Book Marks: A Million Pinches of Salt, Self-Writing Satire

Since its publication and release of its film adaptation, Raynor Winn's memoir The Salt Path, which I previusly mentioned here, gained a fair bit of attention. The story of a middle-aged couple made homeless and embarking on a walking journey in the countryside after one of them contracted a terminal disease can be compelling. But a report from The Observer has unearthed disturbing details about the couple's history, throwing into doubt the veracity of what's in the book.

The author disputes the report and defends what she wrote, but it's unclear whether she'll be taking legal action. The publisher, Penguin, meanwhile has stated that it "undertook all the necessary pre-publication due diligence, including a contract with an author warranty about factual accuracy, and a legal read, as is standard with most works of non-fiction," the BBC reported. Nevertheless, Penguin has delayed the release of Winn's next book. Maybe they can take a closer look at it while they wait for the scandal to blow over.

Once again, are publishers obligated to determine whether a memoir is for real? Lucy Knight explores the scandal in the Guardian and while publishers can fact-check or investigate, publishing involves a degree of trust, and as not every publisher can maintain a fact-checking department or hire third-party fact-checkers, that duty often falls to the editor, whose plate might be full already.

Will publishers be more sensitive towards stories that sound too good to be true? For a while, at least, until the next one comes along because, as Knight writes, "The fact that there is money to be made – with very few legal repercussions – by telling the most marketable version of a story, rather than the true one, makes it difficult to believe that this controversy will be the last of its kind." Two other takes on the issue seem to concur.


Elsewhere:

• While some "true stories" sound too good to be true, there are incidents or events that we hope are fake. Another tRump admin, for one. But alas... At a protest against the infamous "Alligator Alcatraz", a sign caught Florida author Carl Hiaasen's attention. America right now is arguably beyond parody and as someone who's known for writing political satire, Hiaasen has his work cut out for him. "After all, even the most brilliant novelist would be challenged to imagine storylines more preposterous than those generated by President Donald Trump in his second administration," writes Stephanie Mencimer in Mother Jones. Well, when satire writes or even outdoes itself...
• "...I reckon we're at the precipice of a major reshuffling, where younger authors are set to replace the ageing ones as the primary voices of the generation. I think many younger readers are starting to identify with their ethnic lineage and traditions more than ever before, and that perhaps explains the boom in demand for local or regional literature." Female Singapore speaks with author Malcom Seah about his book, Swimming Lessons, his writing, regional literature, and his plans. Keep an eye on this young man, readers.
• Leaving books for people to find and read sounds like a thing for bookish fairy godmothers. Maybe that's why Emma Watson called her campaign "Book Fairies". Carol Koh kicked off something similar in Malaysia, and now she has set up a string of community libraries across the Klang Valley. Hopefully, Books on the Move will fare well for many years.
• Is reading books in more than one language difficult? Maybe it's not too big of a deal in Malaysia where the average bookworm may be bi- or trilingual. Malaysian writers tend to sprinkle their prose with the local vernacular, a bit like how Cormac McCarthy inserts Spanish into his work, according to Rachel Ashcroft in Literature Hub. But it doesn't seem to affect her enjoyment of McCarthy's The Crossing. "...I was happy to 'watch' Billy converse in Spanish. Which is what the question of reading books in two languages really boils down to. Are you happy to watch, or do you need to hear and understand every single word?"
• "Although few Australians are totally illiterate, a staggering 44 per cent of adults (about 7.3 million) have low literacy, where the reading standard ranges from primary school-level up to early high school, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics." The Sydney Morning Herald rings alarm bells with regard to the decline in reading in Australia, a trend that might not be confined Down Under. The piece is grim reading, albeit well researched.
• A report on novelist Barbara Kingsolver's recovery residence, established using using royalties from her Pulitzer prize-winning novel Demon Copperhead, sheds light on rural America and the struggles of Appalachians affected by poverty and the opioid crisis. She is a bit less kind towards the current US president and his so-called "hillbilly" of a vice-president.
• "...the journal—often dismissed as 'just a diary'—wasn't merely a space for confessional wallowing, but a scaffolding for becoming, a place to contain a life in progress. I didn't know that this habit I began in childhood—one that I've continued through adolescence, motherhood, grief, addiction, and recovery—was part of a lineage. To journal is to claim authority over your own interiority. It is to say: I saw and felt these things. I was here." Was journalling ever considered as frivolous? Not any more, as Elizabeth Austin writes at Electric Literature.
• Rolling Stone gives us a glimpse into the anti-woke literary scene, which seems to be coming in from the cold since tRump's re-election. "Anti-woke", to some of these people, appears to mean saying and doing whatever you want, however gross and offensive. However, the world isn't free of repercussions. Gatekeeping, for instance, is a response to certain words and deeds, especially in published material. Rolling Stone tries hard to make the people in its article human and relatable, but there are times you are reminded of who they are. Speaking of right wing...
• "After her book became a New York Times bestseller, the right-wing forces in Japan who wanted to cover up that part of history started to attack her. Their articles criticizing her kept appearing in Japanese newspapers using all kinds of methods." Not sure if I believe this report, but if the Japanese government was involved in harassing Iris Chang for The Rape of Nanking, it wouldn't be surprising. Japan's right wing is formidable and the country has never quite acknowledged its wartime atrocities.

To close off: The Malaysian Home Ministry is open to rethinking book ban laws, says PEN Malaysia (article in Malay; the English version is paywalled). I'm sceptical, but we'll wait and see.

Book Marks: AI Marches On, Reading Habits

Last week was bad for authors as two federal judges ruled in favour of tech companies in copyright lawsuits arguing against the companies' methods in training their AI models. While Meta and Anthropic may seem to have won, the judges' decisions do not give them the leeway to do what they want with their AI systems.

In the case of Meta, the judge's ruling was because the authors made the wrong arguments. While Anthropic was found to have not violated US copyright law by using books to train its AI, it was at fault for using pirated books in building the data set. The court rulings stop short of giving tech companies free rein to feed their AI models with copyrighted material, but Aron Solomon at Literary Hub feels it might not be enough.

A group of authors has released an open letter calling on major publishers to restrict the use of AI. The document "asks them to refrain from publishing books written using AI tools built on copyrighted content without authors' consent or compensation, to refrain from replacing publishing house employees wholly or partially with AI tools, and to only hire human audiobook narrators — among other requests," NPR reports.

The letter's core argument seems to be that AI steals from human writers to "write". "These stories were stolen from us and used to train machines that, if short-sighted capitalistic greed wins, could soon be generating the books that fill our bookstores," the letter goes, before asking, "Is this the end goal—to fully remove us from the equation so that those at the very top of the capitalist structure can profit even further off our labor than they already do?"

An intern at the Detroit Free Press lays out her concerns regarding the growing use of AI in writing. "When I eventually publish a book, there is a high chance that some form of AI will steal it. This leaves me with two options: unwillingly become a part of a system that I despise, or never follow my long time-publishing dreams. Ten-year-old me would be devastated if robots got the chance to be bestsellers before she did."

The rulings may have made it more urgent to address the potential for AI to supplant humans in writing and publishing, and what would the future pool of literature look like if machine-generated output becomes the standard? And with AI being more efficient in trendspotting, marketing, targeted advertising and such – so much so that publishers and publishing platforms are employing it to that end – what guardrails need to be in place to ensure it doesn't make people redundant?


Okay, what else?

• Last week, Malaysian Home Ministry officials raided a Fixi bookstore and took copies of Jelik and Jelik:2. ABC dives deeper into the factors behind such raids and highlights the challenges of writing and publishing in this climate. Why these titles were being scrutinised isn't clear, but both seem to be psychological thrillers so maybe they're too disturbing for public consumption? Or did the officials not notice the "For Mature Readers" labels Fixi places on the covers of some of its titles? Or could it be– ooohhh.
• "Today, the nature of reading has shifted. Plenty of people still enjoy traditional books and periodicals, and there are even readers for whom the networked age has enabled a kind of hyper-literacy; for them, a smartphone is a library in their pocket. For others, however, the old-fashioned, ideal sort of reading—intense, extended, beginning-to-end encounters with carefully crafted texts—has become almost anachronistic." Joshua Rothman in The New Yorker asks, "what's happening to reading" in the age of AI.
• "In the past, in Ethiopia—as in many other countries—plays were often published in book form either before or after being staged. A quick look into the subject reveals that many such plays were indeed published." In the Ethiopia Observer, a writer laments the lost art of publishing plays.
• Would you pepper your books with marginalia? Medieval authors had no problems with that, and today, "a growing community of BookTokkers and Bookstagrammers are ... posting images of books embellished with pastel highlighting and marginal drawings of flowers and kittens, wantonly smeared with lipstick kisses, or neatly stuffed with colour-coded tabs" as a form of engagement with authors and their works. Lebih daripada menconteng buku sahaja, okay?
• "I joke that our publishing house's PR department consists of the head of Roskomnadzor, the justice minister, and the prosecutor general — they've done more to promote our books than we ever could." This quote from Georgy Urushadze, founder of publisher Freedom Letters, has a familiar tone. Freedom Letters is among a small clutch of publishers publishing Russian literature abroad, a practice called tamizdat. Authoritairan regimes doing more than publishers in promoting books is an all-too-familiar theme by now, I feel. All these works need to do is win prizes.
• Book prizes can be prestige-granting, not to mention lucrative, but as a source of income for authors, it's unreliable – and out of reach for most. However, for those who do win awards in Australia, the prize is taxable. Punters who pick winning authors – a real thing Down Under, apparently – their winnings are not taxed. With writers earning peanuts and Australia giving away "extraordinary amounts of gas and offers massive subsidies in the form of fuel tax credits", editor, publisher, researcher and teacher Alice Grundy argues that it's time for tax-free prize money for authors.
• "All across the book industry, people watched as the staff at various other media companies and magazines unionized, analogous creative industries that had similarly treated employees like they should feel lucky just to be there. Creative types were not so different from the baristas and warehouse workers in their desire to be treated fairly." Read an excerpt from Maris Kreizman's I Want to Burn This Place Down, an apt title for an anthem for wrung-out peons in publishing if I ever heard one.
• "The Book Society, hosted initially by the bestselling novelist and screenwriter Hugh Walpole, who put together the first selection committee and remained energetically involved until his death in 1941, provided something unheard of in the UK at the time: a book subscription service in partnership with publishers that any member of the public – should they be able to stump up the cost each month – could join." Did these early book influencers invent the book club?
• "The truth is that ideas come from everything you consume – culture, conversations, observations, awkward dinners, humiliating accidents, fabulous parties. It’s perhaps no surprise then that writers, who typically consume a lot of books, are inspired to write about them." E.C. Nevin talks about their book, A Novel Murder, and dives into why we read and write books about books.
• I'm not sure whether this op-ed is satire – or if it's not, where this "non-woke" writer has been to. Right-wing publishing has always been around. If avenues for right-wing authors are shrinking at the moment, could it be because few want to be on the wrong side of history? The return of the tRump administration and the resurgence of the right in the west has galvanised right-wing movements all over, and many authors of that persuasion are cashing in. Missed a boat? No worries, the next one is on the way.
• 8th Note Press, the publishing arm owned by TikTok parent company ByteDance that was founded to capitalise on the BookTok boom, is shutting down. Was this a case of a corporation failing to catch an obvious tsunami-class wave, or are there other factors?

Book Marks: Books And Libraries Under Pressure

War in the Middle East has ramped up with Iran and Israel trading fire. One casualty of the crises in the region is the book and publishing industry, but it has been floundering for a long while before the recent conflagrations. Though more titles are being published in Iran of late, sales are dismal. This website cites several factors limiting the reach of books in the country, particularly poverty and censorship.

Conflict has also changed things in Yemen, which has seen the novel emerge as the dominant literary form...

Instead of poetry—which had long been Yemen's preeminent art form—the novel emerged as a suitable vehicle for confronting the social and psychological ruptures caused by war. This transformation was aided by the rise of digital platforms, which offered broader opportunities for self-publishing and connecting with new readers, as well as by individual initiatives and small cultural institutions striving to support Yemeni narrative despite scarce resources.

The Yemeni outlook is slightly rosier, but with all that's going on, any news coming out has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Is publishing really in dire straits as reported in these places? Nevertheless, one wishes the best for writers, publishers, and readers in the Middle East.

In Nepal, some seem to have cultivated the reading habit during the pandemic, and e-books are becoming popular among the youth. But this hasn't translated to growing sales. A publisher cites "political instability, the 2015 earthquake, the Indian blockade, tax on imported books, the COVID-19 pandemic, economic hardship, increasing foreign migration and frustration among the people" for Nepal's weak book market.

Things are no less challenging in the US as the tRump administration continues to wreak havoc. Much has been reported on the impact its regressive policies have had on the economy, healthcare, and the arts. Clare Mulroy of USA Today spells out some of the changes wrought, particularly book tours put on ICE, grant cuts affecting libraries and public reading spaces, and the book bans and sidelining of minority authors.

The National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency that funds and supports creative endeavours in the country, has announced a slew of cuts in its programmes, affecting many that depend on its funding to stay afloat. In The Orange Country Register several publishers that have been affected speak on the issue and what their plans are moving forward.


Meanwhile...

• "What's queer about food? Over the past decade, momentum has gathered around this conversation. By nature, the intersection resists fixed rules and embraces abstraction, but the benefits of asking seem clear: As two new books demonstrate, food can reveal a richness of queer culture, expression, possibility and survival." A brief piece in The New York Times introduced two books about queer restaurants. One is reminded of the hilarious short story "What Do Gay People Eat?" by Brian Gomez. With these books, that question may be answered.
• "'[Your first manga project is] meant to be a learning experience ... In five years, you'll look back on that project and say, "Oh god." Not because you won’t be proud of the work, but because you're constantly getting better. The first one is about learning the process rather than being perfect. It's about finishing something and using that experience to develop.'" The folks at Creative Bloq put together a Q&A of sorts about how to publish your manga with the help from experts they spoke to.
• Malaysian bookworms might have heard of Rabak-Lit but perhaps few know that it's not just a publisher any more. The Seremban-based indie outfit now organises mini concerts, hosts gigs, and produces T-shirts and shoes, among other things. The Star is covering a recent Rabak-Lit venture: a revival of the Fung Keong shoe brand that was discontinued in 1990.
• "Bookstores were once staples in Malaysian malls. ...Families would stop by after lunch, students lingered between shelves, and casual shoppers often left with unexpected new reads. This quiet, thoughtful space is vanishing. Why?" Good question and points from a Malaysiakini reader. "It may seem like a small thing, but we can't help but wonder if the absence of a book[s]tore says something deeper about us. Not just about shifting retail trends, but about the society we are becoming."
• "I wrote the book out of frustration because of what's been happening to these children – they aren't just nameless faces to me, they are children that I know. I also wanted a happy story for foundlings, where they get to have a family of their own and the same opportunities as everybody else." Hartini Zainudin, co-founder of Yayasan Chow Kit, talks about her children's book The Foundling and her goals for it.
• "I had often wondered what it must have been like for authors to have the Toni Morrison as their editor," writes Dana A. Williams in Slate. "When the writer John A. McCluskey Jr. first met Morrison in 1971, she had published only The Bluest Eye. McCluskey, not yet 30 years old, saw her not as the Pulitzer Prize–winning Nobel laureate she would become, but as a fellow Ohio writer looking to make her mark as an editor." I'm not an editor any more, but I still like to read about other editors – and imagine what it would be like.
• "Authors today are still advised to stay in their lane. You wrote a successful thriller? Great. Write another one. You want to write ‘con amore?’ Fine – pen a love letter. For obvious financial reasons, plenty of authors are happy to stick with what works. But there are others who jump genres simply because, like [A.A.] Milne, they want to." From this list of titles, writers venturing beyond their pond are dipping their toes into cosy mystery, which appears a soft, welcoming genre.
• "While doubles are largely defined as having a similar if not identical resemblance to another, doppelgängers have a more a supernatural or otherworldly quality and serve as a manifestation of a character's deepest fears." Naomi Klein's Doppelganger and novels such as Yellowface and Julie Chan Is Dead may be part of a literary trend of exploring the author's or protagonist's doubles and the mirror worlds of the latter. Kirthana Ramisetti dives into the doppelganger phenomenon in Electric Literature.
• "Ghostwriting as a profession is timely, growing and in high demand," writes journalist and editor Erin O'Dwyer in Artshub "But doing it well is an art form of its own." So, having ghostwritten herself, she shares some tips on how to be a ghostwriter. Not too detailed, but a good place to start for those planning to dive in.
• "After losing a friend and turning 50, [Native American author Andrea] Rogers decided to pursue writing full time while earning her doctorate in English at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. When she took the leap, family members worried about money and the stress another degree program would bring. 'I could tell they thought I was a little crazy,' she says, 'but I was like, "If I don't do it now, then when?" because you can't buy time.'" Rogers has since made good use of her time, penning a few children's titles and winning awards for them.
• "Criticism and warnings of Gen-AI authors snagging coveted deals are flooding both Threads and TikTok, with writers and readers sometimes flinging around accusations when they suspect someone is using AI as part of their creative process," writes Alana Yzola in Wired. "Now, [Victoria] Aveyard and other prolific authors are not only calling out people who use AI to write, they’re also posting livestreams and time-lapses of their writing processes to defend themselves against such complaints."
• "America's superpower that it uses over and over again is forgetting or pretending that something didn't happen. And this novel being about guilt and punishment and revenge, hopefully dramatizes that in a way that can leave the reader with the realization that just because you forget about it, doesn't mean it didn't happen." Stephen Graham Jones talks to the Daily Camera in Colorado about his book The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, his writing journey, and his craft.

Finally: "Having studied literature for years, I will always be a defender of the trashy romance genre. These books do what they say on the tin ... They are light-hearted, fast-paced, easy to read, and most importantly, they allow you to flex your reading muscles again." Charlotte Renahan in Cherwell, Oxford's oldest independent student newspaper, touts trashy romance as the saviour of one's urge to read and suggests a few to try.

But I don't notice any historical romance titles in that short list – a sign of trouble for the subgenre? "Over the last five years, readers and authors alike have started to notice a steady decline in publishing deals for historical romance books," R. Nassor writes in Book Riot. "Author of the What To Read If newsletter, Elizabeth Held, recently pointed out on Threads that only seven of the eighty romances acquired by leading publishers in 2024 were historicals."

I wouldn't worry too much though. Trends swing like pendulums, and even if publishers are shying away from historical romances for the time being, all genres have their readers – and writers. It ain't going away.

Book Marks: Public Pages, More LibGen Shenanigans

Public figures tend to be fair game for writers and journalists, and if a book or an article turns out to be libellious, a lawsuit brews. But what if an author is charged for merely writing a book about someone, however well-researched? That's what happened to Webster Ochora Elijah in Kenya, who wrote a book about the Kenyan president's daughter.

This seems to have been prompted by a case where another daughter of the president was impersonated on Facebook, and by all means, this should be stomped out. But if there are no skeletons, why go after a little-known writer of a book with little publicity? Now the Streisand effect is likely to kick in, prompting a scramble for the book.

Perhaps a more straightforward instance of "misuse" was in the ruling by the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property, which fined Penguin Random House for putting a photo of a socialite in a book about women with ties to Mexico's drug cartels. "...[Violeta] Vizcarra's photograph, sourced from her social media without consent, was featured on the book's cover and within its pages," the Latin Times reported.

Drug cartels are deeply enmeshed in Mexican society, so no surprise if anyone were involved with them. However, Vizcarra denies any ties to the cartels and says the use of her photo in the book could be defamatory. But what if the book's claims about her could be proven?

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Canadian cookbook author Greta Podleski should be glad her latest, Every Salad Ever has launched and is doing well. Then she received news about an impersonator "releasing" another cookbook with the same title, apparently cashing in on the original's popularity. Chumps like this have been trying to make a killing on Amazon, hoping they won't be found out too quickly before getting enough coin. Sucks that what's arguably the largest online marketplace is infested with such parasites. Speaking of which...

Author Harriet Evans is fuming that her books, including one that is not published yet, were found in the notorious LibGen data set and have been mined by Facebook's parent company Meta to train its AI models. "This is the Treasures, out 12th June from Viking," Evans wrote on Substack. "So they've stolen the text from - where? I don't know. Netgalley? My own Word document? The cloud? This sounds vague, but that's how big tech works." Vague, and hella scary.


Elsewhere:

• A Bulgarian translation of Tan Twan Eng's novel, The House of Doors, discovered by the Bulgarian ambassador to Finland, led to the inaugural Malaysia-Bulgaria Literary Diplomacy Dialogue in Helsinki. "The event, hosted by the Embassy of Malaysia in Helsinki and moderated by Chargé d'Affaires Ariff Ali, brought together Malaysian, Bulgarian, and Finnish readers from fields such as literature, creative writing, art, and international relations," The Star reported. A happy chain of events, but not everyone will feel the same.
• A woodcut artist's masterpiece inspired by the Sabahan harvest festival has been turned into a children's book. According to The Star, "The book was released to coincide with this year’s Kaamatan, the annual Kadazandusun harvest festival, and is available at the Arcane Literature and Kinderstories Hub booth at the 2025 Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair, held at World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur."
• The Guardian and the BBC highlighted the toxic books of yore, covers of which were made green using arsenic, mercury, copper and others. The striking green colour on the covers of many old books pose a health hazard, so a tool to determine whether a tome is a health risk was developed. Reader, beware!
• "Women in Nepal face entrenched systemic and cultural barriers, and publishing is no exception. Their works are undervalued, dismissed as less 'serious', and their leadership questioned. Also, gendered expectations limit time, mobility, and access to networks — making it harder to write, publish, or participate in literary life." A Q&A in Global Voices with Archana Thapa, an author, editor, and publisher based in Kathmandu, Nepal.
• "I wrote [Hunchback] thinking that it is a problem that there were few authors with disabilities. Why did the first [disabled] winner [of Japan's Akutagawa Prize] not appear until 2023?" Saou Ichikawa struggled to be read in a country where the disabled are virtually invisible, but her winning one of Japan's oldest and most prestigious literary awards seems to have alerted some to the existence of ableism there. The English translation of Hunchback, longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize, can be found in many local bookstores.
• Still no love in China for boys love, it seems. Writers of stories in that genre were targeted in a recent crackdown and, if found guilty, are subjected to heavy penalties. Since Beijing cracked the whip on this, many such authors have been detained or are laying low, including the creator of the wildly popular Heaven's Official Blessing and Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation.
• "...going forward, I think because my allegiance is to the source material, my goal is always to find the best team for the adaptation, not to say that what makes the best book and what makes the best show and what makes the best movie are the same, but they're in conversation." Variety speaks to V.E. Schwab, author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, the Vicious series, and Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, about her writing, film adaptation of Addie LaRue, and more.
• Writing a book? You're not alone, and chances are what you're writing has already been written by dozens, if not hundreds of others. Kate McKean over at Electric Literature shares the 10 types of novels swamping the inboxes of literary agents of late and what you can do to make yours stand out. All the best.
• "I know that summer reading has always been popular, so June is an excellent time to publish books. And I also know that the first week of each month is usually the most jam packed with new releases. I know too that on the first Tuesday in June of 2024 there were 15 new books that I was excited about ... so June has not always been this overflowing." Seems there are too many books for Maris Kreizman and this June appears to be a bumper month. Why is that?

Finally, it seems Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim thinks Malaysians don't read enough and spend too much time on social media. Anwar was speaking during the closing ceremony of this year's Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair.

I can't verify the prime minister's claims but from the crowds at KLIBF surely Malaysians do read? Perhaps, just not the books the PM had in mind? And what sort of reading culture is being fostered in the country when, as author and indie musician Brian Gomez helpfully pointed out, the authorities actively ban books they don't like?

Oh, apologies for ranting. Guess I'll go read a book.

Book Marks: AI Hallucinations, War On Rainbows

Think AI can help with your reading lists? Think again. A list titled "Heat Index: Your Guide to the Best of Summer", published in the Chicago Sun-Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer, contained titles hallucinated by AI such as "Tidewater Dreams" by Isabel Allende, "The Last Algorithm" by Andy Weir, and "Nightshade Market by Min Jin Lee. The author of the list admitted to using AI and has expressed embarrassment.

This may have been a simple goof, but Claire Mulroy feels different, in light of a growing trust deficit in the media and the marginalisation of authors from certain demographics. "...in both the book world and the journalism industry, this kind of AI-generated content threatens and undermines the creativity that makes us readers in the first place." In response, Literary Hub recommended some real books based on the AI picks.

And it's not just book recommendations. At least one author was caught using AI to rewrite passages in their book. In a stunning example of how use of AI dulls the mind, these authors left the AI prompts they issued to chatbots in their published works. Two of the authors have copped to – and defended – their use of AI.

If one notices just how prolific some authors are, maybe this is one reason. Current AI models aren't advanced enough to be creative in human ways and its use here is arguably akin to theft. But if you're going to steal or cheat, at least be smart enough to cover your tracks.

Getting bots to help you steal an author's style cuts writing time considerably, enabling you to publish more. A writer at Screen Rant believes the resulting avalanche of AI-assisted work will swamp the shelves, real or virtual, drowning out authors who deserve more air. "Should AI flood the market," writes Rose Graceling-Moore, "this becomes an issue that disproportionately affects marginalized authors, many of whom have found a home in self-publishing in an industry where accusations of discrimination are a major issue."

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Russia seems to be targeting publishers, booksellers and companies for promoting "the 'extremist' LGBT movement" with renewed gusto. The International Publishers Association (IPA) has decried the crackdowns and stands with those who are being subjected to raids and arrests. Since I last read about this, the scope of the ban seems to have widened, impacting books that carry anti-war messages and criticism of Russian leadership.

The bit about a woman who "was sentenced to five days in detention for wearing frog-shaped earrings in rainbow colors" hits close to home. Swatch outlets in Malaysia were raided in 2023 and rainbow-coloured watches were confiscated for having "LGBT elements". This is in line with the government's anti-LGBT stance, which has also seen books and other materials with LGBT themes and elements taken off the shelves.

Speaking of shelves: several more titles have been added to the list of prohibited publications by the Malaysian Home Ministry. Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood; bestselling Tuan Ziyad: Forbidden Love by Bellesa; Darlingku Mr Cold Mafia by Nur Firsha Nadia Mohd Noor Kusairi; Mischievous Killer by Aira Syuhairah Noradzan; Suhuf Abraham and Kougar 2 by Shaz Johar; and The American Roommate Experiment by Elena Armas have all been banned.

Some might be baffled as to why, because the catch-all reason given is vague. Hazelwood's was apparently banned for the cover. Cold Mafia drew attention for... eww. In Tuan Ziyad, a young man brings his intended fiancée home, only for the latter to discover that her future father-in-law was her sugar daddy, who still can't let her go. Ewww~.

I don't see how effective banning is. Stories like Tuan Ziyad are all over platforms like Wattpad, which are brought to bookstores by publishers trying to cash in on the authors' ardent audiences online. Would it surprise anyone if even darker, spicier stuff can be unearthed there? At best, all banning does is send people back to cyberspace for the originals – and down certain rabbit holes.

As far as I know, the Home Ministry doesn't have a unit combing through reams of published material. Investigations tend to be launched based on reports, either by individuals or NGOs, or if it makes the news. And the obsession with anything LGBT is influenced by how fetishised the community is, to sell lurid narratives about it – the perfect distraction from the latest political hijinks or whatnot. However, we probably don't have to speculate what Russia is trying to distract its citizens from.


In other news:

• "Like it or not, we are all aging and one day it might be us, no matter how fit, smart, fine-looking, successful, and talented we once were or still are. This moment fired up a spark in me, so I decided to write about the idiosyncrasies of old age." A scene in a hotel lobby bar prompted Ivy Ngeow's exploration of family relationships in her latest novel, In Safe Hands.
• "I decided that no matter what it looked like, I was going to open a bookstore so that I could contribute in some small way and stand up for intellectual freedom in the US." Book bans, growing censorship and erasure of records in the States are fuelling the rise of independent bookselling by proprietors compelled to do something in a fraught literary landscape.
• At the PEN World Voices Festival, novelists Joyce Carol Oates and Carmen Boullosa spoke of their reissued works, Broke Heart Blues and Texas: The Great Theft respectively, and how and why these titles, written many years ago, still resonate today.
• "All of Gaza's universities have been leveled by airstrikes. More than 85 percent of schools in Gaza have been completely or partially destroyed, according to U.N. experts. According to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, three university presidents and over 95 university deans and professors, including 68 holding professor titles, have been killed in Israeli airstrikes." Yet, some in Gaza persist in teaching and learning. The Intercept presents four stories of teachers and students pursuing learning under Israeli bombardment.
• People shouldn't be killed while researching for their books, but that seems to be a risk if you're a journalist writing about the exploitation of the Amazon. While friends of British journalist Dom Phillips finished the work he began, that he had to risk death to write is tragic and galling. But it's an awful reality. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) reported that 122 journalists and media workers were killed last year.
• "What happened to the bestselling young white man?" asks Vox, prompting reminiscences of discussions over the male-only publisher Conduit. The piece isn't about how white male authors are going extinct but that fewer books by younger male authors don't seem to be coming out as much these days. It's tied to a podcast, so it doesn't go too in-depth. But if stories by young men are being passed over without good reason, that would be a shame. Still, when it comes down to it, if you're male and white, you'd still have a better chance to get published, so perhaps one should ask, are they writing and is it worth publishing?
• "Though it may seem counterintuitive, one of the most effective tools for generating new work or pushing stories to the next level is to impose creative constraints on them. Poetry is often taught by introducing students to rigidly structured forms like sonnets, villanelles, and haiku. Prose writers would be well-served by learning from this approach." Writing WITH constraints? Not as novel as it sounds, according to these authors.
• "The idea that art will save us is the kind of magical thinking that flourishes when people feel helpless. ...When dragging your way up the social ladder looks increasingly impossible, then vibes become as good as personal initiative—or actual political action." RS Benedict in Current Affairs on why resistance through art is no substitute for real resistance.
• Art may not save us, but it can do other things. While not really artistic in nature and mission scope, street paper and social enterprise Big Issue did help an author get her book out. "A moving account of one couple's time living homeless on the South West Coast, [The Salt Path by Raynor Winn is] about to become a major motion picture". The book – and the movie, which should be released by now – may help boost tourism in the area but Thomas Horn, writing in The Independent, doubts it will address the other issue that the book chronicles. "The South West is a place of extreme beauty, but also extreme poverty. If you look beyond the glorious coastline and posh fish restaurants ... you'll realise there are lots of issues making life unaffordable."
• Penguin Random House's acquisition of comic book and graphic novel publisher Boom! Studios last year means no more unlimited, simultaneous access to Boom!'s titles for subscribers of the digital platform Comics Plus. By the time you see this, all Boom! titles on Comics Plus would have been deactivated.
• On comics, graphic novel publishing pioneer Rich Johnson notes that "The graphic novel section is the only section in bookstores organized by title. Every other section in the store is organized by author." He thinks it's a problem when people want to search works by author and offers some suggestions on how to shelve titles in the graphic novel section.
• Kristen Arnett at Literary Hub gives advice on supporting a friend's self-publishing endeavours (or not), what to do when you can't enjoy reading because your writer's hat is still on, and whether you're an ass if you think websites paywalling articles suck (it DOES, but...).

Book Marks: Do We Need A Male-Centric Publisher?

A new publisher caused a little stir with its business model of exclusively platforming male authors and claiming that they're rebalancing the publishing landscape that's leaning a little too female. Perhaps this publisher should look at what's being written instead of who's doing the writing, if it thinks that guys aren't reading what it thinks they should read, if at all.

Discussions over whether publishing is dominated by males was a thing about a decade ago, and if the pendulum is swinging the other way, I feel this trend has yet to reach its zenith – too early to hit the panic button. "Male authors going from 80% to 50% of the market is far from a crisis in need of another intervening corrective," James Folta writes in Literary Hub.

By all means, publish. There's room for new voices and if this publisher believes in its mission, its releases should strike a chord among the reading public. Just don't hype it up like the advent of some superhero team. I don't see the need for a male-only publisher right now because women still face hurdles in getting published. So I'm more welcoming of efforts like those of heritage publishing house Quite Literally Books, which is digging up books written by American women from a hundred years back.


Next up:

• Book lovers will inevitably have copies to give away, and here's another place for them: Buku Beyond Bars, a community book drive for prison libraries. "This initiative seeks to foster rehabilitation, personal growth, and mental well-being for the prison community through increased availability and accessibility of informative and meaningful reading materials," Mazni Ibrahim, CEO of the Malaysian Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights (MCCHR), tells The Star. MCCHR launched the project.
• "...it's not just theft. It's bullying. Exploitation. Looting on a grand scale. The stuff of Upton Sinclair. Only we don't have robber barons anymore. We have pirate captains. Bluebeards of the human heart. And what are we supposed to fight them with? Carefully worded emails? That's like bringing a spork to a nuclear war." Catherine Baab found that her book was among the many being used to train Meta's AI bot LLaMA 3. Still don't understand what the fuss is about? Hear her out and maybe you will.
• Speaking of theft: Nagi Maehashi (and maybe several others) versus Brooke Bellamy. The latter was accused of lifting recipes for her bestseller Bake with Brooki. Recipe ownership can be hard to prove, unless there are signs of stuff being copied verbatim. At the Australian book industry awards night however, Maehashi can walk away with a bit of satisfaction after her book beat Bellamy's, among others, for the title of illustrated book of the year.
• "If small and independent presses offered fresher, more challenging books, how could [readers] find and read them?" writers Melanie Jennings and Elizabeth Kaye Cook ask. They then lay out the reasons small-press titles don't get enough sun and what can be done about it. BookTok is one option, but readers should also step up and be a bit more adventurous. Small presses may need to find ways to get noticed as well, even if the task is herculean.
• "Authors have limited choice over what happens to their unpublished work after their deaths—but while they still live, the decision over how to treat their trunk works is as individual as the authors themselves. Given enough time every writer develops some trunk oeuvre." Randee Dawn dishes on "trunk" novels, the early stuff most authors don't feel is good enough for public consumption.
• In USA Today, Clare Mulroy speaks with Fredrik Backman, author of Anxious People and the latest release My Friends, which may be his last published work. Not because he wants to stop writing, but because the exertions required of published authors get to him. He seems to feel that younger writers have it worse. "It's fine when you put that pressure on someone like me, who is 44 years old and I have kids, and I have a life and I have a good support system around me and I've been doing this for 15 years. But when that pressure starts mounting up on someone in their 20s, I think that's a lot to ask of someone...."
• A recent snapshot of the Australian book industry looks bleak, with rising costs eating into margins and making writing, publishing, and bookselling less and less viable as careers. The article also offers some solutions, but is the will to execute them there, and how helpful will these be?

A Midday Soft Landing

The cookie yields under pressure from the fork. I scoop up the piece, leaving behind a gleaming mark on the dish liner. Snowy-white flecks of what looks like white chocolate wink from the cutaway section.

Instead of chewing, I let the cookie melt slowly in my mouth. The scent of browned butter wafts up my throat as a smooth, nutty sweetness slides downwards. Nice.

Feelin' down, harried or lost? Step inside, pick your treats, relax
and let your troubles melt away.

A sip of coffee from an earthenware cup that's more at home at a Japanese tea house than a café. The bitterness chases the sweetness away from my palate, readying it for the next mouthful and taking away a bit of fatigue from the morning.

Damn baby, it's a type of way you make me feel every day
I'm writing songs 'bout you on the back of a plane...

Just two more rounds of this ushers an onrush of memories of coffees and desserts from ghosts of cafés past. This, and Alt Bloom's vocals lull the senses, softening the rough patterns on the cement walls to the gaze.

Another bite of cookie. As my teeth pulverise the macadamia bits, the richness mingles with the nuttiness of the browned butter. I savour both a little longer before swallowing, feeling wistful. Within a week, this flavour may no longer be served and I don't know when it will return.

For now though, I immerse myself in the blissful calm of café, coffee, and cookie.

---

Lingering fears of the pandemic kept me away from dining in for years until I had no choice after being posted to Bangsar for work. Even then, dine-ins were perfunctory affairs: sit down, eat up, get out. No loafing around, no chatting, and it's only during lunch. Dinners were takeaways that I'd eat at home.

After a year and a half of this, however, what made me ready for things to start going back to normal? I still don't know. So walking into Em's Soft Chunky Cookies café near the end of February felt like a tectonic shift in my post-pandemic habits.

Since I started working in Bangsar, I have been taking away Em's cookies on occasion. Chunky and soft in the middle, they get nice and crusty on the surface, especially after a brief spell in the oven. They freeze pretty well too, though they would vanish within a week.

On that day, however, with some trepidation, I sat down for a slice of burnt cheesecake and a "Spanish latte", the usual latte with a little sweetened condensed milk. No crowds, good. I needed some quiet. The cheesecake didn't have a creamy centre but was fine taste-wise, and the latte was like a warm, bracing soak in the tub.

My first sit-in order at Em's Soft Chunky Cookies café: coffee and a slice
of burnt cheesecake. No comments about the size, please.

I left with a lighter heart, a clearer mind, and a familiar sense of satisfaction, knowing I'd be back – perhaps, sooner than I'd like. Above all else, I left with an itch at the back of my head that would produce these musings.

Fast-forward about a month later. It's Raya season, and Em's is serving up its Aidilfitri menu, which includes the Burnt Butter Macadamia cookie that appeared among a slew of previous offerings.

Butter, when 'burnt' – browned, more like, which involves taking care to avoid actual burning – becomes another ingredient, acquiring a delectably nutty aroma and taste. Do I like it? Yes. Am I addicted? Probably.

Do I care? Not really.

On another visit, I was within earshot when the barista/manager told a customer that while Em's has been around for six years (I think), the café is only about a year old. I vaguely recall meeting who I presumed was Em at a bazaar, though I cannot remember if I bought anything from her. So imagine my surprise when Em started setting up shop in Jalan Telawi 2, sharing a lot with a vape store.

With the café's hole-in-the-wall profile and minimalist design, even a shop sign and a standing mirrored sign bookmarking the place would draw little attention. Limited seating accommodates a modest crowd at best – a suitable place to escape the tedious nine-to-five drudgery.

Petrified samples of available offerings are arranged along the counter with labels indicating name and price. Besides the Burnt Butter Macadamia, the Raya offerings include interpretations of onde-onde and the pineapple tart and a cake with dates.

Personal favourites among Em's array of delights include the OG chocolate chip – a must in any cookie shop – and the Cereal Milk, topped with crunchy cereal flakes and a filling of caramelised white chocolate, a cunning concoction that looks and vaguely tastes like a fine and runny peanut butter.

Em's bingka ubi pairs well with ther coffee. Nowadays it's a go-to on
Tuesdays – not every Tuesday – when special-priced coffee is available.

Em's has competition in the neighbourhood, so its arsenal contains more than just cookies. They have special daily offers for each weekday except when they close on Mondays. On Tuesdays one can get coffee at a cheaper price to accompany any sweet treat. Cookies not your thing? How about the burnt cheesecake? Cream puffs? Though the ice cream-topped skillet cookie is too much for me, even on an empty stomach.

Then, maybe try their bingka ubi, a chewy tapioca kuih that's become another favourite. Each slice of a faint dusky yellow - less yellow than most vendors' - is ringed by a thin caramelised corona that gives it a satisfying chew and deepens its flavour profile. Just sweet enough and goes well with their coffees.

But today, it's the browned butter cookie.

I sit down and wait after ordering, hiding behind a wall and facing a rattan-weave-backed chair. I dig in only after everything arrives on the table and lose myself in this tiny recess in the café, sequestered from the noonday warmth outside, flavours playing on my tongue.

With each visit, each mouthful, and each sip, I become a bit less neurotic about dining in, my anxieties uncoiling from my mind like razor wire. Words thrum in my head they way they do when the muse strikes – how long have you been gone?

She keep me like a summer cool breeze
Make me feel fine
Just sipping on that one puff, two drinks
Weight off my mind...

Occasionally, a Grab rider would pass by, picking up deliveries. Em's doesn't just serve in situ and they have several packages to cater for various occasions: birthdays, parties, Raya open houses... these days little cafés and such have to be up for Grab or they'll never make a living.

I've no idea what I did to earn a free cream puff with my purchase, but
I'll take it. The filling is a creamy vanilla, my favourite.

Time passes and the plate and cup empty. With the mouth wiped clean, the mask goes back on. The coffee, like me, lingers, reluctant to let the moment go. Man, I really don't want to go back to work... so soon. But how else can I earn coin for my little culinary and literary escapades?

Eventually I peel myself off the bench, edge my way around the table, and walk out with Alt Bloom's voice in my head. A last bit of coffee clings tenaciously to my throat, despite several cups of water earlier.

"Thank you and have a nice day," the barista/manager calls out.

I think I will.

---

Em's Soft Chunky Cookies

8A, Jalan Telawi 2, Bangsar
59100 Kuala Lumpur

Tue-Sun: 10am–9pm

Closed on Mondays

+6017 680 3870

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