A guide book with strong chapters on history, culture, politics, etc. is useful. My favorites are the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet:
Richard Plunkett; Sri Lanka; Lonely Planet; 2003.
Here's some suggestions for getting in the right state of mind:
Alain De Botton; The Art of Travel; Pantheon Books; New York; 2003.
Phil Cousineau; The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred; Conari Press; Boston; 1998.
Eric Newby; A Book of Travellers' Tales (sic); Penguin Books; New York; 1986.
Richard Halliburton; The Royal Road to Romance; Traveler's Tales Inc; San Francisco; 1925.
This book is a bit on the academic side, but will fill in a lot of gaps for you when you hit the ground:
Paul Williams; Buddhist Thought; Routledge; London; 2000.
Here are some recommendations from Adele Barker. She spent a year living in Sri Lanka and is currently writing a book about her experiences.
1. S.J. Tambiah, Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling
of
Democracy. U. of Chicago Press, 1986. Excellent analysis of the
Sinhalese-Tamil conflict. Tambiah taught at Harvard for years and has
recently retired.
2. any of the fictions by Romesh Gunesekera. Reef was wonderful Most
recently is his novel Heaven's Edge (Grove Press, 2002). His also has
written a collection of short stories entitled Monkfish Moon and The
Sandglass.
3. Sri Lanka, A Survey, ed K.M. deSilva
4. Michael Ondaatje. By him I recommend Anil's Ghost and Running in the
Family. People will know him as the author of The English Patient. In
Running in the Family he goes back in time to Ceylon and to the
origins of his own family. Poetic and beautiful. Anil's Ghost will bring
the reader more into contact with the student insurrections and the civil
war.
5. Shyam Selvadurai, Funny Boy and most recently Cinnamon Gardens.
Sevadurai is the first openly gay Sri Lankan writer (although he lives in
Toronto now as does Ondaatje). Funny boy is about a boy trying to come to
terms with his sexuality against the background of the civil war
(everything is always against the background of the civil war). Cinnamon
Gardens is set in the 1920s in Ceylon. Wonderful on the life style of the
wealthy Ceylonese.
6. Carl Muller, The Jam Fruit Tree. Is a novel about the Burghers of Sri
Lanka.
7. Culture Shock Sri Lanka by Robert Barlas and Nanda Wanasundera. This is
part of a larger series on a whole bunch of countries. Graphic Arts Publishing
Co, Portland, Oregon 1992. I found it really helpful. Someone sent it to
us when we were over there.
8. The two best books which offer a general intro to Buddhism, not
necessarily Theravada Buddhism, are Buddhism: A Way of Life and Thought by
Nancy Wilson Ross, Vintage Books, 1980 and the books by Jack Kornfield.
9. There is also The Penguin New Writing in Sri Lanka. ed by D.C.R.A.
Goonetilleke. 1992
10. Ambalavaner Sivanandan; When memory Dies. (Follows three generations
of a Sri Lankan family. Available at Amazon