Call Me Paris by Jamie Khoo Kechara Media & Publications, HK$78
He's a former model with an American accent, the gift of the gab and many admirers. She's a fresh college graduate with a knack for writing and a Paris Hilton fixation. How fun-loving Jamie Khoo came to meet Tsem Tulku Rinpoche, a lama from the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, is told in Call Me Paris, published by the Rinpoche's Kechara Media & Publications unit. Khoo, who returned from studying in Britain to a job in Kuala Lumpur, first on the education desk of a newspaper then in fashion journalism, lacked friends, security and a sense of purpose. When she meets the Rinpoche, she is immediately taken by his accurate reading of her and quickly becomes an acolyte who in four years would have 30 Buddha statues and be in Kathmandu 'making a whole skirt out of pearls for a five-foot statue'. Her guru made the transition possible, she writes, because of his relaxed attitude to religion: 'If you like eating good food, then eat good food! If you like sex, have sex!' An entertaining read in parts, the book suffers, however, from Khoo's apparent crush on the Rinpoche. More about his beliefs would have provided balance.