Posted on 24 May 2007 @ 00:20 in Books
You know, I’m so tired of turning my head and hurting my neck everytime I need to look for a book from my collection. So I’ve gone and stacked them lying down. Like this:
And if you’re wondering about that little box of books in the middle row, well, that’s the full Black and White Series Box Set published by Rhino Press in 1997. I never even bought one copy from the series when it first came out, and 10 years later, I had to search for them online and ended up buying them all the way from the States. But it’s worth it. I hope there’ll be more of such local publishing efforts, especially with an increase in local events such as the monthly readings at Seksan’s.
Close-up of the 10 books in the series:
Authors featured in the series - Kamal & Nadiah Bamadhaj, Bernice Chauly, Mahani Gunnell, Rahel Joseph, Fay Khoo, Jit Murad, Mira Mustaffa, Dain Said, Aziz Salim, and Dina Zaman.
The Rhino Press logo:
Any chance of seeing it on new Malaysian books again soon?
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Posted on 18 May 2007 @ 14:11 in Books, People
Kam Raslan, author of Confessions of an Old Boy: The Dato’ Hamid Adventures, will be reading at Borders in Queensbay, Penang this Sunday, 20 May 2007, at 3:00 p.m.
The announcement below was put up by Penang blogger k.kim (thanks, kim!) in the “What’s Up” column in Star Metro North on 15 May 2007:
Click here for the original “What’s Up” column page.
Kam’s appearance in Penang this Sunday is part of a series of readings he’s doing in various Borders outlets around the country. He read at Borders Times Square on Sunday, 13 May 2007, and will be reading at Borders The Curve next Sunday, 27 May 2007.
Kam is the second Malaysian author to be featured in Borders bookstores. Dina Zaman had previously read at Borders The Curve on 5 May and Borders Times Square on 12 May.
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Posted on 12 May 2007 @ 21:40 in Books
Popular Bookstore at Ikano Power Centre has a 50% Rebate table. A copy of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex had caught my eye and after picking it up, I looked around and saw the 50% Rebate sign.
Authors on the table included Ian McEwan, AS Byatt, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Pynchon, Muriel Spark, Tom Robbins, Chang-Rae Lee and others. I bought Annie Proulx’s That Old Ace in the Hole, Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street (which I’ve read before as a book on loan from that book rental shop in TTDI that has since closed down), and also Isabel Allende’s The House of The Spirits (finally, my own copy).
All these books piling up in my little apartment, where to begin? And that’s part of the problem. Too many choices, and I can’t pick one.
Actually, I’m reading Ladies’ Night at Finbar’s Hotel, a collection of stories by seven Irish authors, including Maeve Binchy. All the stories are located in Finbar’s Hotel and somewhat connected to one another (you see the main character of one story being mentioned in another story - that kind of connection). The book has given me the structure for an abandoned work-in-progress that I now know why it stalled.
I’ve also started reading Peter Straub and Stephen King’s The Talisman in ebook format. I’ve read it many years before but am reading it again as a prelude to the sequel Black House. I just finished Failure to Appear by J A Jance, also in ebook format.
I’m a big fan of ebook formats as I like the fact that I don’t have to lug heavy books on holiday but they are all in my little PDA. The screen on my PDA is great and I have no eye fatigue reading off it. I have a fairly large collection of ebooks, both licensed and *cough* un …
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Posted on 6 May 2007 @ 16:02 in Books
Since the Madcap Machinist wasn’t at the reading, I don’t have a reliable head count of the numbers at Dina Zaman’s reading at Borders The Curve yesterday afternoon, but looking at the pictures, I’d say it was about 30. Of course, some of us were there because we knew beforehand, especially those who brought their own copies of IAM!
The location of the reading probably helped with the attendance - right smack in the middle of the busiest part of the bookstore (entrance of the ground floor) so it was hard to miss. And there were repeated announcements from about an hour before (and probably a few days leading up to) the event, too. Kudos to Borders The Curve.
For some reason, the front row had single sofa seaters while the other rows only had regular plastic foldable chairs - made it look like they were expecting some VIPs. The only “VIP” who sat in the front row throughout the reading was an old Chinese lady (see picture). It’s a wonder Dina kept a straight face throughout as she was facing the old lady all that time!
Dina read from the “Doubling Gods” chapter, making the audience laugh at various sections, including the one about verifying a chicken’s virginity, and then gasp at the end of the reading with the very last line “The place we visited did not exist.”
Following the reading came the Q&A time. Anything controversial? The only one I could think of was the elderly man ( “I am probably the same age group as your parents,” he began by saying) who commented that the title of the book was provocative, but then went on to call Dina intelligent but rebellious. I doubt he was looking for a fight; from the looks of it, he was a fan with his own copy of IAM inside a see-through plastic holder with zip (proud to show the world he owns a copy but at the same time eager to keep it clean and protected), which he later went up to ask Dina to autograph.
Other members of the audience who went up to ask their questions were mainly curious to know what her parents thought of her publishing the book, whether her Terengganu roots influenced her writing, and also whether she received any angry or hate emails.
In all, a good reading, if this close-up of a smiling Dina can be taken as a gauge of the overall mood.
But wait! The best was yet to come. It happened after the reading, but I think I’ll leave it to Dina to blog about it, since it involved her and someone close to her, and I was only an innocent bystander. If she wants to, lah.
Oh yah - her next reading will be at Borders Berjaya Times Square on Saturday, 12 May 2007.
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Posted on 6 May 2007 @ 15:07 in Books
(Besides going to the Big Bookstore Sale with Sharon)
I live near two bookstores and now that more Malaysian writers have been published, I’ve taken to the habit of visiting the two stores to see how the Malaysian books are being displayed. A visit to the Popular outlet at IKANO netted the following shots:
Kam’s book:
I “borrowed” the plastic display stand from the next book to prop the Dato’ up, as I felt he needed more exposure.
Tan Twan Eng’s book:
And on my way out of the store, the following caught my eye:
Dina’s book was also in another display section, but there was no display stand nearby to “borrow” , so I just propped one copy up, with another copy in front to keep it from slipping down. The display worked as on my way out, I saw two young Malays in front of this section, with a copy each of IAM in their hands.
And that’s not all! Lydia Teh’s Honk! If You’re Malaysian was #4 on the Non-Fiction Bestsellers’ Display, and Tash Aw’s Harmony Silk Factory was in the Asian Lit section.
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