A ‘Kiss and Tell’ book this week, with a lady going by the name of Scarlett O’Kelly detailing what it is/was like to be a professional escort, read sex worker.

Paying For It (ISBN 978-0-241-96323-4, Penguin, 2012) begins with the usual provisos you would expect such as false names (both hers and the clients), backgrounds, towns, and anything that might pinpoint her or where she worked.

Noam Chomsky has made a name for himself (and justified) as being a deep thinker who believes in democracy and also the fact that everyone should be able to view and comment on political directions.  Unfortunately we know this is not a universal situation.

Kristen Rossi, the managing director of the Travel Easy Asia group has published an instruction manual called Maid in Thailand.  Undoubtedly the stimulus to do this came from her own experiences as a newbie in Thailand who ended up with a Burmese maid.  As she writes in the foreword, “Sometimes the reality (of having a maid) is a complete and total melt-down when you can’t make yourself understood dealing with the simplest of tasks.  To top it off, if you think you are frustrated, just think about how your maid feels!  Miscommunication can leave you both with quite the mess to clean up.”

Death in the City of Light is a thriller, in every sense of the word.  However, as opposed to the many thrillers on the Bookazine Big C Extra shelves, Death in the City of Light (ISBN 978-0-7515-48 45-7, Sphere Publishers, 2011) is a true story.

I selected this book, Voodoo Histories (ISBN 978-0-099-47896-6, Vintage Books, 2009), subtitled “How Conspiracy Theory has Shaped Modern History” from the Bookazine Big C Extra shelf, thinking this was going to be a feast of voodoo influences.  It isn’t, or wasn’t.

Lee Child’s thriller One Shot, was released in 2005, but has now been re-released as Jack Reacher - One Shot (ISBN 978-0-857-50119-6, Bantam Editions, 2012) following the release of the movie taken from this book called just Jack Reacher and starring Tom Cruise.

I was sitting having a quiet beer and chatting with Kim Fletcher, the Landlord of Jameson’s Irish Pub, when the subject of books came up.  In his opinion, one of the most powerful books from a local writer was Mango Rains by Daniel M Dorothy (ISBN 978-1-905379-66-8, Maverick House, 2010) the 442 page blockbuster.  I had to agree.

Any semi-serious reader of well written books will have heard of George Orwell, whose most remembered books were ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’.  Orwell was, as described in the introduction by Christopher G. Moore, well before his time.  “He warned in his novels and essays how the surveillance state was fundamentally incompatible with democracy.”

A first time novel for Bangkok based James A. Newman.  Bangkok Express (ISBN 978-1-4092-7754-5, Spanking Pulp Press, 2012) arrived on the reviewer’s table and as such became the final book to be reviewed last year.

Another varied year in the book reviews.  Some excellent, some not so excellent.  I have to say I do think books on the topic of being incarcerated in Thai prisons has now been done to death.