The World Record for Stolen Library Books?

Does the Pahang State Library hold the world record for largest number of stolen library books, I wonder? This story is a couple of years old, but I don't remember reading it in the papers here. It was picked up by AFP and I came across it on a Zambian website. (Bizarre the way stories travel!)

Kuala Lumpur - Malaysians in central Pahang state have failed to return more than 20 000 books including some rare and limited editions from the state library, it was reported.

Some of the books were taken from the Pahang Public Library as long as 28 years ago, state library acting director Faridzah Jaafar said.

Several of the missing books are rare and printed only as limited editions and as such are practically irreplaceable, she said.

"We have tried many ways; some of the borrowers we contacted by letters or memos, some through the telephone, but it is difficult," the Bernama news agency quoted her as saying late on Wednesday.

"Some of them have moved out of Kuantan, Pahang, some admitted the books they borrowed were damaged and some had even died.

"Even more shocking, some of the borrowers admitted they were 'keeping' the books on purpose, because the books were so rare," she said.

The library has an "amnesty month" which is held to enable borrowers to return all overdue books without being fined.

"All they need to do is put the books in a special bin outside the library. They don't have to worry about being known or blacklisted by the library management," she said.

It's not the kind of statistic that would ever find itself in The Malaysia Book of Records though. (The pin picture with the most pins, the longest sitting Santa Claus, the biggest Malaysian flag made from tin cans, the highest water fountain and the largest cement tree, yes. Anything slightly negative, nope, of course not.)

Postscript:

Walker is conducting a poll to see how many stolen library books people have, and which books they've defaced. I confessed. Don't tell on me!

Apology, a Love Poem

(This post is a little edited, as you will see if you dropped by here before.)

Borrowed these words by Leah Nielsen because they struck a chord (as poems must or there's no point in them.) I reproduce it with permission from both the publisher (Word Press) and poet with many thanks.

Apology, a Love Poem

The small fire reaches into the fallen branches,
and the lawn chairs—webbing cracked, frames worn
to bent like the edge of land along the river—hold

the weight of us, and a dull fleshing knife
takes to the tangle of hooks, last year’s line still stuck
to some and I say I’m sorry

until I forgive myself. And the sticks root
in the sand, the chalk line bound to them.
Apologize until I forgive you

for what you haven’t done. How easily
the night crawlers slip onto the hooks, knot
themselves around the end. You toss the trotline

smooth as water into the water and the water smoothes
itself into the night, and the night pulls
the sparks from the fire, and nothing fades.

The finding of this poem was, I suppose a kind of penance for me. I'd hurt someone with reckless words and I was very sorry.

And the row was stupid because it did not tell of the true source of the pain. They were the wrong words because they were the nearest ones to reach for and weren't even in themselves true words. And then the right words that needed to be told (one day, gently, over a glass of beer) got distorted over the sound of raised voices.

Friends, you did nothing. I provoked you. Pushed you shamelessly to the brink. I didn't even understand my need to do so. (Except that I hurt, and so should you.)

The poem helped because here's someone else in the same position finding it hard to forgive herself:. "... until I forgive myself ... apologise until I forgive you/ for what you haven't done ...". Exactly how I felt.

It's a strange thing in poetry (and I suppose in literature in general) that even though it's someone else's story that's being told, we recognise ourselves in it ... much more than if it expressed vague generalisations about that theme. I see this couple by the river's edge, on a fishing trip, not talking. She is the one apologising (because somehow it's always the She's of the world who has to do the apologising, while the He's really don't - even when things are their fault - in my experience!). I see them as a long-married couple, a little worn, like their chairs.

The tangle of hooks and lines ... isn't that just the whole complication of relationships? How do you untangle things, straighten things out? Can you?

But there's hope, isn't there, in the last stanza: the water smoothing itself into night, night pulling the sparks from the fire?

Sometimes the anger is necessary. But one also hopes for healing.

Atwood's Great Autograph Machine

Booksignings can be bothersome for authors who really have better things to do than travel long distances just to meet fans and autograph books. (Write the next novel, for instance?) And now it seems, there is a way round the problem, thanks to Margaret Atwoods new invention: the LongPen. Now authors can talk to fans across the world via videoconferencing facilities, and scribble a personal message in real time, without leaving the comfort of their own homes.

Yes, I thought it was a joke too when I first read about the idea some months ago. But then Atwood set out to demonstrate her new toy by signing copies in a New York bookshop while she was physically at the London Book Fair.

But things didn't go according to plan, writes Oliver Burkeman in the Guardian:

In novels such as Oryx and Crake and the Handmaid's Tale, Ms Atwood has demonstrated that she has few equals when it comes to imagining the transformative powers of technology on humanity. But turning science fiction into fact was proving tricky yesterday, thanks to the even more powerful force of sod's law.

Find out what went wrong!

Accuracy and Copyright

I wrote about Brown vs. Leigh and Baigent the other day and the entry sparked a lot of discussion about plagiarism and copyright. It was especially interesting to read the comments left by my friends who are lawyers. Now Aneeta has put up on her blog a very useful summary of how copyright works for writers - and you get an idea of just how complicated the issues are!

Meanwhile, the writing and publishing world hold their breaths while the Random House authors slug it out in the High Court. David Barrett, an author of books on religion and a journalist who is reporting on the case told The Age:

"The implications are massive. ... If Baigent and Leigh win — and I think they do have a strong case — then writers are going to have to be a lot more careful."

Apparently, a victory for the plaintiffs would "overturn the accepted rules of writing and publishing" and novelists such as Michael Crichton and Julian Barnes, who have written novels based on historical events, "could be exposed".

Now I thoroughly enjoyed Barnes' Arthur and George and had not questioned the validity of the historical fact until I read Walker's take on the book the other day. Let me now eat my words about it being "meticulously researched"!

(How strange though that if an author sets a novel in Malaysia and gets the facts wrong or chooses to ignore them, I'm immediately screeching with righteous indigination! There's just no consistency in me!)

New Writing Anthology

Here's somewhere else to send your writing! The British Council is now accepting submissions for New Writing 15 and the publication is open to writers from the Commonwealth. You can submit stories, poetry, literary essays, memoirs, biography and fiction, including an extract from a work in progress. The deadline for submissions for New Writing 15 is 30 April 2006. The book will be published by Granta in 2007.

Full details and rules can be found here.

The website also has extracts from New Writing 13 so that you can get an idea of the competition and read interviews with the writers about their work. There are also teaching resources for the classroom.

And don't forget the deadline for Silverfish New Writing 6 is March 31st 2006. Rules here. Overseas submissions are welcomed. (Helps to keep the standard up, see?)

Silverfish Gossip

It's official - the 2006 Kuala Lumpur Literary festival is on! Raman announced it in the latest edition of his litmag and was apparently waiting for the green light from the Deputy Prime Minister's wife.

Trouble is though, that to be truly international you need the cooperation of the foreign missions and corporate sponsors who will need to find funds, when their budgets will have presumably already been allocated for the year. I'm sure Raman would like the participation of really top writers from across the globe again, but most are booked out for events months if not years ahead. Seven months lead-time isn't very long!

Anyway, I wish Raman all the best for it because it is a noble effort. I'm sure he will learn have learned from the lessons of last time. (" ... a little chaotic" is what he called it. Yes, indeed. )

The other great news from Silverfish is that three of the stories in the New Writing series are to be dramatised a Singaporean TV production company. Congrats to Raman and to the writers involved.

G? Gee Thanks, Starmag!

Goodness me, is Starmag getting daring or what? (Well, at least for a Malaysian newspaper!) Sexologist Dr Beverly Whipple who co-authored The G Spot and Other Discoveries about Human Sexuality was in town for a dinner-cum-talk organised by Zestra Asia Limited. (Now why does no-one invite me to the best parties?)

The article included specific instructions for dummies of both sexes. So that elusive G-spot really should be quite a lot easier to find now than Putrajaya.

Stuart Backwards

My review of Alexander Master's Stuart: A Life Backwards is in Starmag today. Somehow the first paragraph got chopped off in the online version, so here it is:

Stuart Shorter (vagrant, alchoholic, drug user, petty criminal) is the kind of problem society would rather forget. Yet it's impossible not to warm to the man who emerges from Alexander Master's award-winning biography, and feel by the book's end that you've lost a very good friend.

Read the rest here.

A City for Books?

This from today's Star:

The Government plans to create a “book city” to market and promote books by local publishers.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the book city would also become a display centre, book launch venue, a place for negotiating copyright, sale and various other activities for readers, including meet-the-author sessions. “We leave it to the ministry concerned (Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage) to look for a site which will accommodate all the book publishers in the country, and where various activities can be held to encourage the public to read as well as hold academic discussions,” he told reporters here yesterday. He disclosed this after opening the first annual general meeting of the Malaysian Malay Chamber of Book Industry (DIBMM).

Earlier, in his speech, Najib said the book city would be set up at a strategic location in Kuala Lumpur, specifically for bumiputra publishers.

The Deputy Prime Minister said the proposed creation of the book city was also aimed at increasing the publication of books in the Malay language. “The DIBMM could possibly handle daily activities at the book city later just like in other countries which have book cities, such as Iran, for example,” he said.

I know that any measure to encourage the publication of books locally is a good thing, and much more needs to be published in Malay.

But ...

I'm not sure how this scheme would work on the ground or whether publishers would actually benefit from being in a specific location when internet connectivity makes close neighbours of us all and an effective publishing operation can be run by one man on one computer behind a shopcounter in Bangsar with the help of a printer in Puchong.

Am I missing something or are "meet the author sessions" better held in a bookshop or an art gallery where you might stand a chance of getting a decent audience (if you're very lucky)?

Isn't it just possible that academic talks might be held in universities? Can't you negotiate copyright etc. in a short meeting in your office, or by e-mail or over a coffee in Starbucks? Do you need a city, for heaven's sake, for these things?

Don't want to get into politics or language issues here (or I might be blogging from Kemunting! haha!) but why is this specifically for "bumiputera publishers"? What happens when a publishing venture is a collaboration between people of different races? (Hey - who does the language belong to anyway? ) And would publishing ventures like Neohikayat Press be welcomed (or want to be welcomed) when they enjoy their deliciously subversive edge?

What kinds of books are we talking about anyway? Fiction, academic texts?

What is the role of Dewan Bahasa in all this?

Isn't getting books written or translated in the first place the most pressing issue? How does having a Book City help here? How does it solve the problem of the distribution and marketing of books by local writers? Or - and this is the really big one - creating readers who will consume the books produced?

See, the more I think about it, the more confusing and discombobulating the idea looks, and the more I see a big expensive white elephant lumbering along on the horizon, taking up financial resources that could be channelled far more effectively into other (cheaper, more effective)initiatives.

Well, ... I'm going to sit on the sidelines and let you guys do all the talking.

Postscript:

Do go and have a look at what Raman says about revision of the National Book Policy in his litmag.

Literature for the Sub-Literate

It seems that anywhere between 7-12 million readers in the UK struggle with sub-literacy and consequently never pick up a book.

Enter Quick Reads, a new series of books launched in the UK on World Book Day, and aimed at those marginal readers. The price is low at £2.99 (aboutRM20), the print large, the language plain and the covers bright and tempting. And all the books have been specially commissioned from established writers. The first batch includes works by Ruth Rendell, Minette Walters, Richard Branson. More titles will be added in May. Boyd Tonkin in the Independent welcomes the intiative, but likes some ot the titles much better than others.

Quick Reads are not only good for emergent readers, they're good for the book trade, tapping into a market thus far completely untapped. If there's a low profit margin on Quick Reads, booksellers will be more than compensated by return customers who've suddenly discovered the power of the book.

And of course, there should be a lesson in here for booksellers and all those with a stake in adult literacy here in Malaysia where the greatest need is to grow a readership is given much lip service to, but no-one seems quite sure what to do about it in practical terms. If such a high proportion of native speakers struggle to read in their first language, what more of many Malaysians for whom English is a second?

World Book Day - British Style

Now I know why the British celebrate World Book Day on a different day from the rest of the world. And it isn't just because we're an awkward lot! April 23rd when the rest of the world are handing out books and roses to loved ones, is slap bang in the miidle of the school holidays. And because the event involves the participation of schools throughout the country, bringing it forward was a sensible idea.

Anyway, yesterday we celebrated in style with a party for British Council Library members with pizza, balloons and streamers, lucky draw, and a fun activity which had everyone making new friends and arguing books. I picked up a lot of useful information about the kinds of books people would like to see in the library and what they are reading now.

Here's a photo of the strays left over at the end of the party clutching goody bags. Anyone you recognise?

If you missed the event, never mind. You can catch the next World Book Day next month, and I know MPH have something good planned!

Holy Plagiarised Madonnas!

Now Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code interests me not at all, and I'd happily go along with The Visitor's assessment of its literary merits. But I have been watching the press for news of the plagiarism trials against the author, because the issues raised are important to all fiction writers who use information from other published sources. At what point does using become plagiarism?

Last August, Brown appeared at the District Court in New York to defend himself against the claims of writer Lewis Perdue that he had lifted elements of the Da Vinci Code from two of his novels, Daughter of God, (2000) and The Da Vinci Legacy (1983). Purdue said he felt violated, like somebody had broken into his head. The judge concluded that:

Any slightly similar elements are on the level of generalised or otherwise unprotectable ideas ...

- a line that was used by Dan Brown's defence in the current hearing at London's High Court where two historians Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh are suing Brown over his plagiarism of their earlier work The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

As copyright lawyer David Hooper says in the Guardian:

If people were able say that's my idea, that's my theme, it would make the whole creative process incredibly difficult. ... It's one thing if somebody has picked up somebody else's book and copied large chunks of it, but how on earth do you know if somebody's taken too much of somebody else's theme?

Anyway, it's interesting to make comparisons with another case that came to light some years back. The following from Moby Lives:

You've got to admit, it's an unusual premise for a book: a little boy survives a shipwreck and winds up sharing a lifeboat with a large, predatory cat. Sound familiar? ... Well, if you're thinking it's the premise of one of the most talked–about novels of the year, "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel, last month's winner of the Booker Prize, you're right. But it also turns out to be the plot of book called "Max and the Cats," by esteemed Brazilian writer Moacyr Scliar ... which was published in 1981.

Scliar decided not to sue, although he certainly had a case. Purdue intends to appeal against the New York court's decision. I don't hold out much hope for him, but at least the publicity should be good for his book sales.

Broken English

I knew I had to write the roof off the fucken world ...

says Dirty But Clean Pierre about writing his 2003 Booker winner Vernon God Little, a

... blistering assault on the no-brow superpower that gave the world the Big Mac, The Jerry Springer Show and the high-school massacre ...

(The book didn't go down very well on that side of the Atlantic, apparently: no American publisher would touch it!)

Jasper Rees interviews Pierre (self-confessed ex-drug addict, ex-conman author, sufferer from narcissistic personality disorder) in the Telegraph. His latest book is Ludmilla's Broken English about a pair of cojoined twins, separated after 33 years, and is set in a future dysptopian Britain.

What made Vernon God Little so exilarating was the sheer recklessness of the language (Yes, he did write the roof off the fucken world as far as I was concerned) but Neel Mukherjee in the Observer feels this this is where that Pierre falls short in his second novel, which is:

... let down by a prose-style mannered to the point of gratuitous murkiness. The whole novel feels as if it has been written first in a normal way, then each sentence tampered with to produce a style that could be thought of as original and strikingly different.

Second novels are so hard to write after the phonomenal success of a fluky first.

Blowing My Trumpet ...

Goodness. Here's recognition! The Literary Saloon picked up the story about Malay literature selling phonomenally well nowadays and adds:

P.S. One of the great things about the Internet is the exposure to literary information from all across the globe. Weblogs such as Bibliobibuli offer fascinating stuff: learn about the Malay chain bookshop scene, for example .....

It's so nice to know that one's ramblings are useful to someone!

Celeb Endorsement for Better Book Sales

Want to boost sales of your book? Just look at what a touch of celeb endorsement can do!

According to the Guardian, when the cover of Flann O'Connor's1939 novel The Third Policeman was was flashed up on screen for a moment during an episode of the cult TV series Lost fans rushed out to buy a copy to help them understand the baffling plot. Result: 15,000 copies of the book were sold in just three weeks.

Other episodes of the show have apparently seen characters reading classic bunny saga Watership Down and Madelaine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.

Meanwhile, across the the world, Osama bin Laden's bedtime reading has made the Amazon Top 50 list. (Previously it ranked below the 200,000 mark) When he mentioned Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower in a recent audio tape as a useful read about Bush "lying and practicing injustice", sales of former US State Department official William Blum's book became an immediate bestseller.

Thing is, would you really want Osama promoting your book? And just where would you send his share of the profits?

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

Local Authors Outsell The Da Vinci Code!

Dzireena Mahdzir charts the incredible rise of the popular Malay novel in Starmag today and the sales figures speak for themselves. (Dzireena points out that the Da Vinci Code sold just 10,000 copies here in comparison):

Sharifah Abu Salem sold 70,000 copies of her novel, Pesona Rindu (Enchantment of Longing), last year. And she had company: Sepi Tanpa Cinta (Lonely Without Love) by Damya Hanna also sold 70,000.

In fact, in little more than half a decade, just one publisher of Malay novels, Alaf 21, has sold more than half a million copies of seven titles, including Sharifah and Damya’s books. Tak Seindah Mimpi (Never As Wonderful As a Dream) by Sharifah Abu Salem sold 70,000 copies in 2000; Kau Untukku (You Were Meant For Me) by Aisya Sofea, 80,000 in 2001; Kau Yang Satu (You Are the Only One) by Nia Azalea, 75,000 in 2002; Bicara Hati (Discussions of the Heart) by Damya Hanna, 100,000 in 2003;Sehangat Asmara (In the Heat of Love) by Aisya Sofea, 70,000 in 2003; Pesona Rindu (Enchantment of Longing) by Sharifah Abu Salem, 70,000 in 2004; and Sepi Tanpa Cinta (Lonely Without Love) by Damya Hanna, 70,000 in 2004.

Apparently a big reason for the rise in popularity of Malay fiction is that publishers decided to use everyday language in their books rather than the more poetic form of the language used for literature, making it much more accessible to the man on the street. Romance is the staple fare (although there are also thrillers, sci-fi and historical novels) but in its culturally acceptable version:

... in keeping with our culture, passion is restrained to eyes meeting, and love is seen as something more emotional than physical. And you don’t declare love in an unseemly manner ... when a character declares his love, he does it poetically. ... Religion, good values and love are all tied up together, and this strongly influences the overall flavour of the stories.

It's nice to see local writers doing well, and reading encouraged. But - dare I ask - is the fiction any good?

Pay Less, Read More

More places to buy books, this time for reading on a budget.

Pay Less Books


A few days ago I wrote about Skoob, which sources its second-hand books from the UK. Pay Less is the largest chain of second-hand bookstores in Malaysia, and sources books from both Europe and the US.
Interestingly, Pay Less began in West-Africa in 1995 by two Europeans: Dimitri Chaniotis and Elke Wollschon. Its mission statement is "to provide consumers with quality English books at discounted prices, with superior customer service in a friendly environment." There are several branches around the city: Ampang Point, Amcorp Mall, Atria Shopping Centre, Carrefour Subang Jaya, Jaya Supermarket, The Summit, Tesco Puchong and IOI Mall, and the chain claims to have 500,000 titles in stock.

I visit Pay Less at the Atria since its just up the road from my house. Of course, there's always something there that I want, and I'm extremely happy to have built up a collection of Best American Short Stories: the books cost me around RM 12 each. My friend Sandra, member of our book club and mad keen reader, works at The Summit branch - so say hello to her when you drop by.

And no more grumbling about not being able to make it to the Klang Valley to buy books, because you can also buy online! Pay Less is affiliated to the wonderful Abebooks (and postage within Malaysia is just a ringgit or two extra.)

Book Rentals

Too poor to buy a book, even from Pay Less? Okay, why not rent one instead?

My friends on the other side of the world will be scratching their heads at this point. Rent a house, rent a car, rent office space - yes. But rent a book??

It's actually a pragmatic solution to a very real problem. Many people can't afford to buy books. We have public libraries here, but they still fall short and aren't always conveniently located.

There are quite a number of little book rental places tucked away around the city, and they seem to come and go. There used to be one in Taman Tun Dr. Ismail that I liked very much since the owner had made the effort to buy in more literary titles, and I was sad when I heard it closed down last year.

City Book Rentals in Lucky Garden, Bangsar (just behing TMC supermarket) has been around for a while and has shelves and shelves of popular fiction (romances, chick lit, thrillers) but certainly enough serious literature to keep the more highbrow reader happy. (The owner clearly had me sussed out the second I walked in and thrust a copy of Su Tong's most recent novel into my hands - and yes, I was tempted.)

Book rental works like this. Each book has a cover price. For a new paperback novel, this might be RM30. (Scruffier copies go for much less, of course.) This is what you pay to take the book away with you. But if you return the book within a month, you get most of your money back, and so may actually pay just RM4-6 for the pleasure of reading it. If you want to keep the book, you just don't bother about returning it.

No book rental place near you? Reader's Shack is Malaysia's first online book rental business. You can even put your own book collection to work by renting books out to others!


Warehouse Sales

Not a bookshop, but a phonomena.

Some of the larger bookshop chains shed their excess stocks with annual sales held in a warehouse or other vacant commercial space, and there are some fantastic bargains laid out on tables in acres and acres of space. At the moment MPH and Times both have their sales on, and I made it to the Times sale yesterday in Atria, PJ.

I hadn't expected it to be so good after reading Daphne's blog, but actually found it to be the best warehouse book sale yet for me. ('spose it depends on the kind of books you're looking for.) Books were wonderfully cheap: paperbacks for RM 8, hardbacks for RM15-20, coffee table books for around RM25, minature Penguin '60's for RM1. Plenty of recent and critically acclaimed fiction. Best bargains have to be Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex and Rohinton Mistry's Family Matters in hardback, and Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections in paperback - excellent books for a song.

Marisa and Starlight were also browsing the books (we'd aranged to meet for lunch) and I kept dropping recommended reads into Starlight's basket with little stabs of guilt that she'd have to pay for them. It was Marisa's second visit and she refused a basket saying she'd be tempted to buy too much if she did. The tactic didn't work - by the end of her browse, she had a huge pile anyway. I got three carrier bags of books for RM160, mostly paperback novels, but a lovely coffee table book featuring Singaporean artists. It's such a great feeling to find books you love at low low prices! I may go back another day for another pile.


Supermarkets

I've mentioned before cheap books, (mostly Penguin titles at RM9.99) in supermarkets. I've seen them in Cold Storage Bangsar and Carrefour Megamall. (Carrefour in Wangsa Maju was Leon's undoing - remember?) I've heard there's also copies in branches of Tesco.)

Okay then - I've written as much as I can about the cheap sources for reading materials. There are probably lots of other cheap places I haven't heard about, so let us know. (I know someone will say Chowrasta Market, Penang, again, and I'm longing to go and explore for myself.)

And please don't turn up at my blog again groaning that you can't afford to buy books!

Meet Up and Scribble Night

A small group of us met up for a scribble session at Delicious Bangsar last night. Priya, Angeline, Seck Yen, Anna and Animah all did my creative writing course last year, though at different times, and hadn't met each other before.

We took some (crazy!) prompts from The Writer's Book of Matches: 1,001 Prompts to Ignite Your Fiction by the staff of Fresh Boiled Peanuts literary magazine. I ended up writing about a dentist who gets stabbed while waiting in the queue at TGV to pick up his tickets for The Da Vinci Code.

Yes, the stories came and sat with us too. Some of them pretty bizarre. Seck Yen and Animah both have absolutely surreal imaginations ...

Here's a couple of pictures I took:

The glamorous Anna who told me to caption this picture "It's the lack of oestrogen" for some reason!

Seck Yen reading his stuff and Angeline listening with rapt attention.

The good news of the evening - Priya is going to have a play performed at KLPac soon!

My Creative Writing Course

My creative writing course kicks off again next month, with MPH giving it a home once more. For which I am eternally grateful.

I haven't advertised it yet. Not because I'm slow and inefficient (which actually, yes, I am) but because I'd had a whole lot of folks who expressed interest in the course last year and were left in mailing-list limbo, so I have to give them priority. And then there's the word of mouth factor. Participants enjoyed the experience and passed the word onto friends. Thanks too to Yvonne for the publicity on her blog! (I may take her on as full-time publicist!)

I keep the group size small (I aim for 10 max) so that everyone gets plenty of time to share their work, but that means that courses fill very quickly.

The course will run on Tuesday nights 7.30-9.30 from 14/3-18/4/06. The price is (notionally!) RM450 but with the MPH Reader's Card there is now a 20% discount.

If you are interested, please contact me directly:

sbakar@streamyx.com or 012-6849935

And I'll send you all the details.

April/May I will be running the course in-house for a corporate client ('bout which I can say nothing at the moment), which means that the next public course will be in June. I'm also in the process of planning one or two follow-up courses, and short workshops for fun. My head is veritably buzzing with ideas!

Being

The woman walks up the mountain

and then down. She wades into the sea

and out. Walks to the well,

pulls up a bucket of water

and goes back into the house.

She hangs wet clothes.

Takes clothes back to fold them.

Every evening she crochets

from six until dark.

Birds, flowers, stars. Her rabbit lives

in an empty donkey pen. The sea is out

there as far as the stars. Always quiet.

No one there. She may not believe

in anything. Not know

what she is doing.

Every morning

she waters the geranium plant.

And the leaves smell like lemons.

Linda Gregg

Magical Realism and String Hoppers

Our book club met last night at Muntaj's house to consider The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. I hadn't felt like rereading the novel and my recollection of it was somewhat hazy.

(What remains with you after you read a book? An atmosphere, a vague impression, a memory of how you felt, a web of associations to do with where you were, and who you were with, and the room you sat in when you were reading it? Meanwhile, the story itself quietly slips further and further away ...)

But it was such a pleasure to see the reactions of most of the others, meeting both the novel and Allende's writing for the first time.

There was much laughter over favourite episodes, some had found it 'spooky' in parts since the dead walk around quite comfortably with the living, and Clara emerged as the favourite character. Comparisons were drawn with One Hundred Years of Solitude which we read last year, and overall the Marquez was preferred. 'Magical realism' has taken up residence in everyone's vocabulary now.

My own feelings about this novel are now very much coloured by having read Paula, Allende's extended letter to her daughter lying in a coma. This book revisits much of the same family history, but also tells Allende's own story. And goodness, this lady has certainly lived a life. You feel so much for this mother, grieving her daughter's slow death in a Spanish hospital, and coping with that pain by telling stories.

Sandra did a great job of leading the discussion and had put a lot of effort into her research, and Muntaj had cooked some delicious curries to go with string hoppers for supper. Many thanks!

Related Posts

On Allende:

Where Do little Stories Come From, Mummy? (23/7/05)

On Our Book Club:

Fiction & Friends (9/11/04)
What Book Lovers Look Like (16/2/05)
From Clouds to Kofta and Kulfi (2/3/05)
Time Travelling (31/5/05)
The Harmony Silk Factory Tour of Perak (21/6/05)
The Buzz on the Bee Book (29/8/05)
Kunzru Makes an Impression (17/10/05)
Ouch! Let Me Go! (17/11/05)
Malgudi Revisited (6/12/05)

Starlight's Pesky Book Meme

Oh dear. I've caught a pesky book meme from Starlight who caught it from Jane Sunshine. Can't resist.

1. What is the total number of books you've owned?

My current library is well over a thousand books, but I've lost so many more moving from one part of the world to another. I've also given away a fair number to friends who I felt would appreciate them; lent books that haven't been returned by folks unclear on the concept of 'borrow'; and culled books I felt wouldn't read again when I ran out of space ...

2. What is the last book you bought?

Yesterday I picked up a book I'd ordered weeks back from Raman: Patricia Highmith's short story collection Nothing That Meets the Eye.

3. What is the last book you've read?

Stuart - A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters. Currently writing a review of it for the Star.

4. What are you currently reading?

The Accidental by Ali Smith, and enjoying it greatly. My bedtime reading is a few pages of Thank You for Not Reading by Dubraka Egresic, a collection of essays about the state of the book industry by the Croatian critic.

5. What are the 5 books that have meant a lot to you or that you particularly enjoyed?

Only 5?! These are books I have read several times and will keep coming back to:

A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov. Was haunted by the book ever since I read it in Russian at school (hey - the simplified version, okay!). "Hero" battles boredom in a series of poignant interlinked stories which shows the sickeness of the age.

The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. A prequel that's much better than the book it's based on. The story of how Jane Eyre's Mrs. Rochester was driven mad by her husband. Love the sensuality of the writing.

Crime and Punishment by Fydor Dostoevsky. A dark crime novel about a homicide and it's aftermath. Way ahead of its time.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres. I've never laughed and cried so much when reading a book. Took to my bed for a couple of days in a state of total emotional collapse when Corelli disappeared.

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. Funny and moving. But it's the language that gives me the most joy - every sentence so carefully crafted. Imagery that jumps to the eye and leaves you breathless with surprise. I could eat this book, it's so perfect.

6. What book(s) would you wish to buy next?

I'm dying to read Alan Bennett's Untold Stories. Wish I'd picked it up in the UK where it was ridiculously cheap but my suitcase was already way over weight. It's just arrived in the bookshops here.

7. What book(s) that caught your attention but never has a chance to read?

I admitted to Raman yesterday with incredible shame that I've never read Kafka's The Trial. Must do something about this quickly.

8. What book(s) that you've owned for so long but never read it?

I have gazillions of books I've bought but not yet got round to reading on my shelves. (And feel guilty about).

I feel most guilty about James Joyce's Ulysses. I've read and enjoyed parts of it (especially Molly Bloom's luscious soliliquy), but the book as a whole still terrifies.

I want to read Donna Tart's The Secret History and Barry Unsworth's Pascali's Island, but other books keep getting in the way.

9. Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

Can I cheat and say anyone who reads this and wants to be infected by it?

A Home for Bookworms

Continuing the bibliobibuli guide to local bookshops:

I write so often about Silverfish because Raman is the superhero of the book-centric world: the universe knows no peer! Truly.

The shop was in Sri Hartamas in 1999, moved to more upmarket Bangsar a few months later, and occupies the first floor of a shop-lot on Jalan Telawi Tiga, just a roti canai's twirl from Devi's Corner.

Raman moved into publishing in 2000. Revitalised the Malaysian short story in English, long neglected, with his New Writing series. Gave the wannabe-published something to live for. (Which reminds me, the deadline for the next anthology is end March and even those of you who read this blog from the otherside of Pluto can send in stories.) Published books by other local writers. Is perhaps the best person to send a manuscript too if you need a second opinion, though he won't mince words if he thinks it's rubbish. (I do respect his opinions even if I don't always agree with them.) Runs an editing service.

Hosts events for writers - some very famous names have turned up to read and socialise and eat crisps including Bharati Mukherjee, Shashi Tharoor, Tash Aw and Romesh Gunasekera.

Raman also started up the KL International Literary Festival, something that was badly needed in this corner of the globe. (The next festival is glinting in Mr. Raman's eye even as I type this. I seriously better run and hide.) Now he has started up a literary mag. Is there no end?

As a bookshop, it must be admitted, Silverfish is a little run-down, extremely eccentric. (Like it's owner?)

It might be my bad luck but the shoe-mender from the street below always seems to be changing his clothes on the stairs. (He uses the switch-box as his personal locker.) I've stopped apologising for invading his privacy.

Books there are. A very good section of books by local writers. Some good finds of the more literary kind on the shelves, a mix of new and second-hand copies, though stocks seem low at the moment. When Raman goes on a book-buying spree to India there are some great bargains to be had. And there are always too many temptations on the front counter: I'm so often caught by the "Hey have your read this?" which has heralded not only my happy introduction to Bulgakov, Saramago and Bukowski, but also my gradual fiscal undoing. Phek Chin, Raman's assistant is very clued up about books and whatever they don't have in can usually be ordered very quickly.

Raman's recently partioned off the back room, and now has a space for readings, classes, meetings. He's custodian of a large private library of antiquarian books about this part of the world, and you can sit and read them as long as you like.

The best thing about the shop is that it operates as a meeting place for all kinds of interesting people.Peter Carey and VS Naipaul have browsed the shelves. You might bump into an ambassador or a BBC correspondent or a famous poet or a publishing rep or just another booklover or fictionating scribbler like yourself. Hang out here. Make yourself a cup of tea. Relax.

A woman recently wrote to Raman all the way from Australia to express her concern about the name of the shop. Did Mr. Raman know that Silverfish ate books?

(The one and only silverfish that turned up in Mr. Raman's office one day was treated with the great reverence that befits a mascot.)

The Versions of Pi

Back in November I mentioned that the Times were holding a competition to find a new illustrator for Yann Martell's Booker winning Life of Pi. You can check out the finalists here. Each one now has to submit three more illustrations for the books before a winner is chosen.

The standard is very high. But I must confess that I like the illustration by Victor Tkachenko best of the bunch:

Belief in Your Words

Former bus driver, Magnus Mills, on his first novel The Restraint of Beasts:

Yes, once I started I knew it'd be published because, you see, if you are going to believe in a book that much, you've got to be prepared to publish it yourself if no one else will.

If you haven't read The Restraint of Beasts (shortlisted for the Booker 1998), do track down a copy, particularly if you have a fascination for high-tension fencing.

I almost choked laughing.

Thumbs Up for Self-Publishing

Judging by the number of self-publishing websites, it may not be long before we reach the tipping point of mass adoption.

Victor Keegan road-tests self-publishing websites in the Guardian and declares that the mainstream publishing companies could be "in line for a much needed shock". He is impressed with Lulu, and Publish and Be Damned. He also mentions the all-inclusive package offered by Grosvenor House.

Closer to home, we have Gary Gan and his G&L Solutions, of course.

Related posts:

MPH Writer's Circle (16/1/05)
Self-Publishing (31/3/05)
The Underground Route to Self-Publishing (14/6/05)
The Blooker Prize (4/12/05)
The Power to Publish (21/12/05)

Skoob is Books Drawkcab

Wonder how many of you actually know that we have a branch of the best secondhand bookshop in London?

(And yes, I have checked out the parent store, Skoob in Russell Square - how could I not?)

Skoob Malaysia has gone through a variety of incarnations. When I first came across it in the early 90's it was sharing half a shop-lot with a dobi shop. (That's a laundry - notice how I am now carefully translating terminology! Let's let shop-lot slip past and hope Walker doesn't notice!)

It later moved to slightly larger premises just up the road in Jalan Telawi 3. The first time I wandered in there, I had a surreal experience. Now bear in mind that this was well before the days of the big bookshops, when the best that could be found in Bangsar was a rack of Jackie Collins and Jeffrey Archer in Guardian pharmacy between the headache pills and the face creams. For some reason, I had a craving for a copy of Boswell's Life of Johnson.

I asked the woman behind the counter, expecting her to say something along the lines of "Huh?".

Cindy (for 'twas she) didn't skip a beat. Without looking at the shelves, without consulting any data base or list, she calmly asked "Would that be the 1923 Everyman edition in two volumns or the Heath&Co 1929 edition?" I nearly died of shock on the spot! We checked the shelves and both were there. An oasis in the dessert.

An oasis too of intelligent conversation as proprietor Thor (no relation to the thunder-god, unfortunately) playwright, actor, theatre-director, critic, lecturer, and his musician wife, Cindy, are book-loving kindred spirits.

I loved the shop for it's sheer plenty. Shelves were filled to capacity. There was a terrific range of novels, poetry, literary biographies, and of course the philosophy, religion and the occult in which the bookshop specialises. Books were stacked on the floor, filled even more boxes in the backroom, recent deliveries from the mother-ship in London.

Loved too the way that it drew eccentric characters to it. One rainy afternoon, I was browsing in the shelves of my favourite second-hand bookshop when an elderly, dhoti-clad gentleman burst in from the street, angrily brandishing a copy of Middlemarch at Thor who had apparently recommended the novel as the kind of improving read this gentleman said he was after. (He'd rejected a James Clavell novel the week before because the "language was not rich enough"!)

“Why does she call herself George?" he wailed "I don’t read books by women writers.”

I also laughed at Thor's story about customers coming in to buy antiquarian books by the yard to show the world how well read they were.

When rentals in Bangsar started to go through the roof, Thor moved a couple of miles closer to the city centre to a spacious property in Brickfields, behind the YMCA and next to a rather good Indian shop selling thosai. (Love Danny Lim's moody picture of Alvin Wong outside SKOOB in its Brickfields incarnation.).

More recently, it's moved again to Old Town, P.J. (Lot 122 & 123 Menara Mutiara Majestic, Jalan Othman to be precise), and takes a little more tracking down.

It's a book-lovers haven still (and a lot of books are much cheaper these days) and thanks to Cindy's artistic touch (flowers, lights, teak benches, cushions), the ambience is as squidgy as you could desire. Thor will even make you a cup of tea to sip while you browse. (Tell him Sharon said so.)

As I write this it strikes me that I badly need to make a pilgrimage to Skoob to fill some gaps in my collection, especially now that I have bookshelf space. (But for how long at this rate?? *sigh*).

Photo from The Sun

A Quick Guide to Bookshop Chains

This is for Walker and others across the world, bemused when we talk about our local bookshops. What's MPH? What's Kino? What strange code are we talking in? This is a whistle-stop tour of the bigger bookshop chains here.

Booklovers were very poorly served here until quite recently. The explosion in the number of bookshops has gone hand in hand with the growth of huge shopping malls around the city.

MPH

MPH is the biggest chain bookshop and can claim to be the oldest, since it was originally set up as Methodist Publishing House 100 years ago. (Watch out for anniversary celebrations throughout the year!) It now has 26 outlets in Malaysia including 19 in the Klang Valley (that's the connurbation created by Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya and surrounding areas). The two biggest stores are in Mid Valley Megamall (opened 2000) and I Utama (opened just a couple of years ago). A big effort has been made with making the stores customer friendly with reading areas (the one in Megamall even has a "courtyard" area with potted plants and a fountain!) and a cafe. A customer loyalty scheme (the MRC card) bags you an annual rebate in the form of book vouchers (Just got mine and have RM117 - enough for a hardback! - to spend) and other benefits (discount on my creative writing course, invitations to previews of the 'warehouse sales'!)

The store is making an effort to support local writers with it's Writer's Circle and also has a full calendar of in-store events.

MPH is also the main book distributor for Malaysia and supplies most of the other bookshops, and also has a publishing arm.

Times

Generally smaller stores than MPH. No website that I can find! (Opportunity missed, someone!) I go to the branch in Bangsar Shopping Complex and love the display of latest books by the entrance: too tempting, I never escape without a hole in my pocket.

Most of all I love the fact that I get a hefty 10% discount on books with my Times loyalty card and 20% in my birthday month.

Popular

Popular Bookstore has been around for a very long time in Malaysia and Singapore, specialising in titles in Chinese and discounted books. It has a very big store in the Chinatown area in the city centre. Recently it seems to have reinvented itself, and the new branch in Ikano Power Station has a pretty good selection of fiction and other titles in English. Organises events and has a customer loyalty card.

Borders

Borders is the new kid on the block. The first branch was opened in Times Berjaya Square last year, and is supposed to be the "biggest Borders in the world". Perhaps it is in terms of floor space. It certainly isn't overstocked in terms of books. Titles are shipped in from the US and some are more expensive than at other bookstores (I found this with the prices of Oxford dictionaries for example, which the other stores source locally), so it pays to compare prices. There's a branch of Starbucks in-store. Some move recently to host in-store events.

A new branch recently opened at The Curve (distressingly near to my house!) A very pleasant place to loiter.

Kinokuniya

I've saved the best for last. Kinokuniya is actually a Japanese chain and the KL store sits on the top floor of Suria KLCC, the shopping complex that nestles between the twin towers.

This is book lovers heaven. Even visiting novelists of note (no names to be dropped today) have been impressed and spent hours browsing. It's extremely well-stocked. Very wide range of fiction titles. Interesting in-store promotions (I love the themed displays by the entrance). Generous discounts on featured titles. Generally very clued up staff. Pleasant ambience and a cafe upstairs with a panoramic view of the KLCC park.

Walker, will that do for a start?

The rest of you, anything I forgot to say?

Related posts:

Bookshop Snakes and Ladders (19/6/05)
How Squidgy is Your Bookshop (30/11/05)

Book Spree! Whopee!

Now's the time to stock up on cheap books!

MPH is having a stock clearance promotion and MRC members are invited to the preview on 22 - 23 February 2006 9.30am-7.00pm and can take along three guests. (It's open to the public 24 - 28 but by then all the keen readers will have bought up the best stuff.)

The venue is Dewan D'Kelana, Kompleks Sukan MPPJ, Jln SS 7/5, Kelana Jaya, 47301, PJ.

If you need a map or further details contact MPH at 03-7781 1800 (mrc@mph.com.my).

All those of you who got too many ang pow for Chinese New Year now know how to spend the money.

Fabricated Memoirs: Even More Fakery

Post-Frey, newspapers take stock of past memoir fakery. Here are some more examples of "non-fiction" works which were were subsequently outed as fakes, with some googled up links for your reading pleasure.

From the Washington Post :

I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala , a 1984 memoir by a Nobel Prize-winner, is found to recount incidents that she could not have witnessed.

J.T. LeRoy, supposedly a male teenage hustler and the author of Sarah and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things , is revealed as the fictional creation of Laura Albert and her husband, Geoffrey Knoop.

And theBookseller :

Jihad by Tom Carew. In which the author recounted his exploits with the SAS and his time training Afghan rebels. While Carew served in the army, he was providing support to--not actually in--the SAS (although he was SAS trained).

The Cage by Thomas Abraham. Having fought in the Vietnam War, Abraham told how the Viet Cong held him as a PoW. His claims of capture and subsequent escape were disputed by fellow veterans and remained unsubstantiated by military records.

Widower's House by John Bayley. An account of life after the death of his wife Iris Murdoch included the portrayal of two women who chased after him. He later admitted that they were actually composite characters, 'both real and unreal.'

So even a respected literary type like John Bayley (ex-Warton Professor of English at Oxford) mixes a little fiction into his fact!

I had forgotten about an earlier, very famous fakery case. As a teenager I loved this book and the TV series that sprang from it almost enough to forgive Hayley totally:

Roots by Alex Haley. A chronicle of seven generations of Haley's family was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Many of his genealogical claims were shown to be falsified, and he reached an out of court settlement for plagiarism with Harold Courlander, author of The African.

Related Posts:

A Clutch of Bogus Memoirs (6/2/06)
Oprah Chops Frey into a Million little Pieces (28/1/06)

Roses in Kino!

Evidence, if any is needed, that Animah hit Kinokuniya this lunch-time in pursuit of elusive romance among the bookshelves. Sadly there were no clandestine encounters by Sufi poetry (Where were you guys?) but I am so grateful for the copy of The Garden Of Heaven: Poems of Hafiz that she bought for me.

There was one surreal moment though when an extremely handsome young guy (dressed in black, long dark-hair tied back) materialised out of nowhere with a whole bag full of roses, presented one with a florish to a very stunned young lady standing just a few feet away from me ... and then fled the scene before she could protest. He wasn't an employee of Kinokuniya. Was it one of you? If so, well done.

I gave my rose to Arthur, a very nice young man on Kino's management team who stopped by to chat and ask how we thought the store was doing. (I have no complaints, just that I spend too much time and money in there.) Then Animah and I consoled ourselves with a cup of hot chocolate in the cafe upstairs.

Valentine

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

Carol Ann Duffy