Finally, they’ve arrived! I ordered a couple of books from Amazon.com a few weeks ago. I don’t know about other countries in SEA, but it really is quite hard to find books on Southeast Asian archaeology in Singapore – the irony is not lost on me that I have to look abroad in order to find books on local material culture.
The two books I ordered were The Ceramics of South-East Asia by Roxanna M. Brown, which I’m given to understand is required reading for anyone who wants to learn about the different ceramic cultures this part of the world. The other book is Forgotten Kingdoms in Sumatra by F.M. Schnitger. Decidedly, I’m more interested in the archaeology of island Southeast Asia rather than mainland, and I thought it’d be good reading material.
The other two books on the right were picked up at the library book sale yesterday. The library has a book sale annually to trim the fat off its collection and encourage a reading culture among people. Lucky for me, not many people are that interested in reading about archaeology. The Complete Idiots Guide to Lost Civilisations is a fun-to-read, but pretty good background information to archaeology, while Paul Bahn’s Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction is sometimes used for college texts (I know it was on my recommended reading list while I was in school). Both of them a steal at $2 each.
I agree that it is hard to find specialised non fiction books in SE Asia. Another goodsource is abebooks.com Although postage on these books can be more than the book!
I also check ebay sometimes for less obscure titles.