Come to the launch party for Jim Algie’s new nonfiction collection Bizarre Thailand: Tales of Crime, Sex and Black Magic on Friday December 17, 2010 at the WTF Café and Gallery in Bangkok.
Complimentary Bizarre Thailand cocktails, sponsored Stolichnaya Vodka, will be served from 7-9pm.
Throughout Bizarre Thailand, Algie takes a provocative but affectionate look at the dark and mysterious aspects of Thailand’s vibrant culture that evade coverage in glossy magazines and tourism brochures, as he embarks on detours off the country’s superhighway of well-mapped-out attractions.
Over the course of 24 chapters in six different sections, ranging from “Crime Scenes” to “Misadventure Travels” and “The Sex Files” to “The Supernatural”, Bizarre Thailand forms a companion piece for first-timers, repeat visitors and old hands. Readers can ride shotgun on a visit to a cowboys and Indians theme resort based on a 19th-century Nevada ghost town; meet the country’s last executioner; tour the shrine devoted to
Siam’s “female Dracula”; venture through a town overrun with sacred tortoises; and get an insider’s look at the world’s only bar run for and by sex workers.
In writing Bizarre Thailand, Algie said, “I drew on 18 years of experience in the country travelling through about 50 different provinces. Some of the different events like the Vegetarian Festival and different interview subjects like Dr. Porntip Rojanasunan, the forensics investigator, I followed over the course of a decade to include the most comprehensive versions of these stories. The protests of 2010 figured heavily in the revised and updated stories on military tourism and the influence of the occult on Thai politics.”
Thailand’s most prolific and popular expat author Christopher Moore wrote in a recent review: “I’d recommend Bizarre Thailand to anyone who wants a new perspective about Thai cultural elements that have made and continue to make Thailand unique and amazing. Algie has taken his journalistic instincts inside the half-concealed enclaves, which shields the most interesting people and has used his literary skills to reveal their complexity. He takes the reader along for a memorable, authentic, and exciting journey into the heart and soul of Thailand.”
WTF Café and Gallery is hosting the launch party and signing for Bizarre Thailand: Tales of Sex, Crime and Black Magic on Friday, December 17, 2010. Complimentary drinks and snacks will be available from 7-9pm.
Asia Books will be selling copies of Bizarre Thailand at the discounted price of 500 baht (down from 595 baht) on the night.