Tourists come to Bangkok for many reasons: a night of love, a stay in a luxury hotel, or simply to disappear for a while. Lawrence Osborne comes for the cheap dentistry, and then stays when he finds he can live off just a few dollars a day.

Osborne's Bangkok is a vibrant, instinctual city full of contradictions. He wanders the streets, dining on insects, trawling through forgotten neighbourhoods, decayed temples and sleazy bars.

Far more than a travel book,Bangkok Daysexplores both the little-known, extraordinary city and the lives of a handful of doomed ex-patriates living there, 'as vivid a set of liars and losers as was ever invented by Graham Greene' (New York Times).

Born in England,Lawrence Osborneis the author of the critically acclaimed novels The Forgiven, The Ballad of a Small Player, Hunters in the Dark andBeautiful Animals.His non-fiction ranges from memoir through travelogue to essays, includingBangkok Days,Paris DreambookandThe Wet and the Dry.His short story 'Volcano' was selected forBest American Short Stories 2012,and he has writtenfor theNew York Times Magazine, Condé Nast Traveler,theNew Yorker, Forbes, Harpersand other publications. He lives in Bangkok.

A passionate, affectionate record of adventures and misadventures in the world's hottest metropolis.