Bangkok Tattoo, an the inside story

“Your fear of letting go prevents you from letting go of your fear of letting go.”

― John Burdett, Bangkok Tattoo

A must-read if you want to understand the intricacies of Thai life, traditions, superstitions and get an in-depth picture of the red light district, plus a lot, lot more, this book is part of a series by John Burdett.

As the New York Time put it: "His passages about the sex trade are explicit but not titillating. He is neither judgmental about prostitution nor particularly probing about its sociological impacts. His personal view is that there is nothing to justify.

When Burdett takes the reader to a red-light district during daylight hours, we trust that a bar might really smell like "pine-cleaning fluid blended with stale beer, cigarettes and cheap perfume," as he wrote in "Bangkok 8." Yet Burdett's writing is also keenly anthropological, decorated with wry observations that carry a ring of truth to those who live in Thailand."

cit. Thomas Fuller Oct. 24, 2007 New York Times

“The great weakness of the West is that it has nothing with which to inspire loyalty except wealth. But what is wealth? Another washing machine, a bigger car, a nicer house to live in? Not much to feed the spirit in all that. What is the West but a gigantic supermarket? And who really wants to die for a supermarket?”

― John Burdett, Bangkok Tattoo