Posted on 5 April 2008 @ 12:45 in Books, Tech Stuff
This is one of those rare occasions when I feel technically competent.
I’d just purchased two books from eReader, (Rita Mae Brown’s Cat on the Scent and Pawing Through The Past, books #7 and #8 in her Mrs Murphy series, if anyone is curious), downloaded them to my MacBook and needed to transfer them to my Palm TX PDA.
Now, the usual way to transfer the two files would be to take out the memory card from the TX, put it in a card reader, plug the card reader into the MacBook, copy the files to the card, and reverse the process. But there’s an easier way.
Both the MacBook and Palm TX have Bluetooth (short range wireless). After pairing the two devices so they can “see” each other to exchange files, I proceeded to send the first file from the MacBook to the TX. A bleep from the TX told me the connection was successful. Within minutes, both books were on the TX, ready to be read.
No wires. No popping of memory card in and out of the two devices. No plugging in of card reader, etc.
I feel quite accomplished this morning.
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Posted on 14 December 2007 @ 21:33 in Books
At Borders The Curve:
And I have a copy. 
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Posted on 7 August 2007 @ 14:32 in Books
It’s not a compliment for a female to be told she’s “on the shelf” , but when the same expression is applied to a book, it means the book is available for purchase, and just in time for the country’s 50th Merdeka celebrations, too!
It also means the arrival of another Malaysian author in our midst - Chong Kwee Kim, the author and illustrator, is a journalist with The Star in Penang.
I had promised her a blog entry about her book and asked her for a hi-res picture of the book’s cover to go with it. But nothing beats a picture of the book on the shelves, and once again, I “delivered” - this time, at the MPH One Utama outlet.
At first glance, Ah Fu the Rickshaw Coolie may seem a simple book - it’s only 32 pages thick - but remember, never judge a book by its cover! The story, set in large clear type, is told in verse and said to be suitable for readers of all ages, ideal for reading aloud, according to the blurb on the outside back cover.
Aha! Ah Fu is a great introduction to reading and also encourages quality family time together as parents can read to their kids.
The story is accompanied by well-drawn colour illustrations that tell a story of their own - one that is historical and a fitting addition to the numerous books published to celebrate Malaysia’s 50th Merdeka. For the history of the country is more than a history of politicians and extraordinary men and women, but also a history of the common person in the street, someone like Ah Fu the rickshaw coolie, who contributed in his own small way to the making of Malaysia.
This makes a great little gift - go get a few copies for yourself, your family, and friends, too.
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Posted on 1 August 2007 @ 15:52 in Books
I have just finished reading Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits. I came to the book late, having been introduced to her via Daughter of Fortune and holding off reading this, her first book, for a long time. I didn’t even own a copy until about 2 months ago.
This is a book I enjoyed very much, so very much that I want to share it with my sister. But I can’t just let her have my copy of the book because my sister is Chinese educated and the English words would not mean much to her. I need to get her the Chinese translation. I know there is a Chinese translation; I found out from Allende’s website! But the thumbnail of the book cover was too small for me to make out the Chinese title, and my trip to the Chinese section of Popular at Ikano proved fruitless as I did not have the Chinese title, or even Allende’s name in Chinese, to search for. On the other hand, I was very surprised to find translations of books by the likes of Michael Ondaatje and V S Naipaul, and even a Chinese version of Toni Morrison’s Beloved! But I digress …
Since that trip, I’d managed to find the Chinese names for both the author and her first novel, with the help of Angie (fellow Paula Tsui fan). We managed it online via MSN chat (she’s in Sydney). She’d never heard of the author or the book but that did not stop her from helping me. Thanks, Angie! I hope this has piqued your curiosity and you will get a copy to read for yourself what it’s all about.
Here’s how Allende’s name and the book’s title look like in Chinese:
I’m going to get a print-out and take it to Popular Ikano to get them to see if they have a copy somewhere in their Chinese section, or if they can order it for me.
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Posted on 11 July 2007 @ 16:29 in Books, Friends
This time from Canada. Brought over by Anne. Canadian authors, of course.
Three by Margaret Atwood, two of them non-fiction that I’d specifically asked for, while the third is a bonus, that Anne saw and thought I might like.
The lone non-Atwood book is by Wayson Choy, a Canadian Chinese author I’d discovered while browsing at a bookstore in either Toronto or Vancouver in 1997. It’s the same title - The Jade Peony - as the one I bought in 1997 which, for some reason, I gave away as a token of friendship that I now recognise as plain silly.
In return, Anne got from me autographed copies of Dina Zaman’s I Am Muslim and Kam Raslan’s Confessions of an Old Boy.
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Posted on 8 July 2007 @ 21:08 in Books
Still accessing the Net from Hoxe’s, but beh tahan, so decided to give a try at posting from a public hotspot.
Most avid readers have TBRs (to-be-read lists), and those with blogs have posted their TBRs online. Well, I have a TBR of sorts - whatever I’ve been purchasing from the various bookstores in recent months, but that’s the point of buying books, right - to read them, altho I’ve mostly been just piling them up, but I digress … where was I?
So, last night, after finishing Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, I decided to take a look at what I’ve finished in recent months and was pleasantly surprised to find I’d finished 11 books since October 2006, including reading one of them twice (the second time to help the author re-proofread the book).
I went round my apartment to gather together the books for a picture:
Not bad for someone who used to fall asleep after reading the first para or so of any book.
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Posted on 6 July 2007 @ 11:48 in Books, People
“There’s no one here!” Zhang Su Li, the morning’s featured author (of the book A backpack and a bit of luck), cried out.
“Oy, I’m here, lah!” Me, the lone regular, standing next to her, countered.
“Oh yah. Sorry.” She offered, looking over.
I can speak the way I spoke to the author because we used to hang out together quite a few years ago. She was horrified to learn I still have the pictures from those days. *evil laughter*
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Posted on 29 June 2007 @ 18:22 in Books
I wish I could say they - or rather their books - are everywhere in Singapore. But the truth is, they (the books, specifically Kam Raslan’s Confessions of an Old Boy) were hard to find even in the bookshops. I had to go to the information counter to ask if the book was available in the shop.
Well, yes, Dato’ Hamid is available in both Borders and Kinokuniya in Singapore, but not where it should be. In Borders Singapore, Dato’ Hamid is shelved in the “Southeast Asian History” section, right next to his brother Karim’s Ceritalah. When I told the customer service person who took me to that section that the book is actually fiction, she said well, maybe it’s based on history. Which would make it historical fiction, and not … oh, never mind.
Can you see Dato’ Hamid in the picture below? (Clue - purple)
In Kinokuniya (Ngee Ann City outlet), Dato’ Hamid can be found in the “Culture & Tradition” section, along with Lee Su Kim’s A Nyonya in Texas, Lydia Teh’s Honk! If You’re Malaysian, and Adibah Amin’s two-volume As I was Passing.
If you’re looking for Antares’ Tanah Tujuh and Zhang Su Li’s A Backpack and A Bit of Luck, you’ll find them correctly shelved in the “Anthropology” section and the “Travel” section in Borders Singapore.
Dina Zaman’s I Am Muslim is also correctly shelved in the “Religion” section in both Borders Singapore and Kinokuniya (Ngee Ann City). There’s also a bonus - at Borders Singapore, I Am Muslim is featured in a display, “Insights to Islam” , and in good company, too, with Karen Armstrong’s Muhammad, as well as Irshad Manji’s The Trouble with Islam Today, Ed Husain’s The Islamist, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel.
However, both Borders Singapore and Kinokuniya (Ngee Ann City) are still carrying the “First Printing” edition of I Am Muslim.
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Posted on 6 June 2007 @ 10:51 in Books
Not your usual entry of what I am reading, or what I bought recently. Read on …
Sharon had posted an entry about George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four been voted ‘definitive book of 20th century’ by Guardian readers in an online poll. After following the link to the actual Guardian article, I investigated further and ended up at the full list of books. It’s a very interesting list. I thought I’d post it here, in reverse order:
1990s
Birthday Letters, Ted Hughes
Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby
No Logo, Naomi Klein
The Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi
1980s
A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Midnight’s Children, Salaman Rushdie
Money, Martin Amis
The Bonfire of The Vanities, Tom Wolfe
The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
1970s
Carrie, Stephen King
The Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M Persig
1960s
Ariel, Sylvia Plath
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, John le Carre
Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann
1950s
From Russia with Love, Ian Fleming
Look Back in Anger, John Osborne
The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett
1940s
1984, George Orwell
The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
The Outsider, Albert Camus
1930s
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Brighton Rock, Graham Greene
Right Ho, Jeeves, PG Wodehouse
The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
1920s
Lady Chatterley’s Lover, DH Lawrence
Relativity, Albert Einstein
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
The Waste Land, TS Eliot
To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
1910s
Howards End, EM Forster
The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford
The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry, Ed Jon Silkin
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
1900s
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Interpreting Dreams, Sigmund Freud
Kim, Rudyard Kipling
A nice mix of fiction and non-fiction. Poetry, too. British and American. And a good list to give anyone who asks “what should I read?”
I love it that Jacqueline Susann is in there with the best of them.
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Posted on 29 May 2007 @ 19:01 in Books
Book reviews are what help us decide what books to consider buying to read. Most book reviews are professional, i..e, that we find in the book sections of newspapers and magazines. It’s not often that we come across book reviews that are personal - written because the reviewer really enjoyed a book and wanted to write about it.
I think Ted Mahsun’s review of Confessions of an Old Boy: The Dato’ Hamid Adventures is one such review.
And with the proliferation of literary blogs, there will be more of such reviews. Thanks, Ted.
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