The ETG Book Club . Malaysia

Anthony Burgess was an officer in the Colonial Service. In The Malayan Trilogy - Time for a Tiger, The Enemy in the Blanket and Beds in the East - he satirises the dog days of colonialism. Victor Crabbe is a well-meaning, ineffectual English man in the tropics, keen to teach the Malays what the West can do for them. Through Crabbe's rise and fall and a series of wonderfully colourful characters, Burgess lays bare racial and social prejudices of post-war Malaya during the upheaval of Independence.

This book was recommended to ETG by Nick Nugent, former Asia Editor, BBC World Service

Far Eastern Tales is a collection of short stories born of Maugham's experiences in Malaya, Singapore and other outposts of the former British Empire. Whether portraying a ship-borne flight from a lover's curse, murder in the jungle, or a marriage shattered by a past indiscretion, they all reveal Maugham at his best - sometimes caustic, sometimes gently comic, but always the shrewd and human judge of character and soul.

See also More Far Eastern Tales for further classic short stories from Maugham.

Set in Penang, 1939, this book presents a story of betrayal, barbaric cruelty, steadfast courage and enduring love. Longlisted for the Man Booker in 2007, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell. Set during the tumult of World War II, on the lush Malayan island of Penang, The Gift of Rain tells a riveting and poignant tale about a young man caught in the tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits.