Fest For The Eyes

Monday, May 26, 2008

Popular Bookfest 2008 was a much better book fest - because there was more floor-space at the KL Convention Centre. There was also stationery, computer peripherals, gifts and... tea? The folks at Purple Cane were hawking all sorts of teas, including a three-figure tagged Golden Oolong. Not my cup of tea. I'm a coffee man.

Of course, there were stage events. Teen author Lim May-Zhee, in a slinky purple dress and mile-long lashes spouted inspiring lines to the young listeners about the beauty of being a young author, thus:

"Writing a book is hard work..."

"You have to do lots of editing... you edit again and again and again..."

"You need to deal with pesky editors and printing staff, who'll mess up your work and you have to do it all over..."

"You have to do lots of PR, talking about your book... it's like taking care of children... so yeah, my books are like my children, so help me and buy my children..."

I cringed a lot.

Amir Muhammad's appearance wasn't too spectacular, either. He was just reading some of the quotes that will appear in Malaysian Politicians Say The Darnedest Things #2. Both authors, in fact, looked like they'd rather be somewhere else. I would've liked to hear some interesting back-stories about their works, in the vein of those "The Making of..." documentaries.

Reminds me of my old job, where the developers were excellent problem-solvers, but bad chroniclers of their work - barring their in-code comments. The schedules didn't allow them to. But then, my ex-colleagues wrote code. I didn't expect to see the same thing in authors.