Given the lack of English language books, novels and non-fiction, how do all you guys get hold of reading material? I know Fuzzy Ken has a book store of sorts, borrow and/or purchase as I understand it, never been there so I can't comment on the variety and quality, but is this the only source of books for falangs in town?

Being an avid reader I rely on family members and friends sending books from overseas and download ebooks and sometimes audio books when I can find good ones. I was wondering about buying from online bookstores like Amazon etc. Does anyone out there buy books from these sites and if so is it worth it given the price of the book and delivery that is?

Most of my books I buy from Amazon, very good service and usual very quick delivery (normally earlier then the date they state as expected delivery). As yet never lost any book which was send and no complains whatsoever.

Kudjap or Bust wrote:....how do all you guys get hold of reading material? ....

You might save yourself some money and effort by checking out FKs books!I am a big reader and I easily find 10 books a month from his selections!

Kudjap or Bust wrote:....I know Fuzzy Ken has a book store of sorts, borrow and/or purchase as I understand it, ....

after fuzzy and Harry pulled there fast 1 on the locals , there is no book swap now , and from what i hear a lot of ken,s books are in pritty poor condition for the price.
the sports bar near irish clock has some books for sale only 100bt each .
or you get to know other locals who read and we swap BOOKS with each other ...

If you ever visit Patters there are about (6) used book shops in town so take the opportunity to
stock-up. Canterbury tales soi chaiyapoon. Swan used books soi exzyte. Soi Diana used books
about mid-way down soi just East of bar complex. Pattaya beach books 2nd floor tops central
and also branch on soi buakow. B2S in the new Central shopping center on 5th floor also has
a huge discount section 50% off. The reasons for visiting Patters are dwindling but there's one.

I must admit I do get short of decent books to read and mainly rely on family sending them out to me, have checked out F Kens and wasn't too impressed. I imagine most of the members here have books at home that would be of interest to others.
I could put together a quick online book swap site. Quite easy to do I think, can use existing freeware scripts so no charge for users. Could make it so users post the books they have for swapping, search for books they would like, a wishlist etc and use some kind of PM system to contact each other. I used to be a member of a similar sort of site in the UK, there we had a cost of posting the books to each other, here you could arrange to meet or leave the books for pick up in your favorite watering hole.
If enough people are interested I'll give it a go.

cali4995 wrote:If you ever visit Patters there are about (6) used book shops in town so take the opportunity to
stock-up. Canterbury tales soi chaiyapoon. Swan used books soi exzyte. Soi Diana used books
about mid-way down soi just East of bar complex. Pattaya beach books 2nd floor tops central
and also branch on soi buakow. B2S in the new Central shopping center on 5th floor also has
a huge discount section 50% off. The reasons for visiting Patters are dwindling but there's one.

Stocking up on books is one of the main reasons I trek to Pattaya along with the many good restaurants and shopping at Villa Market and Carrefours. Still a good place for a getaway IMHO.

Chriss, the online book swap sounds like a good idea. Please keep us posted if/when you set it up.

Always able to find something good to read at Fuzzy Ken's at reasonable prices. Found a couple Andy McNab (ex-SAS) novels that I enjoy reading on my last visit. Agree that some of FK's books are pretty ragged. Still readable, tho.

Where do I get my reading material? I tend to copy articles, data sheets, and technical notes from the internet and print them out for my offline reading. Occasionally, a small book or small magazine comes from the U.S., and occasional visits to book stores in Bangkok, Pattaya, and Singapore, but most of what I read comes from online. Its much more practical to move bits over the internet and print it here than to move paper through the post.

Scientific American's website, as one example, has several articles on the public section of their website, as do most magazines. If you are in to old books, including the classics, there are tons of books that are free to download and print. The question is not where to find the material, but how to select the ones that are rather interesting.

Chriss, I have a few books that I will not read again and that I would like to give to anybody who would have use for them. If you put of the site, I will list those books.

Chriss wrote:I must admit I do get short of decent books to read and mainly rely on family sending them out to me, have checked out F Kens and wasn't too impressed. I imagine most of the members here have books at home that would be of interest to others.
I could put together a quick online book swap site. Quite easy to do I think, can use existing freeware scripts so no charge for users. Could make it so users post the books they have for swapping, search for books they would like, a wishlist etc and use some kind of PM system to contact each other. I used to be a member of a similar sort of site in the UK, there we had a cost of posting the books to each other, here you could arrange to meet or leave the books for pick up in your favorite watering hole.
If enough people are interested I'll give it a go.

sounds like good idea for book swop site , even though i know next nothing about my p.c . as long as its easy to use .
i have over 60 books myself , true crime and fiction all in good nick . i swop with few others in the city now i,m sure once you opened the site many others would join in ..

Well it seems every member on Udonmap can use a chat forum so there, I guess, is a good place to start. I'll give phpBB a go, it has the ability for people to join and post books for swap and has the added bonus of a PM set up built in. OK will post a test url later.

After a day battling with ftp connections I finally managed to publish a forum for book swapping. if you guys and gals think it's worth persuing and useful I can tweak it a bit and spend a bit more time on it, not that it isn't easy to use now, if you can start a new thread, read a thread and send a PM your up and running.

I envisioned people posting their unwanted books or books they'd like to swap in the various catagories, crime, thriller etc etc, if you see a book you fancy simply PM the owner (the person who made the initial post) and make pickup/swap arrangements, simple. This could stretch into music CD's and DVD's as well, see if this works first.

BTW, this is housed on a freebie server at the moment so it's a little slow, if it becomes a useful tool and used by a fair few members I can always upgrade it to a personal domain name and decent hosting service.

Anyway let me know your thoughts, I don't want to waste my time if it's not deemed to be useful

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Thanks for your effort Chriss,I registered and the next time my daughter gives up the computer,I will post some books!

Anyone a fan of Jack Higgins novels? I just got a couple and the 1st one "Judgement Day"
is quite fascinating? It's all post WWII espionage/thriller stuff. 20 years old but good. With
even a web-cam you can get simple shots of front and back book covers. Maybe Chriss is on
to something with a lending library swap deal. Certainly helps pass the slow afternoons.

Thanks to Trubrit and Rickfarang for getting the ball rolling and posting some books for swap. Come on guys Songkran's over it must be back to the same ol' same ol' by now and you must have bucket loads of books you'll never read again lying round the house, why not list them for someone else to read.

Alternatively, if you don't think this book swap site is a good idea let me know, I can always scrap it.

Chriss can you post a link on here. I forgot to book mark it.