“Pairing Wine with Asian Food” by Edwin Soon, a casebound book with dustjacket bearing a barcodes4books ISBN barcode, has just won “Best in Singapore” at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2009 for the category “best book on matching food and wine”. The title is now eligible for the “Best in World” prize in the same category. Winners will be announced at the World Cookbook Fair in Paris in early 2010.

Cover text:
Dining out on dim sum and looking for the perfect wine to accompany your meal? Wondering which bottle to uncork when serving up Thai? In Pairing Wine with Asian Food, enologist, wine judge, and wine writer Edwin Soon explores the most important theories of matching wine and Asian cuisine. Discover hundreds of inspired food and wine marriages from Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as from Burgher, Eurasian, and Nyonya cuisines. Also featured is a special section on matching wine by occasion, such as an Asian finger food party or barbecue, or by type, such as curries, vegetarian dishes or seafood.

Imagine serving a crisp, tangy aged Riesling with a steamed river fish with ginger, soy, and chili, or a peppery California Zinfandel with succulent Chinese barbecued pork ribs. For sheer indulgence, savor Hainanese chicken rice with lashings of chili, ginger, and sweet soy and a glass of Sauternes – surely a match made in heaven. Whether you’re a wine lover or new to the subject, this book encourages you to have fun and experiment for there is no reason why you can’t enjoy wine with all your favorite Asian dishes.

A barcodes4books barcode appears on “Island of Demons” by Nigel Barley.

Many men dream of running away to a tropical island and living surrounded by beauty and exotic exuberance. Walter Spies did more than dream. He actually did it.

In the 1920s and 30s, Walter Spies — ethnographer, choreographer, film maker, natural historian and painter — transformed the perception of Bali from that of a remote island to become the site for Western fantasies about Paradise and it underwent an influx of foreign visitors. The rich and famous flocked to Spies’ house in Ubud and his life and work forged a link between serious academics and the visionaries from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Charlie Chaplin, Noel Coward, Miguel Covarrubias, Vicki Baum, Barbara Hutton and many others sought to experience the vision Spies offered while Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, the foremost anthropologists of their day, attempted to capture the secret of this tantalizing and enigmatic culture.

Island of Demons is a fascinating historical novel, mixing anthropology, the history of ideas and humour. It offers a unique insight into that complex and multi-hued world that was so soon to be swept away, exploring both its ideas and the larger than life characters that inhabited it.

A barcodes4books barcode appears on bestselling “ ESCAPE: The true story of the only Westerner ever to escape from Thailand’s Bangkok Hilton ” by David McMillan.

Klong Prem prison, Thailand. The “Bangkok Hilton”, where 600 foreigners among the 12,000 inmates of this walled prison city also wait and rot. Among the tragic, ruthless and forgotten, one man resolves to do what no other has done: escape. This is the true story of drug smuggler David McMillan’s perilous break-out from Asia’s most notorious prison.

From his arrest at Don Muang airport, to awaiting trial inside Klong Prem, he provides an insight into the lives of the British, Australian, American and other Western prisoners as they are destroyed by disease, neglect and despair. Death is their only way out. Two weeks before a near-certain death sentence McMillan escaped, never to be seen in Thailand again.