KLAB Revisited

More commentary on the KL Alternative Bookfair, as Leon Wing shares his impressions in Starmag today. This I found perplexing:

Tokobuku’s Faisal was exhibiting his work as a step towards expanding his fotopages.com into a retail business. Underlining the fest’s alternative (almost anti-establishment) feel, some of the books he displayed had no ISBN number.

He explained: “For some writers, it’s a hassle to obtain the ISBN from the National Library, as they would have to reveal their identity – and that can be a risk for some of them.”

Really???

KLAB also gets Raman's seal of approval. I love what he says about the forum on book banning :

The debate went along pretty much predictable lines (we have all heard it before -- they went to the ministry, spoke to some furniture and came back disappointed, how dare that chair tell me what I should read!)

Talking of bookfairs, Popular Bookstore's BookFest@Malaysia 2008 begins on May 24th. A full programme of events is lined up featuring a whole lot of overseas authors (though sadly no-one who writes fiction) and local authors including Amir Muhammad, Zhang Su Li, Lim May Zhee and even Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

You can also readcycle (Love it!) your old books.

Everything you might want to know about the fair and a whole lot more can be found here.

The slogan for this event is Reading Empowers, so at least here they got their grammar right (though sadly they have plenty of howlers in the descriptions of events).