'Falling for Saigon'

Warning: this post contains self-promotion. I have a collection of essays about life in contemporary Ho Chi Minh City coming out on May 1, 2025.

Dear Subscribers, no news is good news? Apologies for the lack of stories here but for the last few months, I have been devoting free time to editing this collection (cover below), which is now available to pre-order (note: it is a physical thing, not a digital book!).

It’s appearing on e-commerce platforms: Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes&Noble, Guardian Bookshop, and others. But if anyone wants a copy, I am sure your local bookstore can order one for you. The publication date is May 1. Having a few pre-orders is no bad thing as the (very small, independent) publisher (Brixton Ink) will print more copies, if there is a bit of interest.

The book contains a number of essays that have been featured on my Substack in previous years, however, pretty much everything was revised, in some cases extensively, and a bunch of new essays are also in there. Now the plan is to send Michael Fassbender an email to see if he’s up a film adaptation.

The cover design was created using a hand-embroidered picture by Melody Lopez, a Saigon-based artist, who worked from an image taken by the filmmaker and photographer Morgan Ommer. The original photograph was taken on Nguyễn Công Trứ street in Phuong 19, Binh Thanh District.