Finding Wilderness Tips in Mont Kiara

A few days back I had lunch with David T.K. Wong and Saras at Plaza Mont Kiara, and afterward David took us to visit a second-hand bookshop, Just Haven, which I had not known about before.

The stock wasn't huge, but there were certainly some good titles on the shelves and the prices were fair (around the RM10-12 mark).  It's a very welcoming space and Leslie, who runs the place, is extremely helpful. He's also beginning to organise book-related events.

It's funny kiasu-ism kicks in when a book-lover loves books.  I'm actually culling my shelves at the moment so that I can donate books to a library Daphne Lee and I are helping to build at Learning Works where I teach my creative writing courses, but how could I resist picking up a battered copy of Margaret Atwood's Wilderness Tips, a short story collection?

I'm so glad I did too because, two stories in, I'm really enjoying it.  The first story True Trash set in a summer camp, beautifully parodies the pulp romance novel of the 1950's and does things you don't expect in a short story - including juggling a whole cast of characters.

I began reading Atwood with Robber Bride which I got for free in a branch of Waterstones. (In the late '80's they had the great idea of giving away books with a voucher from their quarterly magazine but created interest in the author's new release.)

I can be excused not having read the earlier works at that time because I'd lived in places where books were hard to come by, but I think I can't be excused for not having completely caught up with now, especially as everything the lady writes gives me such great pleasure. It's good to take this small step.

Authors Interview Themselves

When I interview authors for whatever publication, I always do my homework and go along prepared with a list of questions which I hope sound intelligent, cover all bases and which aren't exactly like the questions asked by every other interviewer because I'm sure fatigue must set in.  And I also add one last question to the list - What's the one question I didn't ask you that you would have liked me to ask?.  

The Guardian goes a step further in the wake of the Hay Festival, and invites authors to  submit the questions they would like to be asked and then answer them.  And as you might expect, there are some pretty eccentric items.  Chang-Rae Lee would love to be asked if he writes naked (no, but when it's very hot he writes in his "undershorts"); Jonathan Coe would love to be played by Cate Blanchett in a film about his life; and Roddy Doyle submits a list of questions he really can't believe he has been asked in interviews:

Is Roddy Doyle your real name?

Does your wife love you?

The internet says you have two children, yet you claim to have three?

How can you write accurately about the Dublin working class when you actually live in Los Angeles?

Are you friendly with any other Scottish writers?

What We Will Lose

... there’s something else that may be lost if old-style books fade from the scene: the personality that authors — and the people who give books to others as presents — sometimes leave for posterity with their handwritten inscriptions.

Peter Khoury in The New York Times writes about some of the best book inscriptions he has come across, and laments that this added dimension to the physical book will be lost completely with the coming of ereaders.
 

Why Kids Need Books

Just the presence of books in the home boosts your child's chances of success in education, a major study by Nevada University [via] has shown.  More than 70,000 people in 27 countries were interviewed to gauge the effect of family circumstances on educational chances. Among the findings :

• Keeping just 20 books in the home can boost children’s chances of doing well at school
• Regular access to books has a direct impact on pupils’ results, irrespective of parents’ own education, occupation and social class
• Children coming from a “bookish home” remained in education for around three years longer than young people born into families with empty bookshelves. 
• Preliminary findings suggested that history and science texts had the greatest benefit.

Says Dr Mariah Evans (above) who lead the study :

The results of this study indicate that getting some books into their homes is an inexpensive way that we can help these children succeed. Even a little bit goes a long way.

One wonders of course whether the presence of an e-book reader in the home would achieve as much?

How Poetry Grew in Emily's Garden

She knew a great deal about plants, and she grew them very well ... And what we found is that her poems are not sentimental valentines to flowers. They're serious poems, but they're tied to her great passion for plants and nature. So we decided, well, we should introduce people to Emily Dickinson not only as a poet, but as a gardener.

The New York Botanical Gardens pays tribute to the reclusive poet in an exhibition called Emily Dickinson's Garden: The Poetry of Flowers. You can take a look at the slides of the garden on the NPR website and listen to the radio programme.

I also came across a beautiful blog dedicated to Dickinson's garden.

Buy Red to Eliminate AIDS in Africa

Penguin Classics partnered by (PRODUCT)RED and reissued a selection of popular titles with special red covers, with 50% of the profits from the sales  go to the Global Fund to help eliminate AIDS in Africa.

The cover designs are quite innovative - a team of designers and typographers to create the eight new covers for Penguin Classics and each one uses a quote from the book.

In a related piece in The Times Henning Mankell, who created Wallander,  talks about the nature and importance of storytelling in Africa.  I was much moved by this :

In a small village outside Kampala there was a little girl, maybe 12 years old, who I was told had lost both her parents to Aids. She was sort of moving around, and I had a feeling that she wanted to talk to me. There was a moment when we ended up alone, and she said: “I would like to show you something.” She showed me an A4 booklet, and between two pages was a pressed dead blue butterfly. The girl said to me: “I had a mother who loved blue butterflies.” In that moment I thought “this is one of the most important books I’ve read in my life”. I realised that there are so many ways to tell someone who you are.

Guat's Days of Change

Chuah Guat Eng's second novel Days of Change is due for release next month. It is the sequel to her first novel Echoes of Silence and is published by her own company Holograms. Here's the blurb :

The narrator is 55-year old Hafiz, whose name means 'the preserver' and 'the memorizer'. When his story begins, Hafiz is suffering from memory loss following a fall down a ravine in Ulu Banir. Unable to talk to a psychiatrist, he uses the I Ching, the Chinese 'book of changes' to trigger his memory. His objectives: to remember the circumstances of his fall, and why he now feels repulsed by his beautiful young wife. His experiment results in 8 notebooks, in which he records his memories of his childhood, the women in his life, his battle against a major corporation bent on appropriating his land and flooding the Banir valley for a Disneyland-type theme park, and his efforts to contribute to Malaysia's progress and development while preserving local traditional knowledge and his own moral integrity. Through Hafiz's memories, thoughts, and dreams, DAYS OF CHANGE provides glimpses of the socio-political changes and ethical challenges Malaysians have had to cope with since Independence.

The launch is at 1.30pm, 12 June 2010, The Annexe, Pasar Seni, Kuala Lumpur. You are all invited.

And pre-orders available through Amazon.com. The book retails here at RM40.00

The Lesser Known Relatives of Classic Novels

I fell about laughing on Friday when I noticed the twitter hash-tag #lesserbooks via Eeleen Lee's tweets.  Alison Flood in The Guardian takes up the story of the novels that didn't quite make the shelves - among them such classics as Captain Corelli's Ukelele, To Slightly Maim a Mockingbird, The The Not-as-shite-as-you-think Gatsby, Zen and the Art of Unicycle Maintenance.

Eeleen's tweets were very funny.  Here are the titles she coined :

The Mediocre Gatsby
The Rough Sketch of Dorian Gray
The Raisins of Irritation
Infatuation In the Time of H1N1
Charlie and the Carob Factory
The Faucet-Head
A Wind-up Tangerine
Perdido Street Railway Platform
The Damien Hirst Code
A Farewell to Cuticles
The Detached-Retina Assassin
The Korma Sutra
Skype With the Vampire
The Liger, the Wiccan and the Laundry Basket

Feel Good Friday

Some miscellaneous things that celebrate the enjoyment of books :

A boy tries to steal a library book: a librarian notices and what happens transforms that boy's life forever.

On The New Yorker site a picture of what is probably the cutest children's playground library anywhere.  This magic mushroom can be found in Kyoto, Japan.

Neil Gaiman pays homage in The Times to Ray Bradbury whom he calls:

the builder of dreams

and how the author's works helped to form him as a writer. There have been several pieces in the newspapers about Bradbury lately, but this one is particularly heartfelt. 

And, ladies, if you need  little bookish eye-candy what is sexier than a hot guy reading? (I wasn't going to put this up, thinking my blog a bit too tabloid some days already, but since two readers sent me the link, what the heck!).

Have a great weekend.

Farrell's Troubles Wins Lost Booker

Troubles by J.G. Farrell, the first novel of his Empire Trilogy,  has been declared the winner of the Lost Man Booker Prize, forty years after it was first published. You may remember reading on this blog that this special prize was awarded by the Booker committee to honour the books that fell through the net when the rules were changed in 1970.

The press release describes the book :

Set in Ireland in 1919, just after the First World War, Troubles tells the tragic-comic story of Major Brendan Archer who has gone to visit Angela, a woman he believes may be his fiancée. Her home, from which he is unable to detach himself, is the dilapidated Majestic, a once grand Irish hotel, and all around is the gathering storm of the Irish War of Independence.

Claire Armistead in The Guardian says :

... to say that Farrell is a predictable winner is to undervalue his extraordinary resurrection and what it says about readers' continuing ability to recognise a great book when they see one. Troubles is a work of characteristic depth and humour, which views the decline of the British empire through the prism of a decaying seaside hotel – pointedly named the Majestic – in Wexford. ... Farrell's gift was the ability to immerse himself so thoroughly in his worlds, whether early 20th-century Ireland or mid-19th century India, that he never seems to preach as he tackles the big issues of race, culture and class.

It sounds as if the finding of the Lost Booker was a very valuable exercise indeed.  If Farrell had actually won in 1970, he would have been the first author to have won the prize twice.

Sadly, Farrell drowned while out fishing, aged 44.

Postscript :

Sam Jordison on The Guardian blog says :

Farrell's portrayal of the fast-decaying Majestic Hotel and England's even more rapidly crumbling rule in Ireland surely adds up to one of the best books of the last half-century, let alone 1970.

No Long Term Career for Authors

In literature it makes no sense to talk of 'a career' in the sense of a life that can be managed by the exercise of prudent thought. Writers who flourish at the peak of their powers for longer than a decade, or even two, are rare birds. ... There are exceptions. Writers who work in a genre, John le Carré for example, or PD James, are more likely to sustain a run of quality and a sequence of winners. 

Robert McCrum on The Guardian blog examines the reality of an author's long-term publishing prospects and it's quite depressing.

Ellen at Sunway

Star columnist Ellen Whyte will be sharing top Internet research tips over 2 free talks at the Monash University Open Day on Saturday 22nd May.

11.00-11.45: Getting to the Goodies: Finding Useful Resources Online
1.30- 2.15: Evaluating Information Found Online

Seats are limited so it's first come, first serve.  Ellen will also sign copies of her books: Logomania: Where Common Phrases Come From And How To Use Them and Katz Tales: Living Under The Velvet Paw.

Location: Monash University, Jalan Lagoon Selatan,Bandar Sunway, 46150,
Selangor, www.monash.edu.my , Tel: 03 5514 6000

Does Technology Improve the Reading Experience?

Anna Goodall in today's Independent asks important questions that seem to have got lost in all the excitement about ebook readers, the i-pad and the rest :

... does digital technology improve the experience of reading, especially reading fiction? Those aiming to make money out of e-book technologies need us to believe that it does. But can e-readers of whatever sort ever escape the whiff of functionality however impressively book-like they are? ... Even when reading them for work, paper books and magazines are a refuge from the laptop I'm chained to for hours a day. Reading paper books is an escape from utility, information overload, endless possibility... and my obsessive-compulsive social-networking habits.

And she wonders :

... are consumers in danger of forgetting how to enjoy themselves on their own terms? The body language of e-reader users I spotted at this year's London Book Fair didn't exactly suggest relaxation or pleasure. From the lone frowning Kindle-user spotted on the Tube on the way to Earl's Court holding her expensive cargo stiffly on her knees as if any excess movement and the whole thing might blow, to the touch-screen tap-tappings of stressed-out publishers demonstrating book-reading on the iPad by dragging several times (and a little frantically) at the virtual pages to get them over, one can't help thinking that turning a real page would be more enjoyable and stress-free. ... is the act of reading becoming a bit too business-like, too practical? 

Shirley Lim Workshop & Tunku Halim Talk

Here's a couple of events from the Silverfish calendar of events you might be interested in :

Shirley Geok-lin Lim Creative Writing Workshop

On Beginnings and Endings.

One day workshop on Sat July 17th from 10.30 am to 4.30pm at Silverfish Books, 58-1, Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur. Tel: 603 228 448 37. Email: info@silverfishbooks.com. Website: http://www.silverfishbooks.com

A two-part workshop that covers generating ideas, drafts, and short forms before turning to ways to develop, structure, and revise a competed short story or one-act play. The morning workshop will focus on producing "short shorts"--first drafts of selected poetic forms and flash fiction to be shared, reviewed, and revised. The afternoon workshop will examine models of longer forms--one-act plays and short stories--and focus on writing exercises that encourage practice and experimentation with structures of narrative development. Participants will be invited to submit selections of their previously written poems, stories, and one-act plays to include interactive revising and rewriting work.

Cost for one the day workshop is MYR200.00 per person. This workshop will be limited to 20 participants, and registration will be strictly on first-come-first-served basis. Shirley Lim is a very good teacher and her workshops are enormously popular. Please register (with full payment) early to avoid disappointment. (Many were, the last time she ran a workshop here.)
 
Book talk by Tunku Halim

There will be a book talk by Tunku Halim on the writing and researching of his latest book, A Children's History of Malaysia, on Saturday, 29th of May, 2010 at Silverfish Books, 58-1 Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru, Kuala Lumpur at 5.30pm. Tel: 228 448 37 Email: info@silverfishbooks.com

Tunku Halim has written numerous collections of short stories, two novels, a biography and is the author of the very popular A Children's History of Malaysia,  a handsome hardbound volume that will educate not just children. Most of the buyers so far have been adults -- many are expatriates who want to educate themselves a little more about the country they currently live in. Books on Malaysian history have become quite embarassingly scarce in the country and this is a welcome addition, not the least for its willingness to take some sacred cows by the horn.

Tunku Halim went to school at St John's in Kuala Lumpur before attending Cheltenham College, Sussex University and The City University in England. He has a Masters Degree with Distinction and is a Barrister of the Inner Temple. He has been admitted as a solicitor in Malaysia and in New South Wales.

Youngest Author?

The New Sunday Times today carries the story of Victoria Siaw Wei Yah who is publishing her second collection of short stories : Tales of Fantasy. What's so remarkable about that, you may ask?

Well, the young lady in question is just 14 years old and received a RM10,000 grant for her latest project from the Sarawak Foundation. Proceeds from the book are going to a charity for autism - her 20 year old brother is autistic. And autism is going to be the subject of her next book.

We last discussed the phenomena of very young writers here.

(The picture left, was taken when Victoria was 12.)

We Need Local Children's Books

I don’t want to see less of the wonderful books published every year in the United States and Britain – our reading lives would be a lot less rich without them. We just need other stories too. Stories from India, from China and Japan and South Korea, from Singapore and other Asean nations, from Australia, from Africa, from Polynesia and beyond. Asian content for the world, yes, but most importantly and urgently, Asian content for Asia.Malaysian writers need to make sure they tell our stories to the world’s children.

Daphne Lee in Starmag writes about the highlights of last week's Asian Festival of Children’s Content in Singapore and calls it "inspiring".

I went along for just one day of the festival since I had agreed to moderate the panel discussion of two children's writers : Singapore's Jessie Wee and Sarawakian Margaret Lim (who is now based in Germany). 

Both of them were thoroughly entertaining as  they talked about how they got started and the challenges they faced.

Jessie, who is really the pioneer children's writer in Singapore, wrote her adventures of Mooty the mouse for her two sons 30 years ago, convinced that :

... children in Singapore need stories they can identify with, stories they can call their own

She has written a total of 30 books.  Five of them were commissioned by U.K. publishers, two by American Express International Incorporated and she was also the contributor to books published by the Asian Culture Centre for UNESCO (Japan).

Margaret Lim has written four books based on her childhood in Sarawak and featuing a little Kayan girl called Payah. She was nominated by the Sabah State Library as a candidate for the prestigious 2008 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

I also managed to catch the launch of Daphne's first book under her One Red Flower imprint :  In my Mother's Garden, written and illustrated by Emilia Yusof.

Dangerous Novels for Aspiring Authors

Any young person who wants to be a novelist should of course be a reader as well. But some novels can be more hazard than inspiration. They are often well-written, but their effects have generally been disastrous: they inspired younger writers to imitate them, they created awful new genres that debased readers' tastes, or they promoted literary or social values that we could very much do without.

Among the authors Crawford Kilian lists on The Tyee website are Tolkein, Rand, and Hemingway.  And I have myself just been reading the work of a Kerouac-wannabe who would do so much better trusting his own voice. (Pic of the author left.) Rushdie has a hell of a lot to answer for too.  Any more you can think of?

Also listed are those authors who might be dangerous to newer writers - simply because they are so  good they leave us dumbfounded!

Sujuco's Novel of Philippine Politics

My family, my friends, my colleagues — we are the elites .. We are a wealthy, beautiful country, and we’ve screwed it up so badly.

Filipino author Miguel Syjuco's whose first novel, Ilustrado  :

... a satire of the chaos and violence of Philippine politics ...

won the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2008, is interviewed in The New York Times by Joyce Hor-Chung Lau.  The novel is released next month and features a main character who is called ... Miguel Syjuco!

 And who better to write about the turmoil in the Philippines than someone who is the son of a politician? :

His real-life father, Augusto Syjuco Jr., known as Boboy, stepped down from a cabinet post in the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to run for Congress in national elections on Monday.

You can also hear an interview with Sujuco on NPR.

Best Kids' Books

The Guardian features a very useful series of lists of the best children's books ever. Here's Lucy Mangan's introduction to the guide and readers add their own suggestions.

Postscript :

And to celebrate their 70th anniversary, children's publisher Puffin books has released a list of its 70 favourites.

Magic and Fantasy in Literature

Robert Raymer forwarded this information about a course taught by Alina Rastam to me and I think some of you will be interested :

 Magic and Fantasy in Literature

i) Course Description

Some of the most enduring and best-loved works of literature such as The Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter series, The Chronicles of Narnia and Alice in Wonderland are those that are set in a fantasy world, in which magic is a prime feature. It is clear that many people are fascinated by the genre of magic and fantasy. But what is it that we find so attractive about this genre? And can texts set in imaginary or fantasy worlds say anything of importance about the real life concerns and issues that we face or do they just pander to the escapist in us?

‘Magic and Fantasy in Literature’ is a seven-week course that will explore such questions through study of the following four texts:

• Two Arthurian short stories: i) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and ii) Gawain and the Loathely Lady, from Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Sword and the Circle.
• A Dark Horn Blowing by Dahlov Ipcar
• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

Participants will address general questions to do with the genre of magic and fantasy as well as study each of the texts in depth so as to understand the particular concerns and issues of each writer and text. No background in literary study is necessary – just a keen desire to open up to the worlds of magic and fantasy within the four exquisite texts we will be exploring in this course, and within yourself.

ii) Course Details

Classes will be held every Saturday afternoon starting on the 22nd of May.

Class Schedule: Class 1 – May 22
Class 2 – May 29
Class 3 – June 5
Class 4 – June 12
Class 5 – June 19
Class 6 – June 26
Class 7 – July 3.
Saturdays 3-5pm
Venue: 15 Persiaran Syed Putra, 50460 Kuala Lumpur (near Taman Seputeh, Brickfields).
Course Fees: RM600 per person. Full payment for the course to be made upfront and no refunds will be given.

Why Farish's History is So Important

Simply put, what we know of our past has been oversimplified and condensed into a mould meant to serve ulterior and narrow political motives. For example, little, if any, is ever spoken about the influences of Hindu and Buddhist cultures that have actually played a major role in forming what we know as “Malay” culture today. Similarly, the notions that Chinese and Indians only appeared on our landscape during late colonial times, as recent social ingredients that have made Malaysia multicultural – notions that play very well into the exclusivist political rhetoric that we hear all too often today in our nation. ... The second reason why this book is important, is that our obscured history has for too long been only available, for the most part, to the academicians. Hence, the uniqueness of where this wealth of information was initially presented to the general public.

Walski has an excellent review up on his blog of Farish Noor's alternative Malaysian history What Your Teacher Didn't Tell You.

If Only Books Grew on Trees

If only books grew on trees ... or perhaps they do. This picture was taken in the Swiss village of Romanmôtier by Victor Engmark, and appeared in The New Yorker.

It's a good point, I think, to ask you what you have been reading recently and what you think of it?

[Found vie Bookbench on Twitter]

Poet Agnes Meadows at Sunway

A message from Cindy Childress [via Facebook]:

Agnes Meadows, an internationally acclaimed British poet, is coming to KL this weekend--a trip made possible because at the moment she's in Singapore as part of a grant project with the LIT UP writing festival. Details about the reading are on the attached flyer, and I've pasted a link so you can listen to her poems. You can also browse two of her books, Woman and At Damascus Gate, on Google Books. I hope you can come to the event, and please feel free to help me spread the word about her reading at the Sunway International School this Friday evening at 7:00 p.m. She's a long-time friend of mine from the Austin International Poetry Festival and an established poet who inspires me.

(Click poster up to size to read.)

A Lack of Confidence

It is quite astonishing that a successful and globalised country like Malaysia should contemplate banning a mainstream account of its recent political developments. It suggests a lack of confidence beneath a glossy, modern exterior. The problem for the government is that there is too big a gap between what it has fed the public in official versions of events and what really happened as related in my book. ... On a practical level, the prolonged examination of the book before release indicates ineptness. Malaysians were buying the book by the hundreds in Singapore and elsewhere, rendering a possible future ban pretty much moot.

says Barry Wain author of Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times in an interview with Deborah Loh at The Nut Graph. The book is now available in the shops.
 

Hatrick for Mieville

China Miéville has won the Arthur C Clarke award, Britain's most prestigious science fiction prize for the third time. His novel The City and the City is described by Alison Flood in The Guardian as a "straightforward" crime novel with "a fantastical edge" :

... in the dilapidated city of Beszél in eastern Europe, Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad is trying to solve what initially looks like a routine case. But as he looks deeper into the murder of a mysterious woman, he discovers that she has links to Ul Qoma, a city that exists in the same physical space as Beszél but whose inhabitants studiously ignore any sign of overlap.

Flood also points out that the novel won the British Science Fiction Association prize for best novel earlier this month.

The Good News About Self-Publishing

Book publishing is simply becoming self-publishing

says Virginia Heffernan in The New York Times, making the point that the stigma once attached to this method of getting your work out into the world has largely dissipated.  Not only are numbers of self-published books up (2009 was 181% over 2008), but self-published books are acquiring a certain cachet.  Heffernan quotes IndieReader, an online source for self-published books as saying :

Think of these books like handmade goods, produced in small numbers, instead of the mass-marketed stuff you’d find at a superstore.

She also points out that self-publishing is :   

...a quiet godsend to literary history. ... Books that defy traditional classification now appear in print, and reprints of public-domain titles account for the biggest category of self-published books.

Postscript :

There's a very good response to this article by Joel Friedlander at The Book Designer. He finds holes in some of Heffernan's findings but says that :

Self-publishing is incredibly healthy and growing at a pretty amazing rate. ... And as far as quality, why is it that no one ever looks through the huge piles of schlock that are included in the 288,355 books from traditional publishers? ...  The self-publishers I’ve been dealing with since the 1990s routinely turn out books that are every bit as good as those coming from traditional publishers. And we’ve been doing it the same way for the twenty-odd years I’ve been involved in independent publishing: by paying attention to detail, hiring in professionals where needed, and knowing the market because we are the market.

Here are the readers' comments on the original article.

No Chinese Laureate

We know that no Chinese who writes in the Chinese language will ever be bestowed the title of Sasterawan Negara*, unlike in Singapore where the literatures of all the main language streams are recognised and honoured with the Cultural Medallion, etc.

This from a most eloquent article by Kee Thuan Chye expressing Chinese frustrations. Uthaya Sankar S.B. has, of course made the point about no non-Malays ever holding the post before. (And there is a lot of very good discussion in the comments to the post.)  Let's hope that things really do change soon, because participation by all races of a nation is vital to its life (literary and otherwise!).

*Laureate.