See here for methodology. Books are disqualified if less than 50% of them is set in Malaysia.
| Title | Author | Goodreads raters | LibraryThing owners |
| The Night Tiger | Yangsze Choo | 63,990 | 1,437 |
| The Ghost Bride | Yangsze Choo | 35,794 | 1,708 |
| The Garden of Evening Mists | Tan Twan Eng | 28,145 | 1,730 |
| The Gift of Rain | Tan Twan Eng | 17,211 | 1,215 |
| Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World | Tom Wright and Bradley Hope | 36,267 | 547 |
| The House of Doors | Tan Twan Eng | 18,160 | 539 |
| The Storm We Made | Vanessa Chan | 19,635 | 354 |
| Black Water Sister | Zen Cho | 10,481 | 647 |
I have not actually been to Malaysia, but it is where my father was born, so I was interested to see where this analysis brought me. In fact there are an unusually high number of Malaysian writers on the list – better yet, three of them are fantasy novels, including this week’s winner, The Night Tiger. And I am very glad to see Zen Cho make an appearance.
I disqualified nine books, all for the usual reason but all in different ways. In some of these cases I guess that GR and LT users are using the tag ‘malaysia’ because of the origin of the author rather than the setting of the book, in others it must simply be geographical confusion. Crazy Rich Asians, by Kevin Kwan, is mostly set in Singapore. The island in Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad, is clearly in what’s now Indonesia (as discussed). Daughter of the Moon Goddess, by Sue Lynn Tan, is set in a fantasy China. A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute, has many memorable sections in Malaysia, but in the end it is about Australia. The Glass Palace, by Amitav Ghosh, is set all over the region. Nothing But Blackened Teeth, by Cassandra Khaw, is set in Japan. Old Filth, by Jane Gardam, is set in England and India more than Malaysia. What My Bones Know, by Stephanie Foo, is set in the USA. And Sorcerer to the Crown, again by Zen Cho, is set in a fantasy UK.
Next up: Mozambique, Ghana, Peru and Saudi Arabia.
Asia: India | China | Indonesia | Pakistan | Bangladesh (revised) | Russia | Japan | Philippines (revised) | Vietnam | Iran | Türkiye | Thailand | Myanmar | South Korea | Iraq | Afghanistan | Yemen | Uzbekistan | Malaysia | Saudi Arabia | Nepal | North Korea | Syria | Sri Lanka | Taiwan | Kazakhstan | Cambodia | Jordan | UAE
Americas: USA | Brazil (revised) | Mexico | Colombia | Argentina | Canada | Peru | Venezuela | Guatemala | Ecuador | Bolivia | Haiti | Dominican Republic | Honduras
Africa: Nigeria | Ethiopia (revised) | Egypt | DR Congo | Tanzania | South Africa | Kenya | Sudan | Uganda | Algeria | Morocco | Angola | Mozambique | Ghana | Madagascar | Côte d’Ivoire | Cameroon | Niger | Mali | Burkina Faso | Malawi | Zambia | Chad | Somalia | Senegal | Zimbabwe | Guinea | Benin | Rwanda | Burundi | Tunisia | South Sudan
Europe: Russia | Türkiye | Germany | France | UK | Italy | Spain | Poland | Ukraine | Romania | Netherlands | Belgium
Oceania: Australia