Times' Mega Book Fair

Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Happened up at Times Mega book sale in BSC after finishing at the hairdressers, and ended up spending way too much. 30-90% discount on books and some very good titles.

Karim at Times

Karim Raslan will appearing at Times, Pavilion KL this Sat (24th) at 3.00pm to talk about his books, Ceritalah 3 and sign copies. (My previous post about the book is here.)

Book Clearance Sale

Times is closing a branch :

- Up to 90% discount
- 3 for RM10
- Daily specials @ RM1
- 11am – 8pm
- 2nd Floor, CapSquare Centre (Map)

+6.017.375.4223

Times - You've Come a Long Way, Baby!

Times has had something of an image makeover and Leowania was kind enough to send me a photo of this tasty window display at Pavilion. What other bookstore has the Donatella Versace home collection setting off the book display very artfully?

They also have some good things happening this month, including discounts for World Book Day. (I'm smiling because MPH always celebrates this in April along with UNESCO. What can be better than two days to celebrate reading!)


And then there are some interesting author appearances. (Do click the posters up to full size for the info.)


This is one I must not miss! Tarek Fatah on March 11th. (Read more about his book and listen to a broadcast here.)


Adeline Loh will make you laugh with her crazy adventures on March 14th.


You can catch writers from Urban Odysseys collection on March 21st.

Haruki's Magic Diary

Talking of perfect Christmas presents for the reader or writer in your life, I think I have found the nicest one of all - The Murakami Diary 2009. I spotted some copies at Times in BSC today and wish I had gone back to buy one, even though I already have a diary for next year.

It's just a little book, visually lovely, with nice Murakami quotes that would lend themselves for use as writing prompts. As the blurb on Amazon.co.uk has it :

Cats slink across the pages; the seasons are marked by cherry blossom and Japanese maple; spaghetti strands or telephone cords separate the days; and a generous selection of quotations and extracts from Murakami's novels and stories appear on almost every page to inspire, amuse or entertain. This is a diary like no other, faithful to all that is witty, surreal, sexy and beautiful in Murakami's work. A must-have for fans of Murakami, fans of Vintage fiction and fans of unique design, this diary will appeal to everyone as a quirky companion for 2009.

By the miracle of YouTube, you can see it here :

BTW, if you are in Bangsar do go and check out the new-look Times branch as it is very squidgy, and even has a nice little cafe in the back portion. What it doesn't have (fortunately or unfortunately) is the "walk of temptation" anymore, where you had to walk past all the brand new, incredibly desirable titles as you entered the shop ...

Update (27/12):

I am gobsmacked with happiness after my friends at Times read this post and couriered a copy of the book!!! I really love it and it will be my constat companion in 2009. Thanks so much!

Times Warehouse Sale

Go get your supply of cheapie books. (Click on poster to enlarge.)

Britain Marks World Book Day

Britain celebrates World Book Day today (ahead of the rest of the world which celebrates on April 23rd) and more titles are added to the excellent series of Quick Reads aimed at providing accessible reading materials for the less than less than fluent or time strapped reader.

The World Book Day website has some pretty good book-related games for kids (which - ahem! - might appeal to adults too.)

I found though an unpardonable blooper in their quiz for adults. Can you spot it too?

The first Book to Talk Award, organised in conjunction with the event has been given to Boy A by Jonathan Trigell. The longlist was drawn up by publishing industry experts and librarians, and then the shortlist and final winner were decided by public vote.

Trigell's novel has certainly sparked off some controversy. According to the Guardian it is :

... a sympathetic account of a young man released from prison after committing an appalling crime as a child. After a peculiarly sheltered childhood, the protagonist has a strange innocence, and struggles not only with his atrocious memories but also to build a new life under his assumed identity. ... The book's plot has clear similarities to the true story of toddler James Bulger's juvenile killers, and unsurprisingly provoked much heated discussion on the Books to Talk About website. The polarised opinions made it a natural contender for a prize rewarding books that inspire discussion, both in book clubs and among individual readers.

There's nothing to mark the day in Malaysia this time round but it's still a good excuse for a book buying spree and Times Bookstores have a World Book Day special: 20% off all titles and an extra RM10 voucher if you spend over RM200.

Times Secret Warehouse Sale

A friend told me yesterday that there's a Times warehouse sale on at the moment. (How come I didn't get an e-mail this time?)

Well, I got the rest of the information about it from the shoppingnsales blog, which also has a map. Can I stay away??

Best at Borders

(Click to enlarge.) Borders at the Curve have some pretty tasty offers on books this week and there's still time to take advantage of the special offers!

BTW ear to the ground, I've heard that book retail space in the Klang valley is set to increase exponentially soon with very large new branches of Times and Borders springing up in newly constructed shopping malls. (Will let you know more when I know the details.)

Now then, where are the readers??

Postscript:

Eyeris waxes very lyrical about his bargains from BookXcess.

Promoting the Local Stuff

Haliza Hashim-Doyle catches up with Tan Twan Eng at the Verulam Writers Circle in St Albans, Hertfordshire, in this piece in yesterday's Malay Mail. Nice to see the picture of him at a book signing in a branch of Borders in London.

Other local authors are working hard to promote their books. Chet writes about Kam Raslan's reading at Kinokuniya and reports that the book is selling so well that the warehouse has run out of stock!

You can catch Kam again on 27 May 2007 at Borders The Curve.

Another book that has had to be reprinted already is Dina Zaman's I Am Muslim. I am sad to have missed Dina's reading yesterday afternoon at Borders, the Curve, but hope that it went well.

Just see how nicely Borders is promoting these books in Chet's photos, here and here. And Times (left) recently had The Gift of Rain stacked high in its Bangsar branch with a 25% off special offer! Kinokuniya also has a special 20% off offer on it with the purchase of another book.

Local writers can only succeed if the bookshops here are clued up, and it is great to see so much support.

Postscript

Ooops. Eric points out in the comments something I missed:

Let's not forget Kam Raslan will also be appearing with Prof. Lim Chee Seng and Nizam Zakaria at the MPH Writers' Circle at MPH One-Utama on May 19, 2007 (Saturday). They will be talking about characterization in fiction. How to develop believable characters in fiction. All lovers of fiction, whether literary or otherwise, should attend.

MPH has been doing much good work to promote writers of course with the Writer's Circle Meetings and the Litbloggers Breakfasts.

Books Snapped and Naps Napped

I was a victim of the Times Warehouse sale. On Sundays parking is easy.

Even though half the space was taken by the Guardian Pharmacy sale, there was still tons of choice, but you have to hunt hard to find the real treasures.

I'm thrilled to bits with my haul.

Silliest book I bought was a book about the virtues of taking naps! (Permisssion to Nap by Jill Murphy Long ... as if I need encouragement!) Am excited about the really great fiction I found, including titles by Canadian, Australian, African authors. (Click the pic to see the titles - I'm too lazy to type them). Camilla Gibb had tipped me off about MG Vassanji (who won the Giller prize in 2003) when I interviewed her.

Where are we going to start, Nisbo?

Dunno mate. Let's take a nap and sleep on it.

Well Times-d!

Hate to tell you, but.

Times The Bookshop will be having a stock clearance alongside Guardian's Mega Stock Clearance.

Details are as follows:

Date: 26th April - 2nd May (1st day is preview day so bring your cards!)

Time: 10am - 8pm

Contact: 014-227 3635

Venue: 2nd Floor, Dataran Hamodal, Block A, (behind Colgate), Jln Bersatu 13/4, Seksyen 13, 46200, PJ

Here's the map:

Thanks Laydiefa for forwarding the email.

Little Books with a Big Mission

My article about World Book Day and how we get to celebrate it twice in Malaysia is in StarMag today. I have to tell you that it was written in record time (for me, anyway! Had to pretend to myself I was writing a blog entry between first and second cups of tea!)

Anyway, the article allowed me to do a little bit of tub-thumping over a couple of issues close to my heart - reading campaigns and books for marginal readers.

The Quick Reads series I mention in the article is I think a very exciting innovation - short, exciting reads by top writers, which are accessible to those who might find a longer book a bit of a struggle. They are not in any sense simplified readers and there is nothing dumbed down about them. This I think is a very important point.

New titles have just been released in conjunction with World Book Day 2007 including Lily by Adele Geras, Twenty Tales from the War Zone by John Simpson, Dr Who: Made of Steel by Terrance Dicks, The Sun Book of Short Stories and the delightfully titled Reading: My Arse! a novel by Ricky Thomlinson. The series is also supported by extensive resource material.

I have seen the books in Times in Bangsar Shopping Complex, but they were just mixed in with everything else. Other bookstores seem to sadly have missed the boat. (I have, though, ordered the whole set for the British Council Library and feel they will be ideal for the language learners who use the resources there.)

I reckon that if Britain has almost a fifth of the population who are sub-literate, Malaysia is likely to have a much higher proportion. You can't simply issue a government directive and tell people that they should read books. Many people can't read books!

But perhaps they can be lead to reading books if the stepping stones are put in place for them.

The simple equation is this: if a marginal reader picks up a little book that they can finish without too much of a struggle, and has a very enjoyable reading experience, they will be looking to repeat the experience.

Anyway, it's World Book Day tomorrow, so why not buy a book for a close friend as a gift and present it with a red rose?

Cheapo Cheapo Books

It can't be anything but good news when you come across a source of cheap copies of books you want to read.

I seldom go to Amcorp Mall, but went exploring on Friday and found several book rental shops, a branch of Pay Less and branch of Popular, and this ...

Some four years back Jaqueline Ng (pictured here with her husband) began selling imported magazines in Reissued for a fraction of the cost of current issues - most titles go for RM9.90, and it's possible to get magazines which are just a month or two old. It's a good place to stock up on reading material for specialist interests and some of the titles are not normally sold in Malaysia.

She has now started BookXcess in the adjacent lot, planning to bring in a plentitude of cheap books from the UK. She's using the same suppliers as Big Bookshop and plans to keep prices to the same level e.g. most fiction titles are going for under RM20. The difference is that you won't have to wait for a warehouse sale - the books will be this price year round. A new consignment will be here soon and she has promised to let me know when they arrive.

Meanwhile, if you are in Amcorp, do drop by and talk to Jacqueline about the kinds of books you'd like to see brought in and the kind of prices you'd be prepared to pay. The shop is located at Level 2-10. (And why not go browse when you drop by the Sunday flea market?)

Anyway I couldn't resist a few mags and bought Dreams of Speaking by Gail Jones for RM19.90.

I also went off the the Times Warehouse sale. There were an awful lot of books there - as usual - but a lot I think were "recycled" from their previous sales and there was little fiction that I fancied.

I wasn't tempted go crazy, but found enough stuff to make me happy including Melvyn Bragg's 12 Books that Changed the World (which I had almost bought full price), Writing Poetry (in the Teach Yourself series but surprisingly useful), The Cat Owner's Manual (am a sucker for books on cats and this one made me laugh 'cos it's written in techie speak) An Instance of the Finger Post by Iain Pears (a novel highly recommended by friends some time back), and Shirley Lim's Joss and Gold (to fill a gap in my local reading).

Was a bit sad to see books getting bent and warped by the way they were arranged/ chucked on the tables. Even a remaindered book deserves respect.

And the biggest downside to the sale was the total hassle of trying to find a parking place where there were none at all to be had.

Not enough cheap books for you? The Big Bookshop warehouse sale is still on in Atria until the end of this month, though no new stock has been added. And MPH has a Bookfair and Stock Clearance Sale at its Subang Parade branch 17th-28th January, with discounts of up to 50%.

(Pic nicked from MPH website)

The Peril of Bookstores

Writing about books is dangerous. I come across them in bookshops and they feel so much like old friends I have to greet them. "Hey, it's you! Here at last! I blogged about you months ago and coveted you ... and now I have you in my hands. ... I simply must take you home with me at once."

But penury beckons. I was in Atria yesterday, (buying fish from Giant, but found myself upstairs in the Big Bookshops Warehouse Sale again for some reason) and manged to find cheap copies of The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan (a gap in my reading), The Ghost Writer by John Harwood (horror story!) and Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky which is on all the best books of 2006 lists.

Then I was in Bangsar Shopping Centre and my legs lead me to Times where I found Self-Made Man: My Year Disguised as a Man by Norah Vincent, The Ruby in Her Navel by Barry Unsworth, Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl and the graphic version of City of Glass by Paul Auster. (See what you guys have done to me - I've bought my first graphic novel!)

The Pessl and Unsworth books are very nice trade paperback editions, of the sort you have to buy those quickly or you end up with manky mass-market paperbacks with newsprint pages and a shelf-life of six months.

But I was honestly working very hard in BSC.

Well ... it might have looked to an outsider as if I was having my hair fiddled with by Felix and my toe nails adorned by Alice with a silly snowman picture, but actually I was tearing through The Brooklyn Follies. (Of which I say nothing more at the moment ... though to give you a clue about how I feel about it, I ended up buying extra copies as gifts.)

And yes, even in Times, book-browsing, it was work: I was checking out what to buy for British Council Library - especially the latest cookbooks. (Nigellas and Jamies.)

I also ended up selling a few books for the bookshop because I got chatting to other bookslovers! Sadly, no-one wants to give me commission.

I was also mouching around the Amazon site looking for a few gifts for my family in UK. My 14 year old nephew Alex is the hardest to buy for.

Not because I can't think what he might like.

I'm sure he'd love Recipes For Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook A Moveable Feast or Backyard Ballistics: Build Potato Cannons, Paper Match Rockets, Cincinnati Fire Kites, Tennis Ball Mortars and More Dynamite Devices.

But I don't think my sis would still love me if I bought them for him.

Time for Times

I did go to the Times warehouse sale. After the Pay less sale last weekend RM20 for a brand new hardback seems extortionate. But I got several books which made me very happy indeed. Some were nicer copies of books I already have, some filled gaps. My best buys as follows:

I'd meant to buy Julian Barnes short story collection The Lemon Table when it first came out, but didn't for some reason, so am delighted to have found it in hardback for 20 bucks.

I got What Was She Thinking: Notes from a Scandal by Zoe Heller (The British edition of the book is simply Notes from a Scandal - much better title). This is the book that should have beaten Life of Pi to win the Booker. Chilling ... and one of the cleverest novels using an unreliable narrator ever written. I'd lent out my copy of this book and it never got back to me, so a pothole in the heart is refilled.

My itch to acquire some good Japanese literature was scratched with Tanizaki's Diary of a Mad Old Man (Swifty will be proud of me!) and the American lit itch was taken care of with E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime.

I found Handwriting, a collection of poems by Michael Ondaatje and into the basket it went.

There was much much more I could have given a home to, but I feel very blessed with this little haul.

How does the sale compare to previous Times sales? Perhaps better than the last one. But there isn't the party mood of the Pay Less sale. It was very hot and stuffy in that room. And the dust is pretty thick on some of the books, so if you do go, don't wear white (as silly me did). And it broke my heart to see how some books were just thrown on the tables - please treat them with respect lah! Books have feelings too.

Warehouse Wonderland

The Times Warehouse Sale yielded some treasures yesterday, although was not quite as good as the previous one in Atria. Spent RM133 and came away with ten books, hardbacks and trade paperbacks. My best buy? Louis de Bernieres Birds Without Wings (hardback with such a pretty cover) for RM20. Also came away with novels by Don deLillo, Jeffrey Moore (who won the Commonwealth Writer's prize in 2000) and Graham Swift. Non-fiction too - Albereto Manguel's Reading Pictures, a book about intrepreting art, and a volume of essays on literature by A.S. Byatt. Not a bad haul.

There was a big pile of Clare Morrall's Booker shortlisted Astonishing Splashes of Colour: last year I searched for it in all the bookshops and even had it on order from Raman, but it never came. In the end I bought it in London.

I love sales like this because you honestly don't know what you'll find ... But there's always the tinge of regret for the book you might have bought but put down again ...

Bookshop Snakes and Ladders

So in the latest round of KL bookshop snakes and ladders, who's on the way up and who's coming down?

MPH for sure climbs up a fireman's ladder for arranging events for Tash Aw this weekend - a dialogue at the Writer's Circle, two booksignings and a private gathering tomorrow. (Am dying to tell you all about it - have sheaves and sheaves of notes - but have to get my article out first. And yes, I am still alive and totally totally charmed by young Tash.)

Silverfish also climbs a ladder. Although Tash's reading there was hastily arranged, a good crowd came and crammed into the tiny bookshop, and many of them had read the book so asked thoughtful questions. The Chilean wine was good, and there was a wonderful relaxed atmosphere.

MPH slips down a few rungs for not bringing in hardback copies of the book. Honestly! Why didn't they realise that we'd be flocking to get our books signed for posterity?

Borders (which slid right down the biggest blackest snake the other day telling me that it would take 6-8 weeks to get Edward Carey's books which the other bookshops could obtain in half the time) now redeems itself by having anticipated the desire for hardback copies of The Harmony Silk Factory.

Silverfish goes up another ladder because it can get me Edward Carey's books within a fortnight. They have a good relationship with the local supplier, apparently. Responsive, personal service wins the day.

MPH goes up a rung for having a counter selling delicious chocolates and sweets which you can munch as you browse. I laid waste to a bag of sugared almonds while browsing the shelves. (Laid waist to my waistline?)

But I'll make them descend a rung (spiteful, aren't I?) for shelving a novel by Will Self in the psychology section. I guess someone just saw "Self" on the spine and decided it belonged with Freud.

Incidentally, the funniest misshelving of books occurred in Times, Bangsar Shopping Complex a couple of years ago. I found a whole pile of Peter Carey's The True History of the Kelly Gang in the non-fiction section. I went up to the counter to point out that the book was fiction and should be shelved with the novels. The staff there argued that it must be non-fiction because the title said "True History" and refused to move the copies.

I felt so sad for Peter Carey because his books couldn't be selling. When the staff had their backs turned, I picked up the books and transferred them to their rightful place among the fiction.

The next time I went into the store, the books were back in non-fiction. And once again I moved them.

In the end they left the books where I had placed them. Maybe the staff thought there were ghosts around?