In Bangkok Days, Lawrence Osborne chronicles his years drifting through Bangkok, drawn by its permissiveness, heat, and indifference. Part memoir, part cultural essay, the book explores the city as a magnet for outsiders—writers, drifters, fugitives from orderly Western lives—who come seeking freedom and find something more ambiguous.
Reviewers often point to Osborne’s unsentimental eye and his refusal to exoticise Bangkok. Instead, the city emerges as a testing ground for desire, boredom, privilege, and self-deception. Read this if you want to understand Bangkok’s pull on foreigners—not the postcard version, but the slow, seductive unraveling that happens once the novelty wears off and the city starts watching back.
Bangkok Days describes the marginal characters drifting through the city. Hot-humid days and nights, getting kicked out of the British Club, casual transactional sex, etc. Osborne, as an expatriate in Bangkok, describes the expat underclass and Thais acquaintances. There is not a lot of plot but plenty of atmosphere.
Lit Cities uses cookies to improve your experience and assist with our promotional efforts.
I accept