Most of them are works of fiction, some classics, and non-fiction, and as far as possible, #ownvoices. I’ve read just a few of these books, and many are new-to-me discoveries from researching this topic. In fact, Asia has more monarchs than any other continent and that’s the focus of my list.

The Sultan of Johor (the closest state in Malaysia just across the Causeway from Singapore) and his family regularly visit Singapore. In Singapore, I remember a visit from a Thai princess to my secondary school. While thinking of books that would fit this for my own photo, and while browsing through the hashtag, I realized that most books about royalty that were featured were of the western kind – that is, the many royal families past and present (and fictional) of Europe, especially the United Kingdom.īut what about the rest of the world? There were – and still are – royal families in non-western countries. So if you’re a Litten (a regular on Litsy), you may know that I run a monthly book photo challenge (I’m And one of my prompts this month was “royals”. What are some things that would make you want to read a book? Recommended by my favourite bloggers and Littens!.Just don’t call Higashino the “Japanese Stieg Larsson”. International crime series – I am especially intrigued by Japanese crime fiction.A great cover – well, who doesn’t judge a book by its cover? Sadly that also works the other way – if it’s a terrible cover, I would tend to shun it, unless I read otherwise about it!.Of course I recently had the reverse happen – a writer I’ve adored whose comic book debut was sadly very clichéd. Even if it’s by a writer I’ve had no success with previously.

Comics/graphic novels – the truth is, put something in comic form and I would happily give it a try.Or something set in space or other worlds An unusual setting – countries I’ve never been to like Turkey, Russia, Iceland, Trinidad.But my point is that if I were to read a book set in, say Thailand, I would prefer it to be by a Thai writer. Own voices – I recently had a prompt on the photo challenge I run on Litsy, “set in Southeast Asia” and despaired a little at the very few books that showed up on Litsy that were by Southeast Asians (true, I did not say “written by Southeast Asians” as I thought that would have been too difficult for many participants).Works in translation – it always makes me glad to see more works in translation!.Top Ten Things That Will Make Me Instantly Want To Read A Book This week’s question from the Broke and the Bookish is:

The sundown motel goodreads