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!

Corporate Censorship?

Oh dear. Poor Amir doesn't have much luck with getting his creative projects out.

Now he's hit a couple of major snags with the publication of New Malaysian Essays 1:

At 3pm Tuesday, I reached a verbal agreement with a large distributor in PJ to handle New Malaysian Essays 1. We agreed on the quantity, retail price, some modest promo stuff.

At 9am Wednesday, I got a call from the printer. This printer is also part of the same corporate family as the distributor. I was told that the corporation is "unable to associate itself with the book". It refuses to print or distribute it.

Why the corporate self-censorship, I wonder? Is it the fear of that political sensitivities being stepped on around the time of an election? Is it the somewhat naughty words in Amir's alternative dictionary?

I'm doing a final proofread of the collection.* (Didn't manage to get out of it even by not turning up for Amir's proofreading "party"!) As far as I've read, it's really good stuff, well-written and well-argued. One of the most exciting collections of local non-fiction I've come across recently.

If Big Distributors Sdn. Bhd. don't sell the book, it begs the question, who exactly is being protected? I don't think the answer is the Malaysian public, because anyone who can read the book in English and follow the line of argumentation is undoubtedly mature enough to make up their own mind about issues!

If alternative means of selling the book are needed, I have every faith that they will be found.

It's times like this you bless independent bookshops like Silverfish.

And, Amir, if you are doing your pasar kutu stint again, I would like to help.

Although, of course, we can all pre-order the book here.

Postscript (25/1/07):

Good news for Amir. Information from sources reveals that the company is happy to both sell and distribute the book. It is only the printer who has pulled out, and yes, it was the dictionary that gave offence.

*Still, I'm having a lot of fun wielding a red pen above the work of the bloke who always picks me up about the teensiest grammar or spelling slip on this blog when it is too early in the morning to care.

Pay Less Moves Out

From Pay Less Books:

We are having MOVING OUT SALE in PAY LESS BOOKS below:

Carrefour Subang (Lot B1.01, Level B1) - Until 30 January 2008

Amcorp Mall (Lot 1.70, 1st Floor) - Until 30 January 2008

Summit USJ (Lot 1.32 & 1.33, 1st Floor) - Until 15 February 2008

50% off Storewide!!!

ALL BOOKS MUST GO.

Why, ah?

Over the last few weeks I've got to know Elke, the owner of Pay Less (and a great lady!) who is doing my creative writing class. She tells me that the rentals in the shopping malls have increased and increased to a level where it is no longer viable to maintain the shops. It makes more sense to sell book via the warehouse sales - so expect more of those.

I guess also there is the increased competition from shops like BookXcess and Big Bookshop which are selling brand-new books at knock-down prices.

Acmamall and Borders: Both Expanding

It really is nice to read a local book-business success story.

Christy Yong today in Starmag interviews the CEO of Malaysian online book (and now much else!) retailer Acmamall.com which offers over a million titles.

Christopher Quek reports that the company is doing very well indeed with a 150% increase in its Malaysian customer base this year alone.

He appears to be tapping into the huge regional and rural market, with 80% of the customers living outside the Klang Valley. Now the company plans to expand into other Asian countries and is looking for partners.

Borders has opened its third bookstore in the Klang Valley, and it’s fourth in Malaysia, at The Gardens in Mid Valley City. Daphne Lee interviews Datuk Francis Lee (right) director of franchise holder Berjaya Books who says:

When we decided to bring the Borders experience to Malaysia, we wanted to ensure that the stores would not simply be a space filled with bookshelves and checkout counters. ... Borders is about a lifestyle, and families love to visit the store because of the large space, the comfy seats, and the wide variety of books on offer. We also have CDs and a café so there is something to suit every taste.

He also makes a big deal about the unwrappedness of the books to enhance browserbility ... but as we have seen before on this blog, this is something that book lovers have mixed feeling about.

(Mind you, I've recently bought a couple of defective books which were shrink wrapped, so do check your purchases carefully wherever you buy them, and be cheeky enough to ask for a discount if you still really want to buy a less than perfect copy.)

This seems a good place also to add a note that Popular has added a new branch in Sunway Pyramid and another at Aeon Bukit Tinggi.

Cheapy Cheapy Books

Okay you stingy fellows out there who need a quick bibliofix at rock bottom prices, this is a great time to pick up a bargain.

Pay Less are having one of their amazing warehouse sales:

(Find a map to the place on this previous post.)

Big Bookshop in Atria has new stock piled high at low low prices. It's not so much a warehouse sale these days as an almost permanent fixture! I went on Sunday, bumped into Natasya (who took this less than flattering photo of me in my Sunday morning scruffiness) and Roy, and was happily passing you-might-enjoy-this-es to them. I didn't find the fiction too exciting, but was delighted to find a book I had on my wish list: The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction, and several others I haven't even had time to open yet.

Someone told me that BookXcess in Ampcorp Mall have moved to a larger shoplot, but I haven't been there to check it out.

The hypermarkets did piss me off the other day, but I'm glad that Tesco is selling remaindered Penguin Classics along with the frozen peas. Jordan wrote to tell me that he had picked up some great bargains at the Kajang store including James Joyce for RM6 which is a steal. (Loss leaders again??)

MPH has very generous discounts at the moment for their Merdeka Sale with up to 20% off selected titles and 15% off all books. (I just bought Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union in a beautiful hardback edition for for around RM55 after discount!)

And, dear bookshop people, I am always happy to pass on news of special offers to the readers of this blog, so why don't you drop me a line?

All of these sales I have heard about from friends, through rumours, or by going to the store. Not via email from the booksellers.

Why So Expensive Ah?

Elizabeth John and Nurris Ishak asked the post-HP7 question on everyone's lips here in the NST yesterday: just how are book prices determined here? :

For locally published books, about a fifth of the RM30 or so a reader pays goes to paper, typesetting, cover design and printing, says Raman Krishnan, who runs independent bookstore Silverfish Books.

Another 20 per cent is shared between the author and publisher, though the publisher shoulders all the risk if the book flops.

The lion’s share, about 60 per cent, is generally shared between the distributor and retailer.

The distributor takes care of transport, warehousing and marketing the book.

The bookseller keeps the books on the shelf and in the public eye in their inviting stores.

Distributors and bookshops aren’t paid. What happens is they buy the book from the publisher at a discount –– of up to 60 per cent of the cover price.

But every publisher has a different cost structure, says MPH’s Donald Kee. So the percentage taken varies from one to the next.

“Publishers and booksellers don’t earn much after paying for the high cost of paper, printing, rental and store set-up.

“Readership in Malaysia is low, as is our turnover. It’s not like the US or Britain where a far larger number of readers helps reduce cost,” says the corporate affairs manager.

If imported, the price is set like this: The cover price, noted on the book in pound sterling, US or Australian dollars, is converted using an 90-day average exchange rate.

Another 30 per cent is added on, explains Kevin Sugumaran of the Malaysian Book Exporters and Importers Association.

“So a £10 book could come up to RM60 after applying the conversion rate and reach RM78, when the 30 per cent is added.

“That percentage is a gross margin that covers freight, warehouse costs, distribution and the profit that goes to bookshops.”

The exchange rate is controlled by the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry and importers have been charging the same rate for the past three decades, says Sugumaran.

“Since 2001, the fuel surcharge, shipping, air freight and security charges have all increased but we live with it because we try and depend on volume of sales."

All well and good, but what happened with the latest Harry Potter? - which Raman reckons that it isn't just a book but:

.. a fashion statement, a product, a must-have toy.

Ouch! (Quickly grab the anti-Muggle antidote!)

Chia Thye Wee acknowledges these problems but points out that the RM109.90 price for the latest Potter book wasn’t something booksellers pulled out of a hat.

The figure was negotiated with publishers. The discounts booksellers received depended on how many they bought and how quickly, says the president of the Malaysian Booksellers Association.

Their margin was shared with customers through discounts and was also used to cover the events for children, heralding the arrival of the book.

“Books like this come by only once in a while and stores have been waiting two years for this book. They ordered large numbers and paid a long time ago.

“Then hypermarkets slashed the prices. And if the big bookshops had trouble managing, what more the smaller ones. There was no way they could fight back

“It’s not that hypermarkets can’t sell books but to do this to booksellers on the launch day is simply taking away their bread and butter.”

Tesco, one of the hypermarkets selling the book for RM69.90 says: .

... it just wanted to make the book more affordable.

Sure. In Britain and the US supermarkets/hypermarkets slashed prices in the same way so that:

... small bookshops struggled to keep up with discounts offered by the big players but did sell it at a loss anyway. ... Big chains like Waterstones were forced to follow ... because they did not want to appear uncompetitive. How on earth can you get so many retailers selling a product they make no profit on at all, and may even be selling at a loss? Cock-eyed logic for sure!

That aside, one of the reasons for higher book prices in Malaysia is the low volume that can be sold. And beneath that lies the problem that Malaysians are not reading a great deal.

People don't read because books are expensive. Books are expensive because people don't read. Chicken egg chicken egg chick-

In a related piece, however, the assistant director of the National Book Council, Roselan Zainal Abidin, talks about Malaysian reading habits being:

not so bad any more lah ... Some local magazines and books have a 15,000 print run. School books sell by the thousands as do the popular Bahasa Malaysia romance novels.

We are much consoled.

Also interviewed is:

Self-confessed book addict Sharon Bakar ... (who) forces herself to stay focused in a bookstore for fear of suffering a deep and irreparable hole in her pocket

She (whoever she is) reckons the key lies in reader education and also believes that there is no use any one interested party pointing a finger of blame at any other ... teachers, booksellers, writers, parents, librarians, friends of books ... because we are all in this together.

So here I have to agree with Raman:

... Stores need to start employing people who read. Knowledgeable people can advise buyers and organise activities that really connect with people ... Engage schools and school-children. Do whatever it takes. ... It’s time to walk the extra mile.

Baby, that means you.

Lost Gift!

Aiyoh MPH - so much for promoting local authors! Glenda has a very hard time finding The Gift of Rain:

Today I was in the MPH bookshop in Midvalley. I wanted to buy the book "The Gift of Rain" by Malaysian Author Tan Twan Eng, a novel set in war-torn Penang. It is published in UK, and has been reviewed, reasonably favourably, by the Times Literary Supplement. Seems like an author that Malaysia can be proud of, right?

And the bookstore was hung with posters saying: "Proud to be Malaysian". It was a "Buy Malaysian and get a discount" promo...

Now I know I am clueless. All I could remember was that it was by someone surnamed Tan, and I thought Eng was in his personal name. And I couldn't remember the name of the book, but I knew what the story was about and that it was published in UK recently. Should have been enough for them to recognise what book - surely Malaysian bookshops would want to promote that rare commodity, a Malaysian getting overseas attentions and kudos. How many have we had over the past 10 years? Enough to use all the fingers on one hand? And this was a 2007 publication. All told, I asked 4 assistants and they consulted 2 computers - nope, never heard of him or his book.

I eventually found it myself. And I scolded the shop assistants for not living up to their own promo. Tan, I hope they listened.

It's a Scramble!

So what do the papers have to say today about the scramble for the new Harry Potter?

Predictably there were fans queuing for hours outside all the stores still selling the book before the mad grab began at 7.01 a.m Malaysian time.

And there were some rather ugly scenes.

Borders at the Curve had a larger crush of people than anticipated. One disabled man reported yelling and threats, and had to be rescued from the pushing and shoving by bookshop staff when the shutters were lifted. Potter fans fans surged forward regardless, eager kids egged on by their (kiasu?) parents even before the shutters were fully lifted.

At Borders at Berjaya Times Square fans broke into a frenzy when they saw a staff member with a door key and almost broke down the door.

There was some discord too at Kinokuniya where thirteen Potter fans who streamed in as soon as the building opened at 5.15 a.m. found another ten people in the queue ahead of them at the bookshop. (So where did they hide all night, ah? In the toilet?) When the store opened, some 400 people surged forward and one girl was injured (but got a free copy of the book). (Eternal Wanderer gives an eye witness account.)

The hypermarkets, of course did a brisk trade but each branch had only limited stock to offer the public. (How could they have known about the pullout by the other bookstores?) Carrefour Mid Valley sold almost half its stock of the book in just 45 minutes and only enough copies to last until 10 a.m. Most of the other hypermarkets had sold out by the end of the day. But of course the book was used as a loss leader to tempt folk to do their grocery shopping at the same time.

Take a look at this Wiki page on Harry potter and the Deadly Hallows - but only if you don't mind, or can ignore the spoilers - to read about the worldwide price wars over this book, because in fact what happened here is symptomatic of a global threat to book retail.

Says the NST:

In Ipoh Tesco enjoyed roaring sales, thanks to walk-in customers who rewarded the hypermarket for the cheaper price by purchasing other goods.

Many were not happy with the protest by the other bookshops who seen by many as the boo-hiss villains when they are the victims of (to put it kindly) opportunistic business practices ... but of course just try telling that to the kids.

As Popular Bookstores executive director Lim Lee Ngoh says:

What are books to a hypermarket? For bookstores, that’s all we have.

Representatives from the four will be meeting sole distributor Penguin books next week to resolve the pricing dispute.

You can read more about loss leaders in publishing here. It's good to remember this:

Loss leaders are a fact of life, but don’t forget that your bookseller supports you all year round. If you don’t support them, you may find they are not there next time you need them.

Especially as our bookshops are already under threat.

Postscript (1):

Madcap Machinist posted a link to this article in the Sunday Independent which reveals that the amount from each books sale going to the publisher is £10.74 a copy. That's RM75.37.

Of course other costs are incurred for our books - warehousing, shipping, transport, advertising. This means that by selling the book at RM 69.90 the hypermarkets are making a substantial loss on each copy they sell to undercut the booksellers. Fill in all the dots yourselves.

I disagree with Machinist though when he says the shops should have continued to sell the book. At some point a stand has to be made.

And although it sounds a real joke, the only way independent booksellers around the world can avoid making a loss on selling the book is to buy from the supermarkets/hypermarkets, which they sell on for the same price in their own stores just to make customers happy.

Postscript (2):

From an article by Manjit Kaur just added on the Star website:

The Malaysia Bookseller Association's 100-odd members nationwide will meet next week to decide their next course of action over the Harry Potter price war that has erupted here.

"The worst case scenario would be to return the books to the publisher," said its president Cheah Thye Wee. ...

... They said they were protesting the "indiscriminate price discount," adding that it was not fair of distributor Penguin Books to "allow hypermarkets to sell such a popular book when they are not in the book business."

... Penguin Singapore and Malaysia managing director Eddy Teo said the hypermarkets would incur losses by selling the novel at a cheaper price, pointing out that their purchase price was actually higher.

He said there would be no replenishment on top of the opening order due to unavailability of stocks and the British publisher of the novel, Bloomsbury, had no plans for reprints now.

Cheah said his association was shocked and disappointed with the price under-cutting of the seventh and final book in British author J.K. Rowling's bestselling series.

Hypermarkets should be giving discounts on milk power, rice and other necessities that benefited a larger population of the country, and not use bestsellers to attract customers to their outlets, he said on Saturday.

He said those in the business had waited for two years for the book to be released, and it would have been understandable if the hypermarkets sold the book for RM69.90 a year later, but to do so on the day of its launch was "ridiculous."

He strongly supported the decision of the four major bookstore chains to not sell the book.

"We will stand by them," he added.

The Malaysian news even made the International Herald Tribune.

Postscript (3):

Kervin does a very good job of explaining the economics. Glad someone gets it!

(Photo scanned from NST shows the crush in Tesco Mutiara Damansara)

Harry Potter and The Evil Price War

Big drama. Front page news in the Star.

Because of Tesco and Carrefour undercutting the price of HP7 (both selling at RM69.90 instead of the recommended price of Rm109.90) the four major bookshop chains, MPH, Times, Popular and Harris, have decided not to sell the book! Good for the retailers sticking together. Sad sad sad for all those who were planning to launch the book in a fun way this morning, and for the fans. (Those who pre-booked will still be able to collect their copies.)

Says MPH's chief operating officer, Patricia Chen:

It's not fair to allow hypermarkets to sell such a popular book when they are not in the book business.

I wholeheartedly agree with her. Stick to your baked beans and chicken portions and ikan bilis, hypermarkets, and if my credit card doesn't go through your till for a good long while you'll know it's my small way of making a protest. (Actually you probably won't notice, as the only thing I go out of my way to buy at Tesco is ground coffee, which is really rather good ... but I can live without that!)

On a happier note, there are some very nice pictures of last night's Sorceror's ball at MPH 1 Utama in the print version of the paper but sadly not online.

Update:

Raman of Silverfish (who said he couldn't afford to sell the book anyway) is laughing long and hard at all this and seems to feel it serves the chain bookshops right. Under the charming heading:

In Malaysia, the Harry Potter Shit Hits the fan

he writes:

Guess it was bound to happen. Major bookshop chains in the city have decided to boycott the latest Harry Potter book in the series Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows due to 'unfair' pricing by Tesco and Carrefour hypermarkets. Isn't that simply delicious? Unfair pricing? Well, well, well. Who's talking now? Now, isn't that exactly what major chains have been doing to independent bookshops all these years? When they sold the latest release of a best-selling author below cost at their four-times-a-year 'warehouse' sales to attract customers, what did they think they were doing? Now they are protesting? Is that rich or what? Does anyone remember how JRR Tolkein's latest book Children of Hurin was sold below cost at a recent warehouse sale even before it was even released to the public.

Well, talk about poetic justice. Oh poor thing ... boo, hoo, hoo ...

I think what has happened with Harry Potter is the best thing that has happened to the industry. Time to put the house in order, right?

Meanwhile, some other bloggers have posted on the issue including The Malaysian, Georgette Tan, Eyeris, and Eric Forbes.

Yinny the Yinn works at Borders (which was selling the book) and tells how she almost got crushed in the rush.

This is the biggest local bookshop crisis ever, I think, and brings to a head issues that have been bubbling under for a long time.

(Photo of newspaper ad scanned in by Raman and nicked from his website.)

A Spectacular Bookstore Meltdown?

Raman writes about the effect of the "dumping" books during warehouse sales on the local bookstores. When he attended a meeting of book retailers in Singapore:

The consensus was that whatever is happening does not bode well for the industry. But it is the industry that is doing it to itself! They are all eating from the same bowl what? And the bowl is only so big (or small)... As described by one of the book dealers during the lunch, "Warehouse sales are like steroid injections." How true. They solve the short-term problem of cash flow ... but the long-term side effects are less predictable. He said, "They can net about 200,000 in a warehouse sale, which will take them three months to make at the shops." I cannot be certain about that, but warehouse sales are about cash flow, or the lack of it. Warehouse sales used to be held once or twice a year for getting rid of old stock, a reasonably healthy situation. "Raman, what do you want me to do with all that old stock?" one CEO of a major book-chain said. True. No one is arguing with that. What the industry is grumbling about is that there is one practically every month (or, according to some, more often even than that), with brand new books being offered at huge discounts as loss leaders to attract customers, and with remaindered books brought in pallet-loads from Singapore, Australia, the UK and the US (in a practice known as dumping which is, probably, illegal in those countries).

Now we all love our deliciously cheap infusions of books ... but in the long-term book lovers could be losers too if our local bookstores go to the wall.

HP7 - Coming Your Way Soon?

Was much tickled to see a sign up in MPH 1 Utama which said simply:

HP7

21/7/07

Ah, the Malaysian love of abbreviation!

But independent bookseller Raman won't be selling the latest Harry Potter he says, and who can blame him:

With the big stores all offering a 20% discount on the book we had to follow suit. The operating cost of an average bookstore is approximately 20%. And after we gave away another 20% in discount, we were actually selling the book at a substantial loss. Why do that? (In the US and UK the discount was 50%. Go figure. The book industry is bizarre. Bookstores, especially the mega ones, have been defying gravity for far too long. The music industry does not sell newly released, best-selling CDs at 50% discount, does it? No wonder Borders is losing money, and has to pull out of UK.)

Bookshops in the UK are in a lot of trouble these days with supermarkets buying in bulk and undercutting them. In Malaysia we may be the beneficiaries as yesterdays' pile-'em-high-and-sell -'em-cheap best-sellers are shipped here by the container load to create a crisis for the established bookshops here.

KL's Little Bookshops

Thanks Marisa for pointing the way to this article in the New Straits Times yesterday about KL's independent bookshops. It's nice to see the publicity for these little shops which are till able to hold their own despite competition from the big boys.

Not sure though Raman who caters for "the discerning reader" would care to be lumped together with the book rental places!

Above is a pic of Skoob proprietor Thor Kah Hoong. Time to make a vist if I could only get past these warehouse sales.

Buyers of Books

Daphne Lee comes up with another very nice book related article in StarMag. How do the big bookshops actually select their stock? She interviews the buyers of Kinokuniya and MPH. (What a nice job! Need any help?)

Ramji Rabi of MPH (a very personable young man who did my creative writing course last year and pictured left with Yvonne Chau) says:

Malaysian authors like Tash Aw (author of the The Harmony Silk Factory) tend to be popular in all the stores. And Devika Bai (The Flight of the Swans) is especially popular in Johor Baru because that was where she lived.

He goes on to say that Malay romance novels are also extremely popular, along with religious books. Malaysians seem to be paying increasing attention to literary award winners. The most popular of which have been Life of Pi by Yann Martel and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

I was happy to see this letter by Julianne Leow from Penang. Yes, we do need more books reviews. I'd go further. We desperately need a proper literary supplement in at least one of the Sunday papers! Bookstores can sponsor articles, and Daphne can be editor-in-chief.

A Grim Present, and Uncertain Future?

Depressing reading or not, thanks Ron for this link to Grumpy Old Bookman's prognostications about what the future holds for book retailing and the novel.

There's a tremendous amount in the post (more a treatise than a blog post!) and I think I'll be picking up some of the points (especially about growing new writers, print-on-demand and the future of the bookshop) to toss around myself in future posts.

GOB predicts nothing short of the death of the novel, as reading loses ground to other more accessible media. And in the shorter term, he predicts the growth of print-on-demand booths replacing the traditional selling of books.

Michael Allen has also very generously made available a free e-book On The Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile which demonstrates "that success for writers and publishers is governed by randomness (chance) to a far greater extent than is generally realised" and to outline some survival strategies for book-trade participants. Essential reading.

How Squidgy is Your Bookshop?

Are our bookshops squidgy enough? Yes, squidgy. You heard me right.

Retail analayst Paul Smiddy is a London booklover who writes an occasional column for The Bookseller. He dispenses advice about how book shops can increase their profitability by enhancing the pleasurability of book buying and, at the same time, build customer loyalty.

And he wanders around British bookshops to see how they measure up, evaluating them according to his own squidgy rating to assess the ambience of the store. A bookshop should be somewhere where you want to linger and browse - otherwise why not just do your one-click stuff on Amazon?

He also mentions customer loyalty scemes which UK bookstores tend to be bad at ("...rarer than Ian Fleming first editions") unlike, I must say, Malaysian book retailers. (My purse won't close because of all the cards!)

A factor that seems to come into the equation in the Malaysian context is the wrapping of books in plastic. Wrap 'em and keep them clean at the expense of tempting readers to browse them, or have them unwrapped and be prepared to write off a certain proportion of your stock. That's the dilemma. Yes, you can go to the customer service desk to get them unwrapped, but how many of us bother? (Random Thoughts blogged about this the other day.)

I'm proposing a bibiobibuli award for Malaysia's squidgiest bookshop (based purely on ambience - not on the range of books they carry) and nominations are now open.

Sadly, Smiddy doesn't provide us with a copy of his rating scale. (If you google your name Mr. Smiddy and find yourself here by accident, please could you send us a copy?)

Here's my list of factors to take into account:

seating for browsers
flooring
general look of the place
temperature, light, smell, noise level
browsability of books
availability of coffee
attitude of security staff

Have I missed anything?

Okay, your nominations please ...

Books Among The Baked Beans

I'd just taken a vow of abstinence. No trips to the top floor of BSC to browse through the new books in Times. This was strictly a necessity shop, for veg, and fish and milk and the brand of catfood darling Muffin (she who has my husband wrapped around her tail-tip) prefers.

But Cold Storage have been sneaky. Very sneaky. Right there at the checkout, where you can't help but make eye-contact with them, they have racks of paperbacks. Not just any old paperbacks, but damn good ones and at knock-down prices - just RM9.99. (Mercy tells me that Tesco is being similarly underhand.)

My hands were shaking as I rummaged through ...

I'd have loved to have adopted everything but managed to restrain myself and buy just three: William Trevor's debut novel The Old Boys; Roddy Doyle's The Snapper; and Mendel's Dwarf by Simon Mawar.

I already have a copy of The Snapper, but bought it because I felt so sorry for it orphaned there on the shelf. I truly loved the whole of Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy (The Van was my favourite part I have to confess - still laugh at the memory of the dirty nappy falling into the fish and chip batter!) - so full of human warmth and humour. I decided that I would bookcross this copy and I'm leaving it at Delicious cafe in 1 Utama tomorrow night around 6p.m. for fate to decide the next leg of its journey.

Idiot idea.

Never mind.

One can afford to be earth-shatteringly magnanimous when only RM9.99 is at stake.

Simon Mawar's Mendel's Dwarf is a book I read ages ago and always wanted a copy of. (I hate not to own a copy of a book I've really enjoyed). Loved the blend of science (and I am fascinated by evolutionary biology and genetics) and fiction, and really felt for the main character, Benedict, who is afflicted by the very illnesss he is studying - achondroplasia or dwarfism.

I found this book for the first time in a little book rental place in Taman Tun and I wished I had kept it because the shop closed down so quickly (as is so often the way with these places). I am truly surprised that this novel did not win any major prizes in Britain (although the Los Angeles Times shortlisted it for their Book Prize).

And then the post was very kind to me today. I had two parcels - one containing my copy of Toby Litt's Ghost Story - a secondhand uncorrected proof copy from Waterstones in mint condition (and cheaper even with postage than the hardback) and a package of lovely literary magazines from Susan Abraham for which I am so very grateful, and which I know will refresh and inspire ...

I do lend my books to friends and if you drop by to read my blog then you definitely qualify ... Just that terms and conditions apply (i.e. give 'em back when you've read 'em!)