"Cambodia: A Book For People Who Find Television Too Slow" is a ferociously brilliant book that challenges its readers to see the world with new eyes, in a new light. Through an arresting division of its pages-- thriteen wildly imaginative short stories at the top, and a passionate essay on colonialism and Southeast Asia at the bottom, running like a Mekong River footnote throughout the book-- Brian Fawcett startles, amuses, and infuriates his hooked readers with juxtaposed images and penetrating insights into the media jungle that defines our age.

Like subtitles read in a foreign film,...