Everybody (publishers and literary agents) say that collections of short stories just don’t sell, but everybody seems to enjoy reading short fiction. I’m an avid reader of short stories and have reviewed on this blog quite a few. Bangkok Knights (or BK!) is one of the very first collections of short stories about Thailand written by a farang writer.

Coming to Thailand and not reading Alex Garland’s The Beach is like going to the Louvre and not waiting in line to see Mona Lisa. It took me quite a while to get my hands on The Beach, but once I did, I couldn’t put it down. I’m sure that many people around the world saw Danny Boyle’s adaptation of the novel in 2000 (an immediate success with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role), but I wonder how many had read the book, too?

After reading Hornby’s first two novels one about football and one about music I thought that I would definitely relate to whatever his third novel was about. How wrong could I be. I have never been suicidal so reading about 4 people who are just about to commit suicide was not what I was expecting.