The Poppies Bloom Again

The lists for this year's Popular-The Star Readers Choice Awards have been announced :

Fiction :

1. Velvet & Cinder Blocks by Ioannis Gatsiounis

2. Map Of The Invisible World by Tash Aw

3. Scary Ever After by John Ho

4. Or Rauby Kuan Guat Choo

5. Kirkby: The Life And The Loves by Dr Shaari Isa

6. Never Been Better by O Thiam Chin

7. Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder by Shamini Flint

8. Little Hut Of Leaping Fishes by Chiew-Siah Tei

9. Chinese Stories In Times Of Change by David T.K. Wong

10. Match Fixer by Neil Humphreys

Non-fiction :

1. 50 Days: Rantings by MM by Marina Mahathir

2. I, Too, Am Malay by Zaid Ibrahim

3. Taxi Tales on a Crooked Bridge by Charlene Rajendran

4. Yasmin Ahmad’s Films by Amir Muhammad

5. Malaysian Politicians Say The Darndest Things Vol.2 by Amir Muhammad

6. Tropical Affairs: Episodes From An Expat’s Life In Malaysia by Robert Raymer

7. Even Madder About Malaysians by Dean Johns

8. Do You Wear Suspenders? by Lydia Teh

9. Ceritalah 3: Malaysia, A Dream Deferred by Karim Raslan

10. Life, The Malaysian Style by Peggy Tan Pek Tao

 The award is a mighty good thing for local authors who fully deserve recognition, and introduces us to titles that we may not have heard of. (For me, that's several of the above, including John Ho's graphic novel.)

When the award was first initiated, I wasn't too sure that a book prize awarded according to public votes was the best way to decide the thing, but I do actually love the way the public are involved and the books are proudly displayed upfront in branches of Popular (because let's face it, local books have too often been the poor relations).

The voting forms are in the print copies of The Star (details here) and there are prizes to be won. Closing date is July 31st. The winners will be announced at BookFest@Malaysia 2010, which will be held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre from Sept 4-12.

Postscript :

More on each of the fiction titles here.