News: The Aw-some Tash And Other Stuff

What other news do you need to know other than the inclusion of Tash Aw's Five-Star Billionaire (I'm spelling it with the hyphen) in the most "diverse", "daring" Man Booker longlist yet? Wait, are they still calling it the Man Booker Prize?

Booker longlisted Five-star Billionaire and its author, Tash Aw
(photos not mine)

If you must know, some of the other books in the longlist include We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo, The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín (who's been shortlisted for the Booker twice), Donal Ryan's début and much-rejected novel The Spinning Heart and the unreleased titles (at the time of naming) Unexploded by Alison MacLeod, Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson, and The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri. Check out the whole line-up here.

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...Okay, there were other happenings last week in the book world. Here's a round-up of some of the responses to Fox News' "most embarrassing interview" with religious scholar Reza Aslan, author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. Seems they can't wrap their heads around the fact that a Muslim penned a book about Jesus, and the worst of them have predictably reacted badly. Already expectations of skyrocketing sales for the book (and the one-star tsunami at Amazon) are high.

Commentators in that Atlantic Wire report had nothing but praise for Aslan's "superhuman" patience in the face of an interviewer apparently offended that a Muslim would write anything on the founder of Christianity and is hell-bent on discrediting the scholar and the book, based solely on the former's religion.

In spite of Aslan's credentials and that he says writing books on Jesus is also part of his job. "I am a professor of religion, including the New Testament. That's what I do for a living, actually."

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"I don’t remember what I wrote ... and I don’t remember anything about the book itself except that I felt completely unrepentant about not recommending it. ... as far as I was concerned the only reason they didn’t go for this one was that it wasn’t good enough. 'Good' for me at that time meant tight and clever and stylistically showy. The idea that failing to see the merit of 'The Diary of a Good Neighbour' might have been a reflection of my own limitations rather than the book’s had no resonance for me at all. My mechanism of judgment was as ruthless as it was narrow."

After Robert Galbraith's unmasking, the guy who dismissed Doris Lessing's pseudonymously written novel reflects on his decision.


Elsewhere:

• There's a library in an Orang Asli village in Port Dickson? And it seems this library, located at Kampung Orang Asli Sunggala, needs books.
• "I write street lit because that’s the life I lived". Deborah Cardona a.k.a "Sexy" (the hell?), and a gritty, ignored genre.
• When a blog is a brand, "going dark" isn't an option for the blogger. But sometimes a hiatus - or a complete disconnection - might be necessary.
• A first-time author asks why is the media a) such busybodies, b) not paying her for 'promotional' pieces she wrote, and c) so obsessed with "how to write" when they should be asking "how to read".
• With the Penguin Random House merger complete, this behemoth of a publishing company is projected to corner about a quarter of the world's book publishing sector. The Atlantic and the Guardian are voicing concerns involving a scenario where giants battle for dominance of a less diverse publishing ecosystem, leaving smaller players to scavenge among the ruins. "Go big or go extinct" seems to be the game now.
• American publishers are pushing for the EPUB3 standard for e-books. Why?
• From GalleyCat: how booksellers can fight the scourge of showrooming, and, from the guy who introduced The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared to the world, comes The Illiterate Who Could Count. I'm wondering, how long before we get The Comedian Who Isn't Funny or The Mountaineer Who's Afraid of Heights?
• A Q&A with Tim Hely Hutchinson, group chief executive of Hachette UK, in conjunction with the opening of Hachette's sales office in Hing Kong. While he talks about change, the Asian market, and other things, Hachette New Zealand stops publishing new stuff.
• So research suggests the scent of chocolate keeps people hanging around in bookstores for much longer. Will an Eau de Chocolat for bookstores promote patronage and sales?
• How Neil Gaiman was "like sushi", which "kind of works" now, according to Neil Gaiman.
• Deadliest Catch crab boat captain Johnathan Hillstrand pens children's books, one of which features... crabs.
• A long infographic to help you find out what kind of reader you are.

Adventures In Translation

Sometimes, editors get to read the darnedest things.


English: I can save some time.
Malay: Saya boleh menyelamatkan masa.

"That clock is falling!" he shouted. "Don't let it break!" Diving forward, his hands reached the clock before it hit the ground.

"Phew!"


English: I soon found out.
Malay: Kini saya sudah boleh melihat!

"The scales fell from my eyes!" Saul (later, Paul) exclaimed.


English: I thought he was going to faint.
Malay: Saya ingatkan dia akan pengsan.

"Hey, you!" he said, tapping her on the shoulder. "Act III, Scene 4. This is where you pass out."

"Oh, right," she mumbles and collapses onto the floor.

The director clutched at his face. "Cut!"


English: He threw his head back.
Malay: Dia menolak kepalanya sampai ke belakang.

Because his neck muscles had gone slack. Surprised this wasn't translated into, "Dia melontar kepalanya ke belakang."


...and that's just the tip of the iceberg. It makes the job interesting, at least.

News: Leaks, Letters, Libraries, And Lonely Planet

"Robert Galbraith" is reportedly pissed with how the name behind "his" pseudonym was leaked. Claims that the leak was not a publicity stunt followed revelations that someone in a legal firm let slip that JK Rowling was actually the author of The Cuckoo's Calling, an acclaimed crime novel with previously modest sales figures.

I think it's more because JK Rowling or her publishers were more pissed because they were robbed of the privilege of the unveiling at an appointed time. Given Rowling's reputation, it's possible that the publisher will eventually spring this on us. That being said, entrusting anybody with secrets can be risky in the age of Instagram.

Now that the cat's out of the bag, sales, predictably, went through the roof. At least Rowling can add another feather to her hat, unlike some other authors who could only enjoy posthumous fame.

Somebody writing in seattlepi.com thinks Rowling's case "is a truly illuminating example of the fundamental unfairness and absurdity that lies at the heart of the book publishing industry."

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Following the Taliban's 'apology' to Malala for shooting her, writer Mohammed Hanif (A Case of Exploding Mangoes, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti) exploded some Taliban mangoes.

Thanks for owning up that your comrades tried to kill her by shooting her in the head. Many of your well-wishers in Pakistan had been claiming the Taliban wouldn't attack a minor girl. They were of the opinion that Malala had shot herself in order to become a celebrity and get a UK visa. Women, as we know, will go to any lengths to get what they want. So thanks for saying that a 14-year-old girl was the Taliban's foe.

With that out of the way, he starts piling it on.

Like you, there are others who are still not sure whether it was "Islamically correct or wrong", or whether she deserved to be "killed or not", but then you go on to suggest that we leave it to Allah.

There are a lot of people in Pakistan, some of them not even Muslims, who, when faced with difficult choices or everyday hardships, say let's leave it to Allah. Sometimes it's the only solace for the helpless. But most people don't say leave it to Allah after shooting a kid in the face.

Read the whole thing. Please.

Meanwhile, back home, Uthaya Sankar SB pens his thoughts (in Malay) over a perceived insult to religion.

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Another Wild West myth explodes:

...the idealization of [Wyatt] Earp as a good guy with a gun, an unswerving servant of law and order, is a myth. As a young man, Earp was arrested for horse theft and consorting with prostitutes. He was run out of a Texas town for trying to sell a rock painted yellow as a gold brick. He was drawn to police work not because of a devotion to the law but because, during the Gilded Age when public corruption was rampant, it was an easy source of cash. He went to court in 1896 for having refereed a fixed heavyweight championship prizefight, and as late as 1911, at age 63, he was arrested by the Los Angeles police for running a crooked card game.

Gosh darn it. Wyatt Earp. Who knew?

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"'Technically,' because like ... any number of other YA books that some adults like to raise hell about, these titles promote only what readers want them to promote. Because without context of story, you can make a book about anything you want it to be about!"

As young adult books get darker and steamier, parents start worrying. Are these YA titles so terrifying, or is there an element of hypocrisy involved?

"Some grown-ups are afraid of context.

It’s clear not only in their claims about what it is YA books are promoting but also in their strong stances that YA books were never as “bad” in their day.

Of course they were.

Elsewhere:

• Someone in Singapore has compiled the stories of 300 hawkers in the island state into a book and will also be conducting guided tours to some famous hawker centres there. The book, part of the Singapore HeritageFest 2013, is going for about RM211 and can be found here. Want to ask, "How did they manage to find 300 hawkers in Singapore?" Don't.
• Translated Chinese novels not going out to the world as fast as foreign fiction coming into China.
• Hey, Tash Aw is in Poskod.my. Speaking of his old backyard: "I grew up in what was then called Kampung Kerinchi. It was a slum, basically. Now it’s called Bangsar South. It’s really quite amazing." We think so too.
• Lonely Planet is cutting its editorial staff. Though it's not dead yet, the eulogies appear to be coming in. Meanwhile, Frommers, another travel guide label, will be publishing a new set of books under a new name, after it was bought back from Google by its founder.
• Spain's economic crisis sends crowds into libraries, which start looking like neighbourhood community centres. Wonder if this will boost the arguments in this article on libraries in the UK.
• Are women in the UK ditching newspapers because of sexist white male newspaper owners and what the latter think are news?
• Wanna write better? First, be a better reader. These techniques are said to help.
• What heppened when a library banned a book - with the author's permission - on Banned Book Week.
• Found guilty of conspiring to fix e-book prices with a bunch of publishers, Apple, predictably, appeals against the verdict.

And talk about sudden hedgehogs: Check out the cover and description of this (erotic?) werehedgehog romance e-book.

Now there's a terrifying title I wouldn't let young adults read - lest they start flooding Facebook with related memes. But I wonder if it explores an actual hedgehog-related condition?

News: Noms De Plume, Stalkers, Critics, And Cynics

Seems last week's been a week for revealing secrets. Sales of mystery novel The Cuckoo's Calling surged by 150,000 per cent after news emerged that the author, Robert Galbraith, was actually JK Rowling.

Not sure if this is good news for Rowling, seeing is that:

Being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience ... It has been wonderful to publish without hype and expectation and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name.

While Scott Pack unpacks the news, Kate Mills of Orion Publishing admits she and perhaps several other publishers passed on Galbraith/Rowling's mystery novel.

The Telegraph seems to be chortling at the editors' inability to spot the book as a winner - and figure out that Rowling was the actual author. Like editors are supposed to be clairvoyant and all that.

Meanwhile, online persona Ruth Bourdain seems to have outed himself due to the pressure in maintaining the charade. The mastermind behind the popular Ruth Reichl/Anythony Bourdain mashup was "mild-mannered" freelance writer and Food Section blogger Josh Friedland.

Both Rowling and Friedland intend to continue writing under their noms de plume. But will it be the same, now that the illusions have been shattered? And will there be pressure to perform now?

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Sandra Botham, some lady in the UK, was convicted for tossing ink at crime writer Val McDermid over a perceived insult where she'd assumed that a "Michelin Man-like" character called Sandra in McDermid's that book she read in 1985 was herself.

"This is a work of pure fiction. All resemblances to real characters, living or dead, events and locations are purely coincidental." Was this disclaimer missing from the book or did Botham have a bad day over two decades long?

And here are some more incidents of author stalking "that could be out of a Stephen King novel" for further reading. Also: a peek into the "murky world" of literary libel.


Elsewhere:

• Goodreads asks its members what made them put down a book. Here are the results, in infographic form. Few surprises in the findings.
• Mob mag: Japan's largest yakuza group, the Yamaguchi-gumi, published a magazine.
• "Being cynical isn't necessarily a bad thing ... It's at the heart of great satire and, perhaps more importantly, leads us to question what is wrong with the world – and strive to make it better." Julian Baggini, in the Guardian, on why cynicism still matters.
• Guilty! Apple said to have 'led a conspiracy' to fix e-book prices with several big-name publishers. Here's how Apple apparently did it. While some may celebrate the court decision (hooray for consumers!), someone over at Forbes thinks it might lead to lower-quality e-books - and a dominant Amazon that can set its own rules and prices in the absence of any major competition.
• A Malaysian High Court grants stay application by ZI Publications over a raid and confiscation of Irshad Manji's book by religious authorities on its premises. If the JAWI raid on Borders was ruled illegal because the book wasn't yet banned by the Home Ministry, the same might be said of the raid on ZI.
• "Beans for the kids", "a glass of wine", and "little carps" are not what you think they are. Hint: they're all euphemisms for "duit kopi".
• Writing heals, it seems.
• "A five-star restaurant is like pornography: You'll know it when you see it, and it will likely bring you great pleasure." If this is how roving restaurant critic Hanna Raskin intends to help Yelp, good luck to everybody.
• Why do we read about bad deeds? A professor introduces Freud's "idea of sublimation" and suggests that "...authors write -- and, for that matter, readers read -- about acts of violence, cruelty, dishonesty, or aggression precisely so that they don't actually commit them in real life." Imagine that, even as some conservatives argue that reading about bad deeds encourages them.
• Should you boycott an author's works in protest of his personal views? HuffPost's senior books editor says it's pointless. Where Orson Scott Card is concerned, apparently yes.
• Clive James's acerbic review of Dan Brown's Inferno. Brown's an esay target for this kind of critique, and it's something I'd do if I had the patience, knowledge and an additional 30 years' experience in writing.
• As competition wanes, Amazon cuts back on discounts.
• The New York Times is shutting down its food blog, Diner's Journal. Is this the beginning - or the middle - of the end of blogs?

By the way, MPH's digital publishing division has a Facebook page up. IT CAN HAZ LIKES? THNX. I've been allowed to post stuff on the page, though I don't see myself contributing often because of my anti-social tendencies.

MPH Quill, Issue 38, July to September 2013

...features the girls of indie ice cream brand The Last Polka.

From what I heard, the senior editors had a field day with the interview, photoshoot, and presumably lunch at The Bee, Jaya One. The girls were dolled up by the Amber Chia Academy.

In this issue:

• Profile of three women entrepreneurs: Chantelle Chuah (JesseChantelle Chocolatier), Yoshini Jaya Manogaran (Urban OPI Nail Salon) and Nicole Rodrigues (Mountain Juice).
• Also profiled are three blogshops: thecalaman.com, trendyconfessions.com, and The Pink Sort (facebook.com/thepinksort).
• A chat with Philippe Charriol, founder of the luxury brand Charriol, and a feature on actress and poet Hélène Cardona.
• Kid Chan talks about his past and his book, and Ellen Whyte talks about Angkor Wat.
• Articles on how to be happy, a quiz to find out what kind of a spender you are, and a (rather oversimplistic) way to tell if your man is a prince or a player.

And more, coming soon to bookstores and news stands.

News: Textbooks, Excerpts, And A Ghostwriter's Lament

• "Textbook sales, for both higher education and K-12, will reach an estimated $13.7 billion in the U.S. this year, according to Outsell, a research firm. The overall market is expected to increase over the next few years as the student population is growing." Is the industry that Jobs said was "ripe for digital destruction" heading down that path?
• How a Hong Kong book fair is helping the territory's writers penetrate the mainland market. Still ... guess nine to 11 per cent in royalties is quite common in conventional publishing.
• "In the course of five years and approximately 600,000 words, I'd become so good at mimicking the voice of another author that I'd lost my own, and I'd failed to nurture my own career, not to mention well-being, as carefully as I had the lives of the characters that had never belonged to me." A ghostwriter wakes up to the espresso.
• After laying off its in-house shutterbugs, Chicago Sun-Times drops its regular book coverage.
• Because they're people, too: a new book on the victims of the Long Island Serial Killer. Also from Salon: an excerpt from a book on the apparent militarisation of the US police force.
• Lest we forget: everything we need to know about the e-book price war.
• Two ways to not approach a publisher: online stalking and when queueing up for the dunny. S'not on, mate.
• Hooray for best-selling author Amish Tripathi, whose Immortals of Meluha has publishers lining up for his next potential blockbuster.

Betty, the Vampire Slayer

Forget the pom-poms and wooden stakes - Elizabeth I of England blasts bloodsuckers to kingdom come with raw magic in this retelling of her history

first published in The Malay Mail Online, 03 July 2013


As queen, Elizabeth Tudor, also known as Elizabeth I of England (1533-1603), was noted for slaying some notable things. Mary, Queen of Scots. The Spanish Armada. But what if she also slew vampires?

That's the premise behind The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer. The novel's marketing set-up touts it as the start of a "sumptuous new series" based on the Virgin Queen's "never-before-seen" diaries, "revealed to the world" by Lucy Weston, the minor vampire character in many Dracula films and the "owner" of the seemingly defunct www.lucywestonvampire.com. "Weston" is also credited as the novel's author, but I have no idea who is/are behind "her."

The novel begins days before Elizabeth's coronation, court official William Cecil and polymath Dr John Dee lead the future queen to her mother's gravesite where she begins to glow, smells roses and hears her mother's voice.

It turns out to be more than just pre-coronation jitters. Liz (let's call her "Liz"; "Betty" is still too long) is revealed to be a slayer of vampires and descendant of Druid priestess Morgraine (a.k.a. Morgan le Fey), whose powers have awakened in her.

Cecil and Dee confess to being members of a circle entrusted with this secret and her protection. She is less than pleased with the revelation, but eventually embraces it for the sake of her kingdom.

The vampires are led by Mordred, the illegitimate son of the legendary King Arthur and, therefore, a legit claimant to the English throne. He joined the creatures to save England a thousand years earlier. Back then, he courted Morgraine and offered her the same deal, but was rebuffed. Now, he's eyeing Liz.

On the night she is crowned, Mordred warns Liz of the dangers she and her kingdom faced from rival countries and the Pope and offers her power and protection from those dangers – if she becomes his vampire queen. He's told to sod off.

However, Liz finds him charming, despite what he is, but she also has those rival kingdoms and court intrigues to deal with. There's also the ironically vampiric nature of her gift which, among other things, allows her to blast vampires to smithereens with energy bolts; every bloodsucker she kills feeds her powers and urge to kill more of them.

Besides Cecil and Dee, other real-life figures here include Liz's governess, Kat Ashley; Francis Walsingham, who would become the royal spymaster; and Robert Dudley, the queen's long-time companion and reputed lover.

Written in a way that brings to mind Shakespeare, this two-narrator work barely registers as Harlequin horror. Though convincing from a historical viewpoint, the novel stumbles when it came to the romance/horror bit.

Scenes with Liz and Mordred are more like a dance, not tussle, of emotions, even as the two are torn between duty and their mutual attraction to each other. The plot feels loose and almost every twist can be predicted. Except, perhaps, how it ends.

And Mordred, that powerful, time-warping and space-bending immortal being of the night, is so addled by his feelings for the fledgling queen, judging from his side of the story.

To the chagrin of Lady Blanche, the token jealous other woman and his second-in-command, he still hopes that Liz will join him, even as she starts slaying his kin.

I say it's because of her rank and powers. Slayer Liz comes off as a wilful royal brat, steeped in the belief that her right to lord over her subjects is divinely ordained; any talk of altruism, charity and justice seems obligated by faith and duty.

Nor does she believe the "radical" idea that all men are equal: "Truly, if that addled notion ever becomes common currency, the world will be undone." She's so made for Mordred.

The romantic "tension" between Liz and Rob Dudley feels just as obligatory. The blow-hot/blow-cold stuff and love scenes are all by the numbers. Rob's a pitiful, poor rival of Mordred. Historically, Rob never got to marry Liz, partly due to the queen's vaguely feminist tendencies. He must feel even more inadequate, now that his royal lady love can go pew pew pew like the Death Star.

The ending and the asides by Mordred in the first part of the "secret diaries" seem to hint at a future continuation of and a dark turn in Elizabeth Tudor's so-called secret history as a vampire-killing machine.

But would such a series still be viable, now that the Twilight saga on the big screen has ended and, perhaps, driven the last nail into the coffin of a tired, well-milked genre?


This review is based on an advanced reading copy.

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The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer

Lucy Weston
Gallery Books (2011)
304 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-1-4391-9033-3

News: Serious Stuff, Borders, Coffee, And A Keynote Speech

• "As a native of Burma or Myanmar, the title 'Freedom and Literature' seemed surreal to us in the recent past. However, for me, literature itself, either creating or reading it, always relates to freedom." Burmese writer Dr Ma Thida's closing keynote speech for the Edinburgh World Writers' Conference at #Word: Cooler Lumpur Festival. On that note, here's some coverage of the event.
• JAWI's raid on Borders over Irshad Manji's Allah, Liberty and Love was is still unconstitutional and illegal, and the High Court has asked that the charges against store manager Nik Raina Nik Abdul Aziz be dropped. Doesn't look like JAWI can appeal the decision, but I don't expect this to end with a whimper.
• "It's not that we should include things that are 'frivolous,' necessarily, but we should include things with male and female bents, and even things that are not serious in subject, but serious in terms of the work they entail—the seriousness between the writer and his or her subject, and the reader and the page." Jen Doll's thoughts on gender, publications, and 'serious journalism' in The Hairpin.
• He is legend: RIP Richard Matheson.
• Barnes & Noble to stop making its own colour e-readers.
• Over at The Economist, some thoughts about Alice Munro's retirement. But do writers ever retire?
• Coffee cramps creativity? Not really. "Idleness and willfully unrealized potential, though, are," says James Hamblin in The Atlantic. In this article (looks like an ad, doesn't it?), ambient noises in a coffeeshop can boost creativity.
• Potong stim: Ballantine Books decides to cancel Paula Deen's book, Paula Deen’s New Testament: 250 Recipes, All Lightened Up, despite pre-orders taking it to number one on Amazon. The support for Deen is as pointless as the circus surrounding her use of the 'N-word'; it's not the worst thing she's done. But I guess the publishers didn't want to risk having the books gather dust due to all that negative publicity.
• Despite changes in demographics, children's books in the US "stay stubbornly white".
• Chef Jamie Oliver, author of numerous cookbooks and articles, manages to finish a whole book: Suzanne Collins's Catching Fire. Quite a feat, since he's dyslexic. But shouldn't he have read the first Hunger Games novel first? Prob'ly too much t'ask o' him. But way to go, chef.
  
  Meanwhile, here's a possible key to reading more: "Carry a book with you at all times. Every time you get a second, crack it open. Don’t install games on your phone – that’s time you could be reading. When you’re eating, read. When you’re on the train, in the waiting room, at the office – read."
• If someone reviewed beer a la Gertrude Stein, will he be dubbed a 'beer stein'? I know, I know, lawak tempang. That being said:
  
  

  Left-Hand Black Jack Porter (6.80% ABV): Spiritous in spirit, tea like in tea. All this and not extraordinary in heft, hefted. A little sweetness is so ordinary. Very likely there is no cream that is present, yet inside the milk is a shade. Life and limb for an age aged for darkness. Herbaceous yet what is an herb to the hereby untenable mouth.

  
  Hmm.

Examining Education

"We want fairness. There is no fairness if you do not let us cheat." Is the call of these protesters in China, against a crackdown on cheating in college entrance exams, a sign of the Chinese exam system's impending collapse?

China's education system, which in many ways reflects ancient Confucian principles, places an overwhelming emphasis on memorization, recitation, and examination. Courses in critical thinking largely do not exist and students are not encouraged to engage in rigorous debate in class.

These entrance exams are considered a level playing field, where children of peasants can trump the scions of government officials and Communist party strongmen. But when an education system "places an overwhelming emphasis on memorization, recitation, and examination", I suppose, from the disturbing Telegraph report, that a culture of cheating to pass exams has broken and will break attempts to re-introduce order and fairness in a merit-based arena.

Even the parents in that report are upset that their children are not allowed to cheat. What else can that say other than, "holy crap"?

Though cheating isn't rampant in our own exam halls, much has been said about our education system, from the dumbing down of the syllabus to the quotas. Yet this isn't enough for an NGO, who is calling for the abolishment of meritocracy in education to "return justice" to certain students.

The notion that meritocracy should be scrapped because it 'empowers' others is absurd. Not all students score big in exams, either. Me, for instance.

In the NST, Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Dr Khoo Kay Kim lamented the damage our rote learning-based, result-oriented education system has done to the understanding of this nation's history.

"When I asked who was Tun Tan Cheng Lock, they just smiled and did not know the answer," the historian said during a conference, on students' 'excellent' history scores, despite not knowing who one of the founders of MCA was. "Some of them don't even know the history of their own school."

It's been a long while since I attended a history class, so my memory on this is sketchy. But if the system is as broken as Tan Sri Dr Khoo says it is, eliminating any form of meritocracy from the system can only make things worse than they already are.

Will the powers that be ignore well-meaning calls for a proper implementation of a school syllabus, like the one from this letter writer on how history should be taught and why it's important? More importantly, will the points this Dr Ranjit brought up be taken into consideration?

At least, if we can get a merit-based system right, we can claim to be better than China in that regard.

News: Fiery Flavours, Fonts, Flops, And Stuff

So much to ponder after the cool but hazy Cooler Lumpur Festival. I had to miss out on the Festival's closing events because of dinner at my relatives and haze-induced health problems, but what events I have attended left much food for thought.

So, more on that, and book reviews, later. For now:

• London Review of Books has virtually no female contributors? Here's what LRB had to say about it.
• Mary Roach on the Naga king chilli, aka the Bhut Jolokia, and a chilli-eating contest.
• Mystery book sculptress strikes again, leaves another piece at Leith Library in Edinburgh. Speaking of libraries: Carnegie Medal winner Sally Gardner (Maggot Moon) praises books and librarians, while bashing UK education secretary Michael Gove's new curriculum in her acceptance speech.
• Penguin introduces rewards system and chance to preview new releases. Is this the gamification of publishing?
• Yellow person has a fit when white person enlists another white person to write a book on yellow people's street food. Yellow person's words, not mine.
• Georgia is "sharper, more pleasing, and easier to read" than Times New Roman? It seems typefaces do influence how we read and think.
• RIP Michael Hastings, journo who brought down US general Stanley McChrystal. News have emerged about an e-mail he allegedly sent before his death, which suggests he may have been tailed and casts a pall over his death.
• In the Guardian, seven writers reflect on failure. They even arranged the list in alphabetical order.
• Oliver Pötzsch becomes first Amazon Publishing author to sell one million copies in print, audio and Kindle.
• As news emerges about Stephen King's Joyland being pirated, German researchers look into new DRM technology.
• Joshua Rothman at The New Yorker remembers the time when Dan Brown visited his English class in 1998. "I, for one, assumed that [replacement teacher] Mr. Terry had somehow run out of steam, and had brought in Dan Brown in more or less the same way that, toward the end of the year, a teacher might bring in a movie." Fifteen years later, two of Brown's books were made into movies, so I guess Rothman's class got a good deal.
• I don't know which Robicelli wrote this take on the Paula Deen circus, but I found it entertaining - and more.
• Zounds! Papa Hemingway was a failed KGB agent? Some of us may be glad he was better at writing than spying.
• Are political memoirs on the way out? I HOPE SO.
• Kickstarter apologises over raising funds for an 'offensive' seduction guide. "Above the Game" sounds like a dig at Neil Strauss.

One aside: Edward Snowden, who reportedly said "I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things", is now, according to David Wiegel at Slate, is "on a world tour" of countries with an even worse record on press and information freedom that the US. "At the moment he's less concerned with irony than with avoiding jail," Weigel adds.

While his 'disclosures' may have opened up debate on privacy and state surveillance, I wouldn't take what he says seriously anymore.

Award Angst

Did you erupt with cheers, champagne and confetti over Tan Twan Eng's Man Asia win? He is the first Malaysian to win the most prestigious literary award after the Booker which he was also shortlisted for.

But it seems not everybody's happy.

Weeks ago, I heard rumours that an author, upon hearing the news about Tan's win, felt a bit boh song about it and wondered why his books weren't considered.

I was hoping it was a rumour. What kind of prize duffer would be presumptuous and thick-skinned enough to feel that way?

How is it possible for anyone to not like him or his books?

First: Tan Twan Eng does not "always win". Believe it or not, there are prizes he's not eligible for. The Costa Book Awards, for instance, are given to books by authors based in Great Britain and Ireland (Tan's based in South Africa).

The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature is for writers who write about South Asian themes (which Tan doesn't do, yet), and the biennial Bollingen Prize for Poetry recognises an American poet's best book of new verse within the last two years, or for lifetime achievement (Tan's no poet, though some have described his prose as "lyrical").

And not everybody likes The Garden of Evening Mists. Apart from the reviewer in the Guardian, at least two local book critics didn't think it was all that. These days, commercial success doesn't necessarily mean quality - hello, Twilight! Not to disparage Evening Mists, which I heard is a better book.

Also, the winning book was published in 2012, an important criterion. Did The Snubbed One write anything during that year, and did his publisher submitted it for the running? And was he or his publisher aware of the Award's terms and conditions?

And have a gander at the Booker's terms of entry, which include:

2. Conditions of award

Any eligible book which is entered for the prize will only qualify for the award if its publisher agrees:

a) to contribute £5,000 (about RM24,580) towards general publicity if the book reaches the shortlist

b) to contribute a further £5,000 if the book wins the prize

c) to comply with Rule 4g

Which is: "Each publisher of a title appearing on the longlist will be required to have no fewer than 1,000 copies of that title available in stock within 10 days of the announcement of the longlist. The publisher, publicist and agent of the longlisted author are strongly advised to attend a briefing meeting shortly after the longlist is announced."

There you go. And publishers have a few more hoops to jump before and after the submitted books make it to the Booker longlist. Which probably explains why we tend to see certain books and certain publishers making longlists of certain awards each year.

Second: The Man Asia longlist of 15 authors was "drawn from 108 published works from nine Asian countries submitted to a panel of judges led by literary critic and journalist Maya Jaggi, also included three debut novelists and a Nobel laureate," says a Bernama report.

Look at the names of the authors, some of whom are already established writers with at least one accolade. Look at the names of the judges, some of whom are strong authors and literary critics.

What are the chances that The Snubbed One could sneak into that glitzy line-up? How many authors could slug it out in a literary deathmatch against Orhan Pamuk?

And 2011 was a year with an even more formidable line-up that includes Haruki Murakami, Amitav Ghosh, Tahmima Anam, Anuradha Roy, and the eventual winner Shin Kyung-sook, whose novel Please Look After Mom has sold over two million copies and has been adapted for the stage.

In a radio interview podcast, writer Michael Cunningham, who was a jury member for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and winner of said Prize for his novel The Hours, said something about how difficult it is to write a really good novel, and thinks people who think they can dash one off just like that shows "disrespect" for the craft.

However, many writers have made do without ever being in a prestigious lit-prize's longlist. EL James, unfortunately, comes to mind, as do several others who have followed in her footsteps.

Not that I think that would help make things better for The Snubbed One, if he's really out there.

Whatever can be said about Tan or his books, he's the literary equivalent of Nicol David right now. Recently, his Evening Mists pipped Hilary Mantel's Bring Up The Bodies for the Walter Scott Prize, which was recently opened to authors from the Commonwealth.

Nobody should begrudge him the accolades he's received, especially Malaysians. And he's one of the few who have made it internationally, alongside names such as Tash Aw and Preeta Samarasan.

No winning book? Write one. Life is way too short for munching on sour grapes or chopping down poppies.

News: Cool Mud, S&M, Publishing, And Book Stacking

Local online news portal The Star reports on the upcoming Cooler Lumpur Festival 2013. Although the Festival will have a YA fiction-related programme, a local writer, editor and book reviewer laments the overall lack of programmes featuring children's and young adult literature in local lit fests.

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"'...Are you sure this isn’t just a small bunch of very loud women with their panties all whirled around in some kinda panty tornado?' And there I'd correct you and note that I am a dude and, in fact, my panties are indeed whirling about in a panty tornado because this is a problem in our respective industry and it sucks." So, yeah, Chuck Wendig wants you to know these 25 things about sexism and misogyny in writing and publishing. Also related is the sexism shitstorm over the cover of and a column in a recent edition of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's (SFWA) magazine.

Speaking of sexism and misogyny (hey, another kind of S&M), Laura Miller over at Salon tears into The Daily Beast's alleged slut-shaming of CIA deputy director Avril Haines. British tabloid The Daily Mail also picked it up, and suggests this detail in Haines's past is "pertinent" - "for an agency that was recently embarrassed by the resignation of its director, David Petraeus, over his affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell".

A former British intel chief and now writer of spy novels thinks Brits should snoop on their neighbours for the sake of national security. Which, from what passes as news in that country, they might already be doing - and is way creepier.

I'd be chuffed to know that the first ever female deputy director of my country's intelligence agency hosted an "Erotica Night" at a bookstore she co-owned. At least this shows she's a human being and not a Cylon. Does anyone think we can get her to join next year's Cooler Lumpur Festival?


Okay, what else?

• In Turkey, Kurdish book publishing is still a risky business. Even more so now, with Turkey's government tightening the screws after the recent protests.
• Author Randy Susan Meyers's ten tips for writers reading in public. Just in time for a certain arts and literature festival.
• It's tempting to think that Snowdengate somehow boosted sales of George Orwell's 1984. June 6 - around the time the story broke - is also the anniversary of the book's release.
• University presses facing challenges in the new era of democratised, increasingly commercialised publishing.
• Reading fiction, apparently, helps with thinking and dealing with ambiguity.
• Egyptian author and human rights activist Karam Saber is jailed for his allegedly 'blasphemous' book, Where is God? He, along with those protesting the sentence, are probably asking the same question.
• I can't say much about the Popular-The Star Readers' Choice Awards, but the points raised in this article are worth pondering.
• Random House wants you to plug into audiobooks. Yes, you, runner-in-training. You, guy in the gym. You, frequent flyer. You, on the lawn mower or your SUV. Because: "Reading the latest Dan Brown novel, 'Inferno,' while driving a car or mowing the lawn would be perilous, but probably not for audiobook listeners." Not too sure about that.
• Do grammar police arrest the imagination? Prompted by Sherman Alexie's asertion that "Grammar cops are rarely good writers. Imagination always disobeys." Can someone cite the Guardian writer for that arresting pun?
• "My grandmother, the writer Han Suyin, died last November at ninety-six. The funeral was in Switzerland, and I went only because my mother asked me to. Twice. 'You’ll be fine,' I said. 'Just remember what an asshole she was.'" Looks like Karen Shepard really does not like her grandma.
• Nine reasons why Dan Brown is one of the most important (living) authors. Thoughts? I know. Me neither.
• Book-stacking techniques to liven up bookstore displays in Japan? Will this become a sport or drinking game?

Coming Up For Air

These days I bury my head in a pile of printed pages, mainly to muffle unpleasant noises from the real world. Once in a while, though, I come up for a breath of air.

This time, the unpleasant noise is about our prime minister's brother.

Weeks ago, a CEO of a certain low-budget airline called out a local daily for its potentially incendiary headline. Though his views had some support within 'his own people', including the PM's brother, he was roundly mocked and accused of being 'ungrateful' and 'forgetting his roots'.

When outsiders call out BS on an authority or entity, they're accused of being ill-informed, making things up based on perceptions and the like. But what if the calling out is done by insiders?

Checks and balances are integral to any form of governance and ensures that those in charge would remain on the straight and narrow. Because power and privilege will always go hand in hand with the temptation to abuse them.

Years ago I saw something terrifying on a car sticker: a slogan for some "Pembangkang Sifar" (Zero Opposition) campaign. It chilled me to the marrow.

Though it sounds like political posturing, to me the slogan was a window to a mentality that places overwhelming faith in the belief that "our leaders will never let us down", that there is no alternative other than the status quo, and brooks no opposition to it, even if it's out of loyalty, faith and genuine concern.

When facts are absent, perception is everything.

Several years ago at Wisma Kebudayaan Sokka Gakkai Malaysia, Austrian storyteller Folke Tegetthoff narrated a version of heaven and hell that shared the same setting: an enormous cauldron of broth ringed by people wielding spoons with really long, long stems.

The people from hell starved trying to feed themselves with the spoons; the denizens of heaven were, in contrast, well fed because each one fed the person on the opposite side of the cauldron.

How wonderful it would be if that 'heaven' existed in this country, this world. But the moment you try to feed your neighbour he'll be looking for ulterior motives - particularly if you're from 'the other side'.

Isn't it tragic, how we can't get over ideological differences to band together and do what the right-minded consider the right thing? Even from within the ranks?

...Okay, back to my pile of print. Good weekend, y'all.

News: Book Fests, Departures, And A Scarlett Novel

Not a lot of happy news last week in the book world. But life goes on, with upcoming book and lit fests such as #Word: The Cooler Lumpur Festival and this weekend's Art 4 Grabs + KL Alternative Book Fest.

The latter will, among other things, will see the launch of the second Fixi Retro title, Yang Nakal-nakal, a compilation of some short stories and poems by the late Usman Awang. The Black 505 rally's been postponed to next week, but it looks like the launch is still taking place on 16 June.

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There may be a good reason why book publishers aren't swarming the e-publishing bandwagon: the "awkward and inconsistent" technology.

The closest thing to a single file standard, e-pub, is still far from platform-agnostic and notorious for destroying formatting elements, which limits what writers and designers can do structurally if they’re planning for digital.

Sounds like the argument over HTML standards all over again. But wait till technology catches up, or if the players in the e-book industry get their shit together and agree on something.

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A publisher is being sued by Scarlett Johansson because a French novel featuring a woman who resembles the actress allegedly "violates her privacy and includes a 'fraudulent use of her image rights'." The report adds that "The heroine of Delacourt's La Premiere Chose qu’on Regarde ("The First Thing We Look At") is Janine Foucamprez, a small-time model from northern France who is blighted by her resemblance to Johansson."

Perhaps Ms Johansson (or her PR machinery) is miffed by the "blighted" part. And ... hold on, she's only 28?


Elsewhere:

• RIP Iain M Banks. Less than three months after he announced he had terminal cancer, Banks passed on. Despite the efforts of his heroic publishers, his last novel failed to hit the shelves before his departure. As tributes poured in, Neil Gaiman eulogises him in the Guardian. Also, RIP Tom Sharpe. Pity I never read any of their books.
• Are celebrity's kids books bad for literature and kids books in the long run? Probably, if quality doesn't improve. In that news report, Julia Donaldson, writer of the Gruffalo books, says writing for kids is not easy at all. "In some ways children are probably harder to please than adults and there are so many excellent children’s writers out there who in terms of style, plot and characterisation are just as good as any writer for adults."
• Why John Green (Looking for Alaska) will never self-publish. "Impassioned" is kind of an understatement.
  
  Lev Raphael takes offense at what he sees as Green's attack on indie publishing via a "faux cultural belief" ("We must strike down the insidious lie that a book is the creation of an individual soul laboring in isolation. We must strike it down because it threatens the overall quality and breadth of American literature...").
  
  "If Green believes that indie books aren't ever edited, produced, and marketed by a team – though likely smaller than in legacy publishing – he knows less about the industry than he thinks," Raphael says.
• When is it fine to not finish a book? When it doesn't pass the fifty-page test, apparently. You can always come back to it, anyway, this English prof suggests. However: "For my students, the answer is easy: if I assigned the book, it's not alright to quit partway through." Fair enough.
• Eight rules for writing fiction, some of which, at some point in time, everybody who writes fiction forgets.
• Americans, says Clive James, aren't good at hatchet jobs. "Any even remotely derogatory article in an American journal is called 'negative,' and hardly any American publication wants to be negative." Did James miss Ron Charles's opinion of Lionel Asbo, or did he feel it was too tame?
• May she be forgiven: AM Homes denies Hilary Mantel a third straight award by winning the Women's Prize for Fiction, which will be sponsored by Bailey's next year - HIC. Meanwhile, Kevin Barry wins this year's International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for City of Bohane.
• Pages from the diary of Alfred Rosenberg, Hitler's aide and top Nazi leader, have reportedly been found. The documents look real, but one has to be wary, in light of a famous Nazi diary hoax.
• Jonah Lehrer has a book deal - and people should be concerned.

#WORD!

Oh, the things they did to publicise the Cooler Lumpur Festival 2013 at The Bee, Publika that Tuesday evening...

Free ice cream is fine. The Last Polka created two lit-inspired flavours for the event: Green Eggs and Ham (a minty creation with chocolate fudge pieces that brings to mind The Cat in the Hat) and Wonderland (a peppery tribute to the soup in a certain kitchen).

Pop-trivia quizzes are fine too, even though some of the questions were hard for non-bookworms and non-moviegoers.

Readings? No problem - except if it's three grown men reading sex scenes from Fifty Shades of Grey. Especially when the three men are Ezra Zaid, Umapagan Ampikaipakan and Sharaad Kuttan.

Once you hear Ezra channel Anastasia Steele losing her virginity, you will never be the same.

I think they found it painful as well, given what we know of the trio. By the time they read the third scene, they were hiding their chagrin in foreign accents. Who knew Sharaad preferred Italian?

And what is it about this festival that inspired the creation of two far-out ice cream flavours and compelled these three fellows to go onstage and read fiction I'm sure they'd rather burn?


Wordy weekend
The inaugural Cooler Lumpur Festival is a multi-disciplinary "celebration of culture".
Curated by digital media purveyor PopDigital, this KL-centric festival will adopt certain themes each year to "expand the city’s cultural horizons, build stronger communities and cultivate the creativity and imagination of people."

This year, the Festival presents #Word, Malaysia’s first – and only – celebration of words in all its forms. Expect workshops, talks and panel discussions, storytelling and readings - everything about the written word. #Word will also host the only Southeast Asian segment of the Edinburgh World Writers' Conference (EWWC), the world's largest travelling conference on the state of literature.

#Word will take place from Friday, 21 June to Sunday, 23 June, at several venues in Publika, Solaris Dutamas.


Gems in the mud
The online programme is a menu of lip-smacking items with something for wordsmiths of almost every stripe. Among the highlights are:

• A panel featuring non-Malay writers who write in BM, and a panel on Asian Noir, which will see writers such as Shamini Flint, Brian Gomez and Rozlan Mohd Noor.
• A book swap by the charity Novels for All.
• An Evening with the Evening Edition, where you can meet the faces behind the famous BFM drive-home segment: HRH Caroline Oh, Ezra Zaid and Umapagan Ampikaipakan.
• A one-on-one with Amir Muhammad, writer and indie publisher and filmmaker (considering his success, does the 'indie' label apply?). Two titles from his imprints, Fixi and Fixi Novo, will be launched as well during the festival.
• Readings @ The Bee (not Seksan's), and a screening of ghost movies, followed by ghost stories told by Patrick Teoh and Jo Kukathas.
• Borders Malaysia will be organising #Word Junior for kids, with a line-up of activities that includes a tea party with free ice cream (first 50 kids only) from The Last Polka, storytelling sessions and interactive events.

Crabbit Old Bat flying into KL
I'm embarrassed to say that I've only heard of one writer in the international line-up for #Word.

Jen Campbell, a bookseller at Ripping Yarns in the UK and author of Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops and More Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops had this URL in her blog to the blog of a "Crabbit Old Bat". Couldn't resist clicking the link.

That's how I heard about Nicola Morgan, award-winning writer, author of about 90(!) books, and an authority on young adult/teen fiction. Among other things, she will be holding a workshop on writing for teens. Places are limited, so please hurry.

As someone who's evaluated and rejected a number of children's/YA/teen fiction submissions, I'm glad she's coming here.

...Oh, my. Seems Ms Morgan's a bit nervous about her trip. This will be her first time in Malaysia. Let's make her feel welcome, shall we?


So come on down to MAP @ Publika for a wonderfully wordy weekend. Don't let all that ice cream, the efforts of las dos chicas from The Last Polka and the sacrifice of BFM's les trois garçons be in vain. The two ice cream flavours will be available at The Bee @ Publika throughout this month, in conjunction with #Word.

Go here for more details.

11/06/2013  Here's a BFM podcast with Yau Su Peng, Chief Operating Officer of Borders Malaysia, the Festival's official bookstore.

18/06/2013  Check out the radio podcast of an interview with several key Festival people. Seems that "Cooler Lumpur" does not merely hint at the proliferation of hipster hangouts in the capital, but also the mispronunciation of KL by the beer-swilling character Nabby Adams in Anthony Burgess's The Malayan Trilogy.

News: Literary Magpies, Tweets, And The National Language

Did Rudyard Kipling cop to plagiarism in a letter? In the Daily Telegraph, Christopher Howse says no. Plagiarism might be "the fairy godmother of invention" but also of lawsuits, pulped books, and ruined reputations.

Writing in the Guardian, Sarah Churchwell suggests that Kipling was a "literary magpie" who reworked certain themes from other works into his own. "Shakespeare's reliance on various older chronicles for his characters and plots is a commonplace," she writes, "and it would be ludicrous to suggest that in Paradise Lost Milton was 'plagiarising' the story of Genesis."

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"As the columnist at a literary website, I once wrote about tough truths related to self-publishing. ... That editing and cover design are hard. That most self-published books earn only a modest return. That a lot of the advocates are just selling themselves. ... And that resulted in scores of people calling me profane names."

Rob W Hart's shift from self-publishing to traditional opens his eyes to how indie publishing has become a cult.

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Erna Mahyuni, our favourite Sabahan laments the "slow, sad death of Bahasa Malaysia", which she suggests is partly aided by state media agencies. "According to Bernama, 'hurricane' is 'hurikan' and 'billionaire' is 'billionair' in Englayu," she writes, coining a new word of her own. "Utusan has coined the very rempit-sounding 'dijel” instead of 'dipenjara'."

Not to mention 'subjek' (subject) and 'bajet' (budget), But 'hurikan' is not a recent coinage. I remember seeing it in an old geography textbook once in school, along with 'siklon'. Odd, considering both refer to the same phenomenon.

Are the alleged offenders going to chalk it up to the pressure of tight deadlines? Erna cheekily suggests that, "Perhaps this is an insidious plot by seditious individuals who are trying to make English the national language. At the rate Bahasa is 'evolving' into English, we might as well just give up and replace the Kamus Dewan with the Oxford Dictionary."

Dengar, dengar.

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Some tweets to share, including one from Sufian Abas:

Awak sayanggggggg, pls sharee tolong plissssss selutbooks.com

Sufian Abas @sufianabas • 02 Jun 2013

...and Michael Ruhlman, marriage counsellor:

post haste RT @boogermagician: @ruhlman my wife discards braising liquids and adds bottled Worcestershire sauce instead. Divorce her?

ruhlman @ruhlman • 03 Jun 2013

All in jest, I'm sure.

Right. What else is out there?

• Publishers should invest in authors, not just books, says Suw Charman-Anderson, in Forbes. Here's what (else) publishers need to do in the self-publishing era.
• The Chicago Sun-Times trains its reporters to shoot with iPhones after firing all its photographers. Nothing sexes up a paper more than making it look like Facebook. Or Tumblr. Or Instagram.
• A short history of the F-word. Don't tell me you're not the least bit curious.
• Goodbye, Orange Women's Prize for Fiction. Hello, Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. Yes, that Bailey's. HIC.
• Spy on your neighbours to prevent another Woolwich, says former MI5 chief and spy novel author at the Hay Festival. And maybe buy her latest book.
• How Amanda Hocking gives herself writer's block. Very instructional.
• I enjoyed Wreck-It Ralph - and the ending theme by Owl City. Then Chris Bogia ruined it all with a word. Also: why are there apparently no LGBT disney characters?

Golden Brown

I wasn't sure I was up to the task of reviewing a Dan Brown book. What's there to look at? Could I be fair, when others at more established names couldn't seem to be?

I didn't spend time dismantling the logic and history. Avoiding other reviews while I wrote my own as tough; the bandwagon's pretty big and easy to get into. But I guess that, considering the size and hard cover, it sufficed as light reading.

About "symbology" ...

Wikipedia lists the word as "a fictional academic discipline of which the character Robert Langdon is a professor." On a list of ten mistakes and oversimplifications in the book over at The Daily Beast, the word is "nonsensical".

So I used that article's 'correct' word for Langdon's occupation in the review (carelessly wrapping it in square brackets). But didn't some modern 'nonsensical' words become accepted, after being baptised by popular usage - and the Internet?

For now, I guess, it's "iconography" or "semiotics".

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Golden Brown

Finger lickin' good Florentine fun from the Colonel Sanders of the genre

first published in The Malaysian Insider, 04 June 2013

Would you believe that this is the first time I've read any of Dan Brown's books?

Until now, I've only followed the news, read the hype and laughed at the brickbats. No way all of that could be true, I thought.

Then a copy hit my table with a thud.

I took just two hours to finish it.

My unfamiliarity with the author's work and the circus precludes me from fact-checking his alleged mistakes and gloss-overs, so I'll leave that to more capable hands.

But I will say this: Dan Brown's Inferno is, thus far, the greatest movie I've ever read.

From what I have gleaned of Brown's books, those who expect a refinement of his style will probably be disappointed. Fans, however, will be glad to know little has changed.


Italian job
After uncovering the secrets of the Freemasons in The Lost Symbol, Harvard professor of art history and iconography Tom Hank— sorry, Robert Langdon wakes up from a nightmare and finds himself in a hospital with stitches in his scalp and absolutely no clue how he got there.

After speaking to the "tall and lissome" and (one assumes) attractive Dr Sienna Brooks, Langdon, thinking he's still in the States, looks out the window and sees the Palazzo Vecchio — and learns that he's not quite in Massachusetts anymore.

Outside, a female assassin waits. Five miles off Italy's coast, her boss, a man Brown simply calls "the provost", waits for good news in a mysterious US$300 million (RM929 million) yacht and floating military command centre.

Nothing like that is forthcoming. But the provost isn't the only one having a bad day.

After fleeing another assassination attempt, Langdon learns that the willowy Sienna is not only a mutant but a former child prodigy with an IQ higher than Stephen Hawking's. He also finds that he's in possession of a biohazard canister.

Soon, armed men come a-knocking shortly after he calls the US embassy. With Sienna in tow, the inevitable chase begins as Langdon tries to remember what happened in the past couple of days — and unravel a madman's dastardly plot, partly inspired by Florentine poet Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy.

To add to his list of "?!"-punctuated what-the-hecks, security cameras caught him "stealing" Dante's death-mask hours before he woke up in the hospital.

Nothing like having both sides of the law snapping at one's Somerset-clad heels to add excitement to a bit of historical forensics.


Abandon all prejudice, ye who read this
As the pages turned quickly, I began to see the appeal of novels like this. Cleverly written with hooks and cliffhangers at the end of each short chapter, you just can't put this 460-odd-page novel down until you're done with it.

The only other time I've experienced this compulsion to finish something was at a KFC outlet — or when I opened up a bag of Cheezels I bought last week.

You don't care that it's not literary writing. You learn to skip the piles of exposition and slipped-in trivia, obviously for the benefit of those who can't access their smartphones for some impromptu Googling. I saw less of the groan-worthy similes Brown's famous for; maybe I learned to skip those, too. The expository parts do mess up the flow of the story, like annoying pop-up ads.

Some of the descriptive passages, however, are written in such vivid detail one is compelled to actually fly there to see, for instance, the cringe-inducing "penile grip" featured in the sculpture of Hercules and Diomedes in the Hall of the Five Hundred, or the "intimidating array" of male nudes at the Palazzo Vecchio. Then, there's the superb copywriting on the Church of Dante.

All bound to reinforce the faith Florence's city officials have in Brown's apparent ability to revive flagging tourism industries.


Tripping over trivia
It's not all tourist spots and history. At one point the Harvard dreamboat shares some esoteric knowledge: "Regular gesso smells like chalk. Wet dog is acrylic gesso."

We also get a brief dissertation on the science of denial, along with aphorisms such as, "In the world of book publishing, late-night emergencies were as rare as overnight success." (Shouldn't it be "are"? Is the book publishing industry past tense?)

As well as an endorsement for the iPhone — and e-books. "I've got to stop being such a snob about leather-bound books... E-books do have their moments."

The wit and writing is sophomoric, the preachy bits on human folly are tedious, and the denouement might elicit a huge WTF, even among ardent Brownians.

And there is next to no chemistry between Hank-er, Langdon and the willowy tagalong Sienna. The mistakes she made, for someone of her superb IQ, is conveniently covered by her traumatic past.

Still, Inferno is a pretty solid potboiler that will have you hooked right until the last page.

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Inferno

Dan Brown
Doubleday (May 2013)
463 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-385-53785-8

Masterclass in Session: Clicking With Kid Chan

Hot on the heels of Amber Chia's MPH Masterclass guide to a modelling career is Kid Chan's MPH Masterclass guide to starting a photography business.

I'd thought that the format for the cover would be similar to the previous one, but I guess photographers just have to be different. At least it means each book in the series will be unique.

Front and back of Kid Chan's Guide to the Business of Photography
(he might have comments about my photo-taking skills)

Malaysia's shutterbug to the stars was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. However, things soured when the family's fortunes declined and his parents divorced. After completing his tertiary studies, he became the personal assistant to the founder of the Metropolitan College Group.

Several years later, he left this somewhat cushy job to take over his sister's failing photography studio. This was the beginning of his uphill climb to where he is today. He learned practically everything from scratch and had to endure more batterings to his ego.

His foray into photography began taking off when he was doing weddings. Who would've thought that wedding photography had the stigma attached to it?

Once he bit the bullet and did his best at it, wedding photography started opening doors for him, especially after he adopted Denis Reggie's approach to shooting weddings.

These days people pay heaps for any photographer who can make their (generally) once-in-a-lifetime event look like a one-in-a-million spectacle. So you could say that Kid Chan was a pioneer of wedding photojournalism in Malaysia, albeit a reluctant one.

In this instalment in the MPH Masterclass series, Kid Chan shares what he has picked up in all his years in the field.

Tips include practical, down-to-earth advice on choosing equipment, premises, hiring help, projecting a professional image, leveraging on social media, photo retouching, and navigating some of the pitfalls of the job. Photos from Kid's past and him on the job brings his story and career to life.

"Success stems from many things," he wrote. "Luck certainly plays a role and I have indeed been very lucky. I've had some great mentors who guided me along the way. And I also created some of my own luck by being willing to do all the small little things that needed to be done along the way."

Maybe getting this book could be one "small little thing" you can do if you're considering the life of a professional photographer.

Kid Chan's Guide to the Business of Photography will be launched some time in June and will be available at all major bookstores.

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Kid Chan's Guide to the Business of Photography

Kid Chan
MPH Group Publishing
191 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-967-415-121-8

Buy from MPHOnline.com

Wandering Woman

Reading some of the tales in this book, one wonders why Zhang Su Li does the things she does to herself. But I suppose that - and the honesty - is part of the book's charm.

Way back in 2007, Marshall Cavendish published some of Zhang's travel tales in a collection called, A Backpack and a Bit of Luck. Some months back, more stories from her travels in Malaysia appeared in another travel story collection, Sini Sana ("Here and There" in Malay).

The boss would know the details about why Zhang wants to republish A Backpack with MPH. For me, it was a chance to read the book for free, after hearing about it for so long.


Old trails, revisited
Zhang had been a copywriter for years, and it shows. Occasional flashes of what I would assume is literary flair shows up in the book. Colourful, vivid descriptions attempt to put the reader in her shoes as she trots, hikes, stumbles and saunters her way through life and the exotic locales in the collection.

A showcase of her talent can be found in her (mis)adventures as an apprentice Odissi dancer in India, which is worthy of its own staged epic and takes up over a third of the book. What is perhaps the best story in the book also captivated a fellow editor.

For Zhang, the classical Indian art is physically, emotionally and spiritually demanding, particularly the physical part: "In learning Odissi, you become aware of the muscles you never knew you had," Zhang writes. "You also have to disregard the bones you always knew you had."

She describes the sights and sounds from an Indian roadside that conjures all the mental images and feelings needed to fill in the blanks.

Vivid memories of standing by a roadside littered with rubbish, cows, donkeys, pigs, dogs, crows and peacocks, barefoot children in rags with lice in their hair, snot down their noses and possibly somebody else's wallet in their pockets. A dog was dying on one side of the road. On the other, a cow was giving birth. Children were laughing and crying. People were chatting and quarrelling. Animals snorted, barked, mooed and squawked. Cars. Vans. Buses. Motorbikes. Bicycles. Honking their horns and ringing their bells. Swerving around the mobile landmarks and carcasses of small unidentifiable animals. At remarkable speeds, with impressive accuracy.

India is a land of extremes, from her point of view. Living and learning at her Odissi guru's neighbourhood at the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (Noida) in Uttar Pradesh was, I take it, an enlightening experience that builds character, nurtures the spirit and sharpens hyperbole:

Only God knows why in India, there is no such thing as medium, or 'just nice'. On a scale of one to ten, all the numbers from two to nine seems to be missing. In winter, the water is so cold your tits get numb just looking at the bucket.

And isn't it just like a copywriter to anthropomorphise dust? Indian dust, to be precise:

The seams of my mobile phone were packed with dirt no matter how often I tried to clean it with the edge of a fingernail. Anything with a screw top ... oooh, baby ... here they come! Flat surfaces are just too easy for them; they're already occupied by less ambitious dust particles anyway. ... Nothing, nothing, nothing escapes the clutches of Indian dust.

Not all adventures are as action-packed, dramatic or memorable. Zhang appears to find Helsinki boring. The city boasts a Stockmann's departmental store that seems to have become a reference point to all other places in the city. But even in a squeaky-clean utopia of a Scandinavian city, she finds a silver lining:

"Excuse me, where's the railway station?"

"You go past Stockmann, turn left, then past the traffic lights, and take a right..."

Or, "Excuse me, how do I get to the Pyramids of Giza?"

"You go past Stockmann, and you turn right, and..."

Or, "Hello, where can I get a large rubber hose with fur attachments to hit myself on the backside with?"

"You go past Stockmann..."

...Aww nuts, she's just being cheeky. The fur-augmented rubber hose didn't happen ... right?

But if there is a place where Finns can indulge in their own Fifty Shades of Grey fantasies, their country isn't all that boring.


Meet, greet and (maybe) eat
Zhang's penchant for travelling and talking to strangers may have begun when, as a schoolgirl, she met an old British chap who was posted to Malaya and had lunch with him at his home. This pattern of meet, greet and eat would repeat itself at various points in her life.

During a Kruger Park safari, she 'cures' a travelling companion of 'malaria' and, later, helps raid an ostrich nest at a farm in South Africa for a monster-sized sunny-side-up.

Job searches in the UK lead her to quirky and often charming characters in a British pub and its landlady's peace-making custard cream biscuits; and a gambling den and its greasy, chauvinistic manager's "turkey stew" ("Tin 'a turkey roll, baked beans, mix 'em together." Then, keep it in a safe for one night. Eww.)

A flat tyre along a dark silent highway ends in a late-night tom yam and lessons on patience, humility and the kindness of strangers. Answering a call from another kind stranger while searching for Atlantis in Santorini nets her some salt-cured sardines, ouzo and an olive-branch wreath for protection.

At a cemetery in Vienna, she toasted marshmallows with an old bag lady. And a throw of the dart sends her to Myanmar on a bumpy cross-country bus ride to a feast of salad, fried bugs and sago palm worms.

Not bad for a former student at an English school who's terrified of earthworms. Come a long way since then, she has.

And there's more where that came from.

Poignant, funny, punny, a little pugnacious and kind of fun, Zhang is not shy about her own shortcomings even as she strives to overcome them, documenting every misstep for our entertainment and education.

So go on. Pick this up and find out what one phone call, a swing of the steering wheel or a knock on the door can lead to. You might be surprised.


Zhang Su Li's A Backpack and a Bit of Luck will be republished by MPH, plus some edits. Copies of the original Marshall Cavendish edition may still be available at bookstores.

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A Backpack and a Bit of Luck

Stories of a Traveller with No Sense of Direction

Zhang Su Li
MPH Group Publishing
285 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-967-415-866-8

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