5 non-fiction books to help you fall in love with Bangkok

The vibe: Highly-readable modern history by the elder brother of Evelyn Waugh, who is credited with inventing the cocktail party.

In a nutshell: Alec Waugh first visited Bangkok in 1926 and the city appears in his travelogue Hot Countries (1930) but he never shook Bangkok’s spell, returning his attention to Thailand in later-life while living in Tangiers. First published in 1970 (and republished in 2007 by Eland Books), Waugh’s Bangkok is effectively a modern-history of Thailand told from the perspective of its principal metropolis. Writing with the storytelling prowess of a novelist, Bangkok inevitably awards special attention to the Chakri Dynasty, whose ascension to the throne, ‘marked the beginning not only of modern Thailand but of the city that is the purpose of this book to commemorate.’ Yet, farang interlopers and the plight of the everyday Thais help animate the city’s story, just as colonialism and modernity edge-in, transforming Thai society.

Highlight: The book starts with one of the great opening lines of 20th-century literature, ‘It began with a quarrel about white elephants; at least that is what they believe on the banks of the Menam River…’

The vibe: Musicology and modern history combine in the smoky jazz bars of the GI-era.

In a nutshell: In the 1960s, the city entered a new age under the auspices of Pax Americana – a period known locally as yuk jii ay or ‘the GI Era’ and the subject of Benjamin Tausig’s Bangkok After Dark (2025). Tausig writes that ‘Farang today generally do not know why their experience of Thailand is so easy. As it turns out, Thailand’s $70 billion annual tourism industry grew directly from Cold War contact zones…’ This was a time when ‘44,000 US troops were on the ground at any given time in Thailand,’ ostensibly to stem the spread of communism in the region. But the needs – and desires – of young servicemen on R&R (rest and recuperation) birthed the hotels, jazz bars and massage parlours that are now ubiquitous. The ‘transnational nightlife encounters between Thais and Americans’ when, Tausig estimates, ‘hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of other foreigners made Thailand home,’ attracted not just military contractors, but consultants, creatives and cutthroats. 

Highlight: Of the raft of foreigners to wash up in Bangkok, a queer, black pianist named Maurice Rocco is employed to illustrate Bangkok’s transition from sleepy Buddhist backwater to international metropolis. He regularly performed in the Bamboo Bar, which you can still visit.

The vibe: A book that communicates the qualities and stylistic features of Thai tradition to readers with the knowledge of a true aficionado. 

In a nutshell: In 1975, American Japanologist Alex Kerr set foot in Bangkok for the first time, when ‘Off the traffic-choked main avenues, Bangkok was still leafy, even rural…’ The city and its liberal nightlife scene left an impression on Kerr. But it would take a ‘voice from heaven’ whispering ‘Bangkok’ on a bullet train that would prompt him to move to Thailand, eventually settling in the capital, where he’s lived, part-time, since 1997. Another Bangkok (2021) is a revised and updated version of Bangkok Found that was originally published by River Books in 2009. Although Kerr writes in the tone of a memoirist, chronicling his business ventures and the ups and downs in his personal life, Another Bangkok is really a homage to his second home. Kerr is unashamedly nostalgic, lamenting ‘Asia’s old ideals’ fading from view as consumerism erodes the city’s complexion. But he remains a passionate translator of the cultural artifacts and traditions that have survived the wrecking ball of modernity. 

Highlight: It’s Kerr’s personal experiences, renovating an old wooden house in Ladphrao or running a shop selling Thai ceramics (benjarong) in Sukhumvit that bring Thai tradition to life.

The vibe: Channelling his experiences over several years, Osborne delivers an uncensored portrait of the city’s underbelly that is at once tender, revealing and darkly funny. 

In a nutshell: Long before he relocated to Bangkok full-time, British novelist Lawrence Osborne was down-on-his-luck in New York, when word that he could get inexpensive dental care brought him 8,000 miles to Thailand. Seduced by a city ‘where Saffron is the colour of dusk’ Osborne decides to go ‘on the lam,’ and finds inexpensive lodgings in Wang Lang by the Chao Phraya River. His building is inhabited by a mismatched cast of farang subsisting on the margins of a city ‘where some people go when they feel they can no longer be loved…’ Befriending these drunks and dreamers, Osborne and company drift between hotel bars (including the aforementioned Bamboo Bar), bordellos and go-go bars. It’s not all booze and blues, however. Osborne spills as much ink painting poetic visions of the cityscape or deciphering Thai mysticism as he does chronically the misadventures of the characters in the book ‘who were not so much swimming through life as drowning with a show of bravado.’

Highlight: The chapter detailing a road trip to Hua Hin is pure “anti-travel writing” that’s as funny as it is poignant.

The vibe: A ‘bookazine’ that decodes the city’s DNA through sight, sound and smell.

In a nutshell: Anyone who has spent time in Bangkok will recount not just its famous wats, but the intense heat or the odour of diesel blended with fried chillies perfuming the air. The Thai capital’s sensory elements are the subject of Very Bangkok (2020), Philip Cornwel-Smith’s follow-up to the very successful Very Thai (2005). In Very Bangkok, Cornwel-Smith decodes not just the look of the city, but essentially, how it feels. When foot-slogging through Thonburi, for example, he observes of the city’s DNA, ‘In this block behind the Sikh shrine at Ban Khaek, hamlets of Lao, Mon and central Thai craftsfolk live in neighbouring knots of sois with Hokkien Chinese, whose crossroads of shophouses have offerings at a red pillar, from a South China village tradition.’ Edited by Alex Kerr, and with a foreword from Lawrence Osborne, this hefty tome is too weighty to jam in your backpack like a Rough Guide. But if you’re intent on lingering in the Thai capital, Very Bangkok will help you experience a city that is much visited but little understood, in all its sensorial dimensions. 

Highlight: With 450 photos,  Very Bangkok reveals everything from the "orchestra of accents" in Thai cuisine to the hidden ethnic hamlets tucked behind the main roads.