Thursday, April 26, 2007

Bookish Stuff Wot Others Blogged

Here's a few things from other blogs I've enjoyed and you might like to explore.

More local writers build a home in cyberspace. Antares needs no introduction and is someone who I admire for living life very much on his terms. He has long had a fascinating and sprawling website Magick River, and now has a blog of the same name with thought-provoking and very well-written content. (Am personally not at all sure about this 9/11 conspiracy theory but he makes the most convincing case I've heard for it!) You can of course catch Antares reading on Saturday at Seksans from his new book Tanah Tujuh which was launched at the litfest. (More about the book in another post.)

Shahril Nizam is a poet and illustrator (he designed the cover for Silverfish New Writing 6, and Dina Zaman's I Am Muslim, among others). His blog pelukismelukis is a treasure trove of absolutely delightful things. His art ... just melts me, and his poetry has a whimsical magical quality which reminds me of ... Edward Lear, Lewis Carol ... I would love a whole coffee-table book of his work!

Kenny Mah of course keeps popping up on everyone else's blog and at literary events.

He's an incredibly nice guy (and nice people always leave this grouch feeling most confused). His blog, Life for Beginners, has posts about the local lit scene, his training to become a Body Balance instructor, and much more. Best of all, he has put up a collection of short-fiction and poetry Broken Mornings, which you can download for free. Kenny, of course, is also reading this Saturday at Seksan's.

And elsewhere:

There is as always much good stuff on Deepika's blog read@peace. I particularly enjoyed her post on meeting Neil Gaiman when he was in Singapore. (I've started reading American Gods and hereby declare myself another fan!)

Zafar of Dream Ink has a fascinating piece on how to write a good bad review! And much more good stuff, of course.

Eric Forbes has an excellent piece on publishing and has posted up some great poetry from a whole variety of poets.

Books Love Me blogger Josette does the round of Penang bookshops ... but likes Borders best.

So many books, so little time. Dari Jiwa Rasa gets mindboggled by the maths and asks, how many books can you finish in a year. He also links in this post to the story of Chang Wei Han who read 558 books in just 15 months. Who says Malaysians don't read!

Tunku Halim writes about why Malaysian writers are actually much luckier than their counterparts in the West - and he's absolutely right. Halim's new book 44 Cemetery Road is now out too.

Sally Ann has some great pictures of Benjamin Zephaniah visiting her school and her enthusiasm for poetry shows just why making this kind of encounter happen is so important!

I'm sure to have missed something important, so please slip me a note in the comments if you know of anything ...

13 comments:

Tunku Halim said...

Hi Sharon - thanks for mentioning my book 44 Cemetery Road. Hope you get a chance to read a tale or two. Cheers again!

bibliobibuli said...

oh i do intend to!

Anonymous said...

Gosh, Sharon...I would never even dream of calling myself a poet. I do it more as a hobby and besides, I know someone who would laugh his head off churlishly if he knew about this :-P

bibliobibuli said...

see someone is a fan ...

tell the someone that

Kenny Mah said...

Hee hee. Love that comment of yours. I probably drop comments 10x more than I blog, and I like to think I blog fairly regularly! :D

Thanks for the mention, dear.

Unknown said...

Dear Sharon,

Thanks for linking my entries and also for introducing other blogs with interesting entries.

bibliobibuli said...

welcome, welcome!

Amir Hafizi said...

Gaiman! Gaiman! Gaiman!

bibliobibuli said...

yeah amir h. i will soon be shouting along with you.

Starmandala said...

Sharon: "Am personally not at all sure about this 9/11 conspiracy theory..."

Try this: omit the loaded words "conspiracy" and "theory" and say, "Am personally not at all sure exactly what happened on 9/11 and why and who planned the apparent attacks..."

Then we can begin our independent probe,
starting with a few interesting links:
Patriots Question 9/11
SEC Investigates pre-9/11 shortselling
Unquestioned Answers

And, of course, I have enough 9/11 material on my blog to impeach Cheney, Wolfovitz, Rove, Bush - and incriminate a third of the military-intelligence-media power structure!

bibliobibuli said...

thanks Antares, promise that i will read and keep an open mind

Josette said...

558 books in 15 months? Wow! Either he's bluffing or it's real. Haha! He must be a speed reader or he wouldn't be able to finish off so many books while studying, too.

A few years back when I was still in secondary school, most of the students weren't that bothered with the Nilam programme. We were too caught up in our studying and even if we did read, we just did not spend some time filling in our Nilam books. Most of us ended up copying each other's books! It's cheating, but it's true!

I do hope this practice isn't going on anymore but I really doubt it.

Anonymous said...

Hey Kenny, can I download the model instead ? :D