Book Marks: Best-seller, Memoir Moms

The Hindustani Academy has started publishing (re-issuing, rather) rare out-of-print Hindi and Urdu literary books, beginning with a book on "legendary king" Raja Bhoj.

Which can only be good. It's just that anyone trying to find out more from the Academy's web site would have to learn Hindi. Maybe we can e-mail?

And here's more good news:

Made in Malaysia makes the top of MPH's weekly list of best-selling
local non-fiction for the week 15-21 September 2014

Naturally, I'm chuffed, because this was a challenging project. The launch was a bit hectic, but I was impressed overall. There was music, spoken drama, a radio show host, a huge crowd, and more.

Though bookstores in the Klang Valley should already be stocking it, copies might only be available at outlets and stores outstation sometime next week. Here are more details on the book and a bit about the launch.

And I got the news today that we're reprinting this book. Pedalling Around the Peninsula chronicles the gruelling, sometimes zany adventures of a lady and her friend who took 37 days to cycle around Peninsular Malaysia.

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Beleaguered national airline MAS is dissatisfied over a satirical "news report" on a parody news site and a book on the fate of MH370. The latter is rather upsetting, as the book suggests the late pilot of the plane downed it in an apparent murder-suicide attempt.

The authors: journalist Geoff Taylor and Ewan Wilson, former CEO of a defunct airline and a "convicted New Zealand criminal fraudster", hit back at MAS and defended their findings as "the result of a robust analysis of the known facts".

I guess people just can't get enough of a mystery. Whatever happened to the plane and all aboard, it's all conjecture so long as they remain missing. But yeah. Once you have a rap sheet, it's tough to sell certain things.

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After "Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius was acquitted of murder, Reeva Steenkamp's mother is reportedly coming out with a book that "will tell, for the first time, the full story behind the most dramatic trial of the 21st century," according to the publisher. This came after the buzz over Pistorius publishing his own book about the incident, which seems to be in doubt.

Another sort-of-famous mom who's publishing is Susan Klebold, whose son Dylan was one of the Columbine shooters.

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It's Banned Book Week now in the US and here's a look at banned books through five infographics. Graphic nudity I understand. But nudity in text?

Another candidate for (unnecessary) banning is Adam Mansbach's You Have to F—king Eat, which is scheduled for release on November 12 and- Oooh, LEMURS!

Ring-tailed lemurs, from the look of it

Everything's better with lemurs. Who'd ban lemurs? They're critically endangered already.

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What happens when the posts in a once-thriving blog start coming in slowly; the emotions in the writing, if any, feel forced; and there are more product placements and promos than in-depth pieces? Probably signs of blogging burnout.

(Oh, expect lots of listicles, too. And maybe lemurs...)

Though this New York Times piece is about DIY and interior design blogs, it pretty much revisits an old issue. For one, are bloggers not entitled to some off time when it all starts becoming more of a slog because they make big bucks?


And finally, let Neil Gaiman tell you about Sir Terry Pratchett. "Some people have encountered an affable man with a beard and a hat, Gaiman writes in The Guardian. "They believe they have met Sir Terry Pratchett. They have not."