Better Book Titles

What a great idea - a website :

... for people who have trouble slogging through the information on book jackets or feel intimidated by the title and cover itself.

Dan Wilbur retitles famous novels to give you the lowdown on them.  Above are are a couple of my favourites.  (Of course you spotted that they were of A Clockwork Orange and Ulysses, respectively.)

(Found via a tweet from ubudwritersfest.)

Complete Review at 10

The Complete Review hits its tenth anniversary, and M.A. Orthofer comes clean about the fact that it isn't written by a whole team of people ... 95% of the reviews are his own, as are nearly all the posts at Literary Saloon. This has long been one of my favourite sites, and I did wonder how many folks were behind it. Now I feel put to shame.

Orthofer says that he has always tried to stay very much in the background :

...disappearing completely unrecognized behind the scenes ...

but a definite voice emerges, and it's one I like very much.

I also really appreciate the fact that the picks up news from all over the planet - gleaning fascinating literary pickings ... sometimes from the obscurest of sources. Because literature isn't only about what happens in the western centres of publishing.

So yes, a really big thank you, and here's to the next ten years.

New Classics to Win Back the Blokes

Following the shock-horror-gasp revelation the other day that women are better readers than blokes, and Jean Hannah Edelstein's plea on The Guardian blog, Bookninja is announcing a contest to "remasculate" books in order to repatriate male readers.

You need to change the title and basic plot summary (one sentence, max) of a famous book—and if the book is by a woman, “masculate” her as well. There are bonus points for reinventing the cover (as in the funky remake of Iris Murdoch's The Sea at left.) More inspiration here (though you may never recover from titles like The Ass is Singing by Boris Lessing!)

You can also join the Bookninja group on Facebook and if you want your literary updates intravenously instantaneously, you can subscribe to his feed on Twitter.

Anyway, off you go, and don't paste your great ideas here, go along to George's blog.

The 50 Most Important Malaysian Books

Amir Muhammad is asking :

If you were to compile, say, 50 Malaysian books that you should read, what would this list consist of?

He's decided to limit discussion to C2oth books which cuts out some of my favourites, and, he says :
I suppose if I were to set out 3 criteria for inclusion (3 sounds reasonable), a book to be included must be :

1. Referenced often, either in local popular discourse or subsequent books.
2. Exceptionally well-written.
3. Emblematic of a particular Malay(si)an experience.

All 3 would be good, but I will settle for 1.5 :-)

An essential reading list for Malaysian books is a topic that has come up a couple of times before on this blog (see here and here) along with the observation that so much of the local literary heritage is out-of-print and unavailable to a younger generation of readers and writers. Anyway please direct your ideas about the list to Amir, either on his blog or on Facebook. (I have closed the comments for this post.) There is some really lively discussion going on!

Amir is keeping pretty busy. There's his column, Pulp Friction, about influential Malaysian books old and new for the newly revamped Malay Mail, as well as a column about vintage Malay films in Tell magazine and a ready supply of politician quotes for Off the Edge. Books in preparation, all, by the looks of things.

(Pic of Amir (left) with Datuk Shan taken at Silverfish by Shahril Nizam.)

Good Things on Other Blogs

The latest literary gossip from local bloggers:

Is Kafka Austrian or Czech? Raman recounts a diplomatic tug of war and writes about Milan Kundera's new book The Curtain (which I was tempted to buy when I slipped into Silverfish yesterday ... such is the power of blog reviews.)

MPH Bookstores blog Redwhitespot has sadly gone under just as it was beginning to get interesting with some of May Lee's posts. I think the name had bad feng-shui and wanted to warn them, as it always made me think of a pimple. (So sorry!) May Lee and Rodney and the rest - if you feel the need for a space to blog, feel free to tumpang a space here.

Talking of MPH though, super-editor Eric Forbes has a nice post which talks about how book reviewers are developing in Malaysia - and I have to agree with him and he ties this to reviews of James Wood's essays which now I have to buy. (Expensive business, reading other book blogs.)

Eli James of Novelr wrestles valiantly with the question of purple prose.

I've not been very good at turning up for events organised by other people, much to my shame. I sincerely apologise to the folks who would like to have seen me there. I'm grateful to those who give me a vicarious glimpse of what went on, including Ted (left) who posted pictures of last months Katasuara at Raja Ahmad's gallery. Jordan Macvay (spelt right!) writes about being part of Bernice's Ceritaku storytelling event.

I've always has a great phobia of dentists, and when I can avoid 'em I do. Deepika had a very special "dentist" take a look at her teeth during a panel discussion which she was moderating at the Galle Literary festival in Sri Lanka: it was none other that Vikram Seth! (See photo right.) In his round up of festival events, Nury Vittachi tells the story :

At one point, he (Vikram) told an entertaining story about a relative who was a one-armed dentist. To illustrate the challenges involved, he put his arm around the head of moderator Deepika Shetty and duly inspected her back molars. ... What the author didn’t know – but many of the rest of us did – was that Singapore journalist Ms Shetty has just completed a lengthy dental treatment which involved carrying around a quarter of a ton of metal in her mouth for more than a year. Thus his good reports about her dentition carried great weight.

Postscript :

Oops. How did I forget to say welcome to the new Kakiseni blog?

Blogging Buddies

A round-up of lit-related posts on other local blogs which I have enjoyed ...

Glenda Larke is shortlisted for a fantasy award (biggest congrats!) and finds herself featured in a beautiful HarperCollins diary.

Robert Raymer (below) has an interesting (and inspiring) piece on networking with others: He offers this insight:

Two things need to happen when you network. One is you have to listen. We can all talk and share our ideas with others – that’s the easy part. But how well do we listen? How well do we act upon what we hear? That’s the second part of network­ing, the most critical part, too – action. Or as Jim Rohn, the success guru for an entire generation of world class speakers and self-help motivators would say, “take massive action”. Ideas are as common as clichés about ideas, starting with “they’re a dime a dozen”. But without action, they’re just that – ideas that can sit on the back burner of your life and follow you to your grave.

And talks about how networking both in "real" life and via the blogs helped him plan a new book project.

The subject of how well films made from novels match up to the original book is one that comes up regularly on this blog and movie buff Guo Shao-Hao steps into the frey:

I've always maintained that one shouldn't be comparing apples and oranges, or mee rebus and spaghetti, when it comes to film adaptations of written works. First and foremost, they are two different mediums, and secondly, film audiences and book lovers are different targets.

He talks about the adaptations of the Richard Matheson's modern vampire story I Am Legend (Eyeris reviews the graphic novel adaptation of the book here) and Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta, as well as the recently released film version of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass.

Ted reviews the film and isn't too impressed. (And neither is Daphne Lee.)

Elsewhere, Ted picks up a great story about a perfectly readable novel written entirely by computer software! And also the very sad announcement that the much-loved Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld novels has Alzheimer's disease.

Dari Jiwa Rasa gets the latest consignment of publications from Dewan Bahasa (left) and reports on the award winning Malay novels for the Hadiah Sayembara Mengarang Sempena Perayaan Jubli Emas DBP.

Eric Forbes has a lengthy list of best reads of 2007 but looking at it it gives me a sicky feeling in my tum because I know I've barely scratched the surface of all the good stuff that's been on offer. (Actually I want Eric to come clean about how many he's actually read, how many he's just dipped into, and how many he's merely heard about. Maybe then I will stop feeling incredibly inconsolably guilty.)

Novelr points out that while it's all well and good putting your writing online, but asks what's going to happen to it all after youre dead? It seems he has the solution!

Adib the Reader discovers to his cost that buying too many books is not the only perilous temptation of the new Times Bookshop at The Pavillion and adds an inch or two to his waist.

Tunku Halim discovers the benefits of writing standing up. I believe Hemingway did too.

Getting the word out about our blogs is always important, and I owe big thanks to Luke Razzell and his friends who have tweaked the BlogFriends application on Facebook to make it an excellent way of discovering new voices and getting your own work read. Beats throwing sheep any day!

I thank too the team at Malaysia's Daily Voices. I'm dead chuffed that I've made it into the top 20 blogs a couple of times, particularly as most of the other top blogs are talking about the issues that should be talked about in the face of an entirely toothless press.

Blog advertising company Nuffnang introduced aggregator Innit, which I am also grateful for and I think has potential.

If I have missed anything else interesting please feel free to post a link in the comments.

Good Blog Gossip

By the centrifugal force of bloggetry which sucks you in and spits you out in all directions here are some much good things for you to check out:

A new blog has been set up for the South-East Asian Literature Project with news of an anthology in progress, related projects and some very interesting links. If you are a local writer, you'll want to book mark this!

Deepika writes about organising a reading for Indian author Rana Dasgupta's reading from Tokyo Cancelled, and Zafar was there in the audience. One of the stories in Dasgupta's collection was apparently inspired by the time he spent in Malaysia and Singapore.

Eric announces the release by MPH of Lions in Winter, short stories by Wena Poon. I love what I've read of her work so far in Silverfish collections (another "lapper"?) so can't wait to get hold of this.

I'm still jealous that Swifty got to visit to Pablo Neruda's home in Chile. He also has a very interesting review of Haruki Murakami's After Dark on his blog.

Obiter Dictum gives a thumbs up to The Last Nizam which he calls:

... a delicious slice of history ...

I met John Zubrzycki at Ubud (at one point a few of us were sharing a salad!) but am still kicking myself that I missed his session. This is a book I very much want to read.

Ted is missing in Nanowrimo action. But the good news is that it doesn't seem to be taking him very long to knock out a novel! He's almost a third of the way to the 50,000 target already.

I must also give a mention to Malaysia's Daily Voices which gives a very useful snapshot of what in the Malaysian blogging community by listing the blogs that get the biggest increase in attention and listing the top 15 blog posts. I keep going back to see if I'm on it to get the most current news and pick up interesting opinions. The sort of stuff that we won't see in the main stream newspapers, although really, we should.

One wonders how today's rally will be reported in the press. My heart is with all those taking part.

All Aboard The Local Litblog Express

Being short of inspiration and energy this morning, it seems a good a time as any for a wander over to see what other bloggers are saying about books.

Welcome to the litblogosphera my new friend Obiter Dictum who writes most amusingly. I particularly liked this post about burning books, written in response to one of mine. His conversation starter:

If you were given a guilt free coupon to burn one book, which one would it be?

Now go tell him, not me!

Shark Gila is making a grand assault on 100 books this year and is almost halfway there! She was underwhelmed by Coetzee's Disgrace though.

K.Kim is a Penang based illustrator who is working on a children's book about a rickshaw puller who sails from China to Malaya to seek his fortune. I'd buy it for the pictures alone! She also covered Kam Raslan's reading in Borders up there for the Star.

Eric is compiling a comprehensive list of contemporary Malaysian books, and wants to know if he has missed any. He also whets our appetites for books that will hit the shops this month.

Don't miss Kaykay's piece on reading (and writing reviews) in the toilet which is hilarious.

Oh, and if you feel like working up a good head of outrage, just look at how the editor of New Man magazine in Singapore responds (in the comments) to a freelancer with a perfectly legitimate grouse. Downright rudeness passes for machismo?

Also from the land down South, Zafar blogs about Michael Ondaatje's new book (and sounds as excited as I am!) and adds to the debate about book reviewing among other excellently written stuff. Meanwhile read@peace's Deepika Shetty enjoys Two Caravans by Monica Lewycka, and catches performance poet Ray McNiece in action.

More notable blogstuff coming soon. Never mind books - I need a gallon of coffee this morning before I can feel like a human being again. Writing really does your head in, doesn't it? (I met two deadlines yesterday, but missed another, and then taught my class. Am exhausted.)

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 ...

Elsewhere Blog Things

Somewhere under the sea in Taiwan, a cable got damaged by an earthquake, and the internet in this part of the world became slower than a crawl down the Federal Highway. The problem will take some days to fix. Those of us internet addicted grind our teeth in frustration, though as Shaolin Tiger pointed out on Monster Blog it might be a good time move away from the keyboard and get a life. (Though, I must say that this morning everything is flowing much better.)

In the scale of bad things, an appaulling internet connection doesn't compare at all to the suffering of those caught in the floods in Johor and Amir makes a plea for donations which I'd like to pass on.

Meanwhile, Kaykay, our book club thorn between the roses, is putting up some pretty good book and film reviews on his blog - all guy stuff, of course. The latest novel under scrutiny is Hannibal Rising, which sounds quite tasty!

Another online review I very much enjoyed reading was Zafar's account of Elmo Jayawardena’s debut novel, Sam's Story which I have to read soon. (It's published locally by Marshall Cavendish.) I met Captain Elmo at the Ubud Readers' and Writers' Festival, and he is not only one of the most important Sri Lankan authors, but someone who sets out to change the world through acts of kindness. Deepika has much more about him here.

Eric highlights some of the local books to look out for in 2007. Ted has been posting all kinds of quirky things. I particularly liked his post on why books will never let you down and the amazing tale of the little Malaysian girl who's read 2,000 books (*gasp*).

Glenda gets shortlisted for an Australian Fantasy award ... again. (And since we've been talking about the Johor floods, do read Glenda's account of some of the manmade causes of them ... we're all too quick to blame acts of God, but poor urban planning and deforestation play a large part in many of the disasters we're seeing in this part of the world.)

And Xeus has a very nasty personal experience ... and immediately sees it as material for a story. (Writers are funny people, y'know!) Lydia describes her book launch for Honk If you're Malaysian! Biggest congrats ... and am so sorry I missed the event.

Any more good book stuff I've missed? Do mention it in the comments.

It strikes me that between us, we have a lot more great literary content than any of the newspapers! And doesn't this in itself make a strong statement for the value of blogging here in Malaysia?

More Elsewhere Blogthings

Listen. I'm having one of those days when I should be anywhere else but on my blog. But here are some other book related links from local bloggers that should interest you.

Glenda picks up the question of SpongeBob's sexuality and the true nature of his relationship with Patrick the Starfish (which may be the reason for the book becoming "restricted") and then gives us an environmentalists insights into the erotic lives of sponges.

Zafar asks and answers a question that I've been pondering: Ever wondered why the poets in Singapore generally outnumber the island state's prose writers?

From Xeus' blog I found a link to a very interesting page on the Thai Oasis website about a genre I hadn't heard about before: Bangkok Fiction.

Eric has an interview with Adibah Amin, co-written with MPH's Renee Koh, in which she talks about the writing craft. It's going to appear in the January issue of Quill. (I want my copy right now.)

Young Ted has emerged on the further shore of the Nanowrimo drowning, not waving. (No doubt he'll tell us all about his experiences when he finishes coughing up water.) He has a book review in Starmag to brag about, and yet another rejection letter to proudly add to his collection. (Well if you must start at The Paris Review and The New Yorker instead of Silverfish New Writing ...). Here's a great use for rejection letters by the way - send them to Lulu.com and have them turned into toilet paper. Then you can really put them behind you.

And having been Jeffooied, I've now been DaftOied. I probably deserved it, jumping in with big-mouth opinions (shock horror!) which other people did not welcome ... particularly as they come from a Brit ... which seem to bring out a certain degree of post-colonial inferiority in the aforesaid pseudononymous blogger. Maybe he should change the name of his blog to CheapShots?

The difference between being Jeffoied and DaftOied? About 500 hits.

Can I go now?

(Pic = SpongeBob of course. Much hotter than DaftOi.)

Good Bookish Stuff from Elsewhere

This is where I pull you in and then send you out in all directions! Here are some very nice posts from elsewhere.

Deepika (among much else good stuff) has a very nice post about Ziauddin Sardar, author of Why People Hate America and Desperately Seeking Paradise and one of the writers we met at Ubud.

I also forgot to link last month to her Q&A with Shashi Tharoor, novelist and recently one of the forerunners for Kofi Annan's job. (Read the interview and then tell me you don't have time to write!)

Zafar picks up Naipaul being (surprise, suprise) oh so nasty about Indian literature, and then Sheela Reddy being oh so nasty about Naipaul. He also links to Singaporean poet Felix Cheong talking about why now is the best time to be a writer in Asia.

Eric Forbes' blog continues to be the source of (too) much bibliogreed for me. He highlights some of the books to look out for in 2007. I also realised with a sense of horror that while this biblioaddicted Brit has been blabbing on about the Booker, I didn't pick up on the 2006 National Book Awards at all.

Another award that has slipped below my radar is Canada's Giller Prize. Go read about it on Lotus Reads' blog. Lotus was also the only one of my blog readers to rearrange her home library by colour and I think she deserves some kind of prize for that!

Ted has an atmospheric tale about a bookshop and a haunting ... Eliza has tips on how to bluff your way in the company of booklovers if you're too lazy to read. And I also enjoyed her piece on blooks.

Glenda has a couple of very interesting posts about the writing of fantasy trilogies, here and here. (I know very little about this genre so was intrigued.)

Swifty's blog features Justin's review of Borges' Labyrinths and John Fowles The French Lieutenant's Woman. (Don't you guys have some course work to do around the blogging?)

There's more, there's more, but I'm too tired to collate it all.

Hey! Who says we don't have a literary supplement?

(Picture stolen from here.)

Elsewhere Things

Singularly uninspired this morning. Have been trying to get my messy house into some kind of order before my sister and her tribe arrive today, cleaning corners that haven't been touched for ages - probably not since her last visit! Hanging curtains is not my occupation of choice and has cut severly into my reading time, though I'm carrying around The Ghostwriter by Philip Roth, and reading Robert Lowell's poetry in bed and Julia Cameron's Letters to a Young Artist in the loo (the chapters are so short, I don't think I run the risk of piles, Visitor!)

Must also give up drinking Tesco's ground coffee which tastes great but is keeping me awake for hours, heart palpitiating like mad. This morning I feel like a zombie and will probably only come awake once I've had another cup of Tesco's coffee ... (Balzac died of caffeine poisoning so I'm in good company!)

(It didn't help matters that I went to pick up the mob at the airport - only to find I was there a whole day early. Attention deficit disorder!)

So while I cast around for something more exciting to blog - here are some of my favourite posts from elsewhere

Glenda Larke wrestles with the question of image and the author photo :

I look like the "before" shot for someone going on an Oprah makeover show for really desperate housewives. So how the hell is any photo of me going to help sell my books?

before plumping for a more casual look that resembles the Glenda we know and love. (I symapathise - I hate photos of me and the best look I might plump for is ... intereresting.) Worth reading too are her rants about the haze and the Malaysian culture of indifference to breaking the law. And of course her continuing articles about getting published.

Starlight made me go out and buy the Summer reading issue of O magazine (Oprah's venture), and I'm so glad I did because there are a number of very good articles on reading. I'm saving it to read on the beach in a few day's time (gotta do the whole tourist bit, right?). Starlight's really started something with her short-shorts challenge with several people posting on their blogs and others posting her blog. Among those to have posted so far are John Ling and Jerusha. I will get round to writing a short-short soon - promise. (On a beach, where there are no more curtains to hang!)

Our Ted, of course has a lot of interesting stuff. His post about what I said the other night in my writing class about reading 1,000 books seems to have touched a raw nerve and sparked a lot of discussion about "the bloke in bangsar". My take is love him or hate him (and I have very mixed feelings) he's still done more for the local lit scene than any other individual.

Ted also put up the pictures of the Hadiah Sastera Kumpulan Utusan (Utusan Group Literature Prize) award-giving ceremony which Cean (far left) sent to both of us. Here are the prize-winners for the Novel Remaja Bahasa Inggeris (English Young Adult Novel) category. (First prize winner Chin Han is seated far right and Su Ann, second-prize winner, is in the centre.) The novels are being published around September. Congrats again!

I loved Lydia's reworking of a fairytale for hopeless bookaholics!

And I can't help it, The Malay Male makes me laugh more than anyone else. I enjoyed reading about the highlights of his career with the tacky tabloid (before it became the waste of newsprint it is now after its new look).

There's so much good writing on the blogs. But not on this one today. Please enjoy your elsewhere trips while I recover.