1. Bangkok City Guide (Lonely Planet)

Lonely Planet is my favourite guidebook series with the right amount of detail, well written and accurate.

2. Bangkok Encounter (Lonely Planet)

A nice small guidebook, but still packed with the information you need. Lonely Planet is my favourite series with the right amount of detail, well written and accurate.

3. Thailand (Lonely Planet)

If you are just going further around Thailand than Bangkok, this is the book for you. Lonely Planet is my favourite series with the right amount of detail, well written and accurate.

4. Bangkok Citiescape (Lonely Planet)

by Joe Bindloss. Published 2006. A small gem of a book, with excellent photos and very good brief descriptions.

1. Bangkok 8, Bangkok Tattoo, and Bangkok Haunts

by John Burdett.

When you read these books about the devout Buddhist and Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, you can almost smell and taste the life in Bangkok.

Deliciously written, the novels give a background to your own trip helping to explain their form of Buddhism and how it intermixes with bribery, the bars, and the s*x trade. Oh, yeah, they're also great thriller.

2. Travelers Tales Thailand

Editors - James O'Reilly) and Larry Habegger. Another in the Travelers series of travel anthologies, this time capturing the experience of Thailand.

The stories describe exotic Thailand, including its capital Bangkok. From Buddhism, the staple of Thai life, to temples, beaches, food, wildlife, the s*x trade, the heat, and the King of Siam’s Golden Palace, the book has it all.

Some of the authors include Pico Iyer, Joe Cummings, Jeff Greenwald, Tim Ward, and Alan Rabinoowitz.

I am a fan of the Travelers Tales series and find that they provide more memorable ideas about a place than just reading a guide book.