels.

Legends of staying power
Opening the doors of Asia's grandest old hotels to reveal a century's flow of fascinating characters

The Inspector Maigret of Laos
Vientiane's world-weary chief coroner goes coup hunting in his funniest outing yet

The moon beyond Burma
A Shan princess reaches deep into the past to shed light on the present in a fascinating memoir full of travels, triumphs, history and heartbreak

Turning 63 in March, Eric Clapton surveys his sober domestic bliss and recalls, amid poignancy and pain, the wild ride that got him there

Richard Russo, the sage of upstate New York, explains six decades in a life that never graduated from high school

Teenagers in or out of love should make a date with this issue. It offers updates on all the entertainment news, both local and global.

A tribute to the tusker
As India's pachyderm population declines, there's a nostalgic yearning for the long-lost mystique of this noble vehicle
Plugging that brain drain
The Wisdom Paradox By Elkhonon Goldberg Published by Pocket Books, 2007 Available at Asian Books, Bt450
Meet Keller the lizard killer
More Living Thai Ways Part III By Michael Keller Published by Bangkok Books, 2006 Available at Asia Books, Bt225
Contact Wounds
By Jonathan Kaplan Published by Picador, 2007 Available at Asia Books

Symbolism Decoded
A new book by a former National Museum volunteers unlocks the secrets behind the motifs of Chinese art
A City of Contrasts
An art historian takes a long, hard look at the Venice of the East in a new cultural guide
'Dead' writer talking
Author Peter James, whose tales of a fictional British police detective sell in the millions, is quite at ease with reallife cops and criminals too
Creating a cop called Costa
David Hewson, in Bangkok to unveil not one but two new novels, says if you only write what you know, you're cheating the reader's imagination

Richard A Engelhardt
Background: Unesco regional adviser for culture in Asia and the Pacific and coauthor of the recently published “Asia Conserved”.
John Whitehead
Background: director of the British Council in Thailand