Masterclass In Session: AT 19 Chefs Rescue Vintage Malaysian Recipes

I'd wondered about the title of this book. If these recipes are here, are they technically 'lost'?

What's in this collection of recipes under the MPH Masterclass Kitchens series includes some "vintage" dishes that aren't lost yet, but are in danger of going extinct. Rendang tok, for instance, takes hours to prepare and while a favourite of many, I doubt just as many would aspire to make it themselves.

Nevertheless, I was delighted with its inclusion. Now, if the water supply would return to normal....

Much has been said of Malaysia's culinary diversity. But beyond the more popular char kway teow, roti canai and nasi lemak are dishes that our forefathers used to make and enjoy, at an era when life was less hectic, people were much closer to nature and made the most of what they grew or reared in their backyards.

In the rush towards modernity, memories of simple schoolyard snacks such as asam boi popsicles and skewered sengkuang slices, as well as rendang tok and the less-heard-of banana-stem paratal, are slowly but surely fading away.

Fearing the loss of these traditional flavours, Hellen Fong marshalled several chefs from her cooking school, At 19 Culinary Studio, in an effort to rescue them from obscurity.

Tapping into their own memories and family recipe archives, Fong and her team: Mohd Shokri Abdul Ghani, Goo Chui Hoong (who published her own MPH Masterclass Kitchens cookbook, Khairil Anwar Ahmad and Ezekiel Ananthan) have come up with this collection of Lost Malaysian Recipes, a culinary time capsule that's sure to take us back to a Malaysia some of us still remember.

"By 'lost', we don’t mean recipes that are no longer available," Hellen Fong explains. "Instead, this cookbook aims to retrace and recreate some of the vintage Malaysian recipes that may have been changed along the way to cater to the modern palate and lifestyle."

After a brief introduction to the history of Malaysian food and the myriad of ingredients that can be found in a typical Malaysian kitchen, we get to know each of the chefs in this book and the recipes they share with us.

"It took us a while to track down these recipes, ensuring to the best of our abilities that they are indeed authentic," says Fong. "And now, we encapsulate them into this book to keep them safe from being lost and forgotten – a treasure to leave a lasting impression on Malaysian cuisine."

Though only a small selection of what this country's long and rich culinary history has to offer, this book will have you hungry for a taste of that history and curious about what these chefs have not dug up.

---

Lost Recipes of Malaysia

Hellen Fong, et al.
MPH Group Publishing
194 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-967-415-202-4

Buy from MPHOnline.com

News: Johor Frees Libraries, Etc

Last week, Johor announced that it will abolish public library fees:

"[Johor's Chief Minister] Datuk Mohamed Khaled Nordin hoped that the new initative would help to increase the membership currently at 350,000. The libraries recorded some one million visitors.

...From today, those registering as new members no longer have to pay RM5 for children and senior citizens, RM10 for teenagers and RM20 for adults aged between 18 and 50 years old.

Good news, I suppose, but like the Chief Minister says, the challenge is "how to attract and encourage youngsters to read books and other materials".

Elsewhere:

• The producer of a Taiwanese TV drama called The Palace: The Lost Daughter is alleged to have ripped off the storyline from Taiwanese novelist Qiong Yao's Plum Blossom Scar. Qiong's works also include Princess Pearl (Huan Xu Ge Ge), Six Dreams (Liu Ge Meng), and Green Green Grass by the River (Qing Qing He Bian Cao).
• Mali librarian Abdel Kader Haidara, "The Brave Sage of Timbuktu" who fought to save priceless manuscripts from rampaging Islamists.
• George Psalmanazar, the fake Formosan who fooled 18th-century London. Like the story of Pedro Carolino's hilarious English-language guide, I also read about Psalmanazar in one of those Reader's Digest Amazing Tales books, though I can't recall if both were in the same publication. These days, invented personalities boost TV ratings.
• Q&A with big-data literary critic Franco Moretti, who wants to study bad books, preferably without reading them. So it sounds like he wants to run all these books through an algorithm that determines whether a book is good or bad. Would the output be better than human-written reviews (or hatchet jobs) and fun to read?
• Elizabeth Minkel went to the London Book Fair where the biggest takeaway were the free tote bags. "There are pens, too," she adds, "but the totes are where it’s at."
  
  But no solid, long-term solutions to what ails traditional publishing. "With books," Minkel says, "the endless debate about the medium, the cheap and dirty ebook versus the august printed page, always seemed to obscure the book publishing industry’s somewhat shaky revenue models to begin with: attempts at changing the industry, the bare-minimum embrace of technology, look like weak computerized bandages on older, deeper wounds."
• OMG OMG OMG, one half of this duo went on a trip and wrote a book about it. Guess what I'm going to get next.

MPH Warehouse Sale 2014

In case you haven't noticed the buntings around a certain part of Petaling Jaya: the Sale is on from 13 to 18 May, at this address:


MPH Distributors @ Bangunan TH,
No 5, Jalan Bersatu,
Section 13/4, Petaling Jaya
Call 03-7958 1688 for directions

Hours: 8am to 6pm


And the map to the venue is here. It's the same place, since we haven't gone anywhere.

News: Obits, Awards, and Derpless In Gawker Media

Several writers left us early April, including Sue Townsend, creator of Adrian Mole and Clarissa Tan, "journalist, gopher, reviewer of TV" at the Spectator in the UK.

The late Clarissa Tan at Readings @ Seksan's, 28 June 2008

I can't remember if this is the same Clarissa Tan who appeared at Readings sometime in 2008, but from a picture I took, she was holding a copy of what looks like the Spectator, so I guess she was. Some of her writings in the magazine can be found here, including the piece she read at Readings, which won her the Shiva Naipaul Prize from the Spectator.

...Right, now for some happy news. First, congratulations to Tan Twan Eng for making the shortlist for the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, which features an interesting line-up. Looks like Tan's not done reaping accolades yet. Will there be more sour-grape munching, I wonder?

And because of its relatively swift rise as a brand, cutting-edge local pulp fiction publisher Fixi won The Bookseller International Adult Trade Publisher Award. Juga kerana berkat rajin hulur tisu, agaknya.


Elsewhere:

• "Authors on rock star-style tours, animations of famous fictional characters, merchandise based on children's stories – all these are now in the armoury of Britain's biggest publisher as it fights back against the decline of the high-street bookseller." In the wired age, Penguin Random House hits the road to bring books to the public.
• From Jason Kottke: A study that says "foraging harvester ants act like TCP/IP packets". Anyone who's a fan of Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series might recognise a device that does use an "anternet" of sorts: Unseen University's computer, Hex
• "Life is too short to read a bad book". Too right. So my editing job might be jeopardising my reading, too.
• The new editor of "slangy Internet site" (Gawker) apparently wants it to sound less like a slangy Internet site. Good luck.

What's Cooking Next

Here's a sample of what's cooking in the hell's kitchen that is my workplace (and do keep in mind that they are drafts; final versions may differ):

Yes, we're doing quite a few cookbooks, besides ... other stuff. Admittedly, these are pretty good-looking projects. Hope I didn't spoil some surprises.

More to come when these are ready.

Murky Depths

Not too long after I received this book, my contact at the distributors' side left the company, and production started picking up after that. I haven't been back at the warehouse, rooting through the book pile for stuff to review.

Not that I have the urge to - yet.

After months being bogged down by work, life and poor health, it feels strange to be published again.

I kind of miss it.

Yes, it's also kind of funny that this came out at a time when we wish we have running water 24/7. Here's hoping the current turbulence in our lives eventually goes away.

---

Murky depths

A novel with deep, dark secrets

first published in The Star, 08 April 2014


Is Wally Lamb's We Are Water the definitive post-racial, post-9/11 American novel?

Its premise sounds simple enough: Annie Oh, artist and divorced mother of three, is about to marry Viveca, the woman who helped further her career as an artist.

Her decision shakes up her family a bit, not least because Annie was already seeing Viveca while her marriage was on the rocks and her son, a born-again Christian and army nurse, objects to his mother's same-sex marriage.

Not to worry, we will get more than just Annie's family trying to adjust to their mother's new direction in life and getting along with the new (mum?)in-law.

Besides Annie, her children and her ex-husband Orion (what's with that name?), the numerous narrators in the novel include an elderly art curator and several other characters from Annie and Orion's pasts.

A seemingly unrelated interview with said curator and his tale of the mysterious death of a black artist – the type whose genius only surfaces decades later – leads to Annie's introduction and the art she produces.

As the story progresses, we get hints of something terrible that happened during Annie's childhood that might have fuelled her "angry art" and have repercussions for her family and the day of the marriage.

We get an idea that Annie's is not a typical American family. Originally a red-headed lass with Irish roots, she'd married Orion who is of Italian-Chinese descent. By the time she meets the Greek lady Viveca, her children are already grown up. Besides her army-nurse son, Annie has two daughters: one's an earth-mother type and the other is young, hip and dreams of Hollywood stardom.

But this portrait of the new post-racial American family is not quite all hunky-dory, either. Under the glittering surface of the Ohs' façade lie murky depths where secrets lurk. All of them have something to hide from the world and each other, but perhaps nothing as dark as what Annie had tucked away in her memories.

One complaint is that the pace at which the long story of this family (over 500 pages) unfolds is painfully slow. While much of the backstory is meant to give the characters more depth and character, I found a lot of it as enlightening as white noise.

The again, I generally follow the news and goings-on in the United States more than of what goes on at home, so a lot of it sounds all too familiar.

With regards to the Ohs' first-person narration: the tone is mostly ranty and whining. We have details that add meat to the characters, their ways of thinking, and motivations, fears and hopes, but half the time they just seem to be venting. It's like reading a blog by a dysfunctional family.

At some point, their troubles and secrets no longer matter, as this reader, bogged down by fatigue, started skimming in haste towards the ending – which, I suppose, bears the promise that, no matter how difficult the past and present, there's always light at the end of the tunnel. And family will always be family.

I'm not particularly impressed by this novel; reading it was like a rough tumble in a white-water raft. However, those with a penchant for novels that plumb deep, dark family secrets will find Lamb's turbulent, turbid waters a satisfactory, if challenging, dip.

---

We Are Water

Wally Lamb
HarperCollinsPublishers (2013)
561 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-00-753284-1

Weird World Of Make-Believe Playmates

When I proofed the manuscript for this book, I thought the stories were kind of clever, albeit niche.

It reminded me of another similar collection by a more famous author, where I felt some of the stories were more ... cryptic. No such confusion in this collection, however.

Okay, makes a nice collectible, I thought, or a Christmas or birthday gift. A colleague, however, was more enthusiastic about it.

Turns out he's not alone - and the niche was larger than I'd thought.

First published as an e-book, Imaginary Friends: 26 Fables for the Kid in Us reached e-book platform Kobo’s list of top fifteen titles under several categories, including Short Stories and Humour.

And, apparently, it has also been picked up by various online vendors from around the world, including those in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary and Singapore.

Now, this best-selling e-book of witty, original fables targeted at teens and adults, is getting a print edition, with illustrations by Arif Rafhan.

Written by Singapore-based freelance writer Melanie Lee and published by MPH Digital (a subsidiary of MPH Group Publishing) in October 2013, Imaginary Friends may look like a typical children’s book at first glance.

But its sophisticated wit and references to modern society and pop culture make it an enjoyable read for those in the new market segment known as New Adult fiction. With Arif's artistic touches (that reminds one of the murals in Publika, Solaris Dutamas), it looks even more collectable.

In this collection of fables for grown-ups and grown-up minds, lessons about life, love, and the universe are imparted through vignettes in the lives of twenty-six zany characters (a few of which are tragically short), including an overachieving octopus, a yodelling yak, a vicious Vespa, a sleepy salmon and an upbeat umbrella.

Witness the downside of democracy in a tale of a jar of jelly beans; learn why being a sour grape doesn't pay; and see the power of memories held by an old quilt blanket, among other things.

Imaginary Friends is a departure for Lee, whose previous book was a non-fiction, spiritual title. "Many of the life lessons at the end of each story in Imaginary Friends are things I’d wished older folks had told me about when I was in my late teens and early twenties," says Lee.


Melanie Lee is a Singaporean freelance writer who specialises in travel and heritage, but dabbles in fiction in the wee hours. Her favourite imaginary friend was Janet, a pink water bottle she had when she was eight.

Arif Rafhan is a Malaysian creative director of a web design agency who loves to draw on anything – from dead-tree media to his computer monitor and his son’s bedroom wall. After all, goes his motto: “Why buy when you can create it yourself?” He is also the illustrator for the upcoming graphic novel, Adventures of a KL-ite in Afghanistan, written by Zan Azlee.

---

Imaginary Friends

26 Fables for the Kid in Us

Melanie Lee
MPH Group Publishing
83 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-967-415-189-8

Buy from MPHOnline.com

Masterclass In Session: Hosting With Azura

The past few titles in the MPH Masterclass series pretty much lays it out: behind the glitz and glamour in things like fashion, photography and modelling is a lot of hard work, discipline and behind-the-scenes preparation. Many big names really climbed their way to the top. This next author is no exception.

(... wow ... what's with the hair?)

Radio deejay and TV host Azura Zainal is perhaps best known for her work with Walt Disney TV Asia and, later, Red FM and local TV travel and adventure shows such as Xplorasi. Now, she's written this book to help aspiring hosts understand what goes on behind the scenes and what it takes to get into and succeed in the hosting business.

Azura is blunt about certain things. For one, a host needs to have a unique, attractive personality. "Not everyone is cut out to be a great presenter," she writes. "A good host is judged based on two things: attributes and skills. Attributes are traits that you're born with—either you have it or you don't. Skills, on the other hand, can be learnt and picked up with time, effort and experience." She's not being mean.

Azura also lays out what's required to break into radio, TV and live-event hosting and what to do (and what not to do) to keep the gig and get better at it. Even if it does seem like the host is the centre of the galaxy, the show is what matters the most and the host is but another member of the crew that drives it. Emphasis on teamwork is often stressed throughout the book, as well as professionalism.

She also tells us what a host can expect to earn in TV, radio and live-events, and also what a host can go into when he or she wants to expand his or her horizons. There's quite a bit of planning involved for the latter, as well as a lot of face-time, work and perseverance. Azura has been in the business for fifteen years and counting and she's seen and done practically everything.

"I realise many people also wish to get into this line but don't even know where to start," Azura writes. "There are so many things to do and not to do that I had to learn about—the hard way. I wrote this book so that you can pick up best practices without having to stumble and fall too much along the way."

---

Azura Zainal's Guide to Radio & TV Hosting

Azura Zainal
MPH Group Publishing
131 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-967-415-188-1

Buy from MPHOnline.com

Masterclass In Session: Starting Businesses With Maresa

The company's been pushing quite a few books out in time for the authors' appearances at the 2014 Putrajaya International Book Fair (PIBF). So yes, we're up to our necks in editing and proofreading for the past month or so.

The actual book, copies of which arrived on 17 March, a few days
after this entry was posted

Among these is Maresa Ng's Guide to Starting a Business, the latest in the MPH Masterclass Series.

Formerly an investment banker, Ng ditched her job for a career helping aspiring entrepreneurs improve themselves and take their enterprises to the next level—a vocation that began as a favour for several friends who came to her for financial advice.

Today, she runs leading business coach firm ActionCOACH Spark Activators and SMETalent, a technology platform that helps SMEs in human capital management.

Ng does not believe that one should just take a leap of faith when it comes to starting businesses. She firmly believes in careful and detailed planning, knowing oneself and being clear on one's intentions to start a business—all born from years of running her own enterprise and teaching others how to do the same.

Her guidebook covers the early planning stages; how to craft that all-important business model, mission statement and sales engine that will drive the enterprise; and how to leverage on good people and good systems to expand and grow the business.

She clears up some misconceptions (sales and marketing are not the same, for instance) and introduces creative ways to get by or get ahead (like renting space in exchange for ads rather than cash). Ultimately, the business should run on autopilot and flourish, even when the owner's not constantly keeping an eye on things.

"My experience has shown me that Malaysians are keen entrepreneurs," Ng writes. "But many simply don't have the know-how when it comes to actually running a successful business. They don't understand the fundamentals of how to grow a sustainable business model. While there are numerous books out there covering best practices in business, not even a handful are catered towards the local business scene.

"My aim with this book is to fill that gap. Having worked with a variety of different businesses, big and small, through business coaching, I've gained insight on dealing with a wide range of different situations. I share these, and more, in this book.

---

Maresa Ng's Guide to Starting a Business

Maresa Ng
MPH Group Publishing
131 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-967-415-194-2

Buy from MPHOnline.com

Ultra-Mess

Before I went to bed yesterday, news came that the Malaysian government banned Ultraman.

I'm too tired for this right now.

It was also 11:45pm and I wasn't exactly lucid.

Things became clearer today. The ban, slapped on one comic book, came about thanks to some shoddy editing by the publisher of the Malay-language version of an Ultraman comic, which included a word that was recently prohibited to non-Muslims in the country.

But first: Ultraman was a familiar figure in my childhood. So the news is kind of shocking, but not surprising. Kids these days have other icons to look up to.

Since its debut, the franchise has introduced other Ultramen. Lore says there's a whole planet full of these silver-skinned giants, mutated thus by an artificial source of light they created to replace their dead sun. The Ultraman described as a "god" in the offending passage is Ultraman King, said to be the oldest and strongest member of that civilisation.

Later, I consulted the Google on the history of Ultraman King. From the looks of it, somebody pulled a Houellebecq.

Curious, I ran the web page through Google Translate. Though not exactly a word-for-word match, the results are, well...

So.

Seems the publisher - a dodgy one, from the looks of it - is guilty of lazy translation and plagiarism.

And it seems the local media didn't pick that up soon enough or chose not to highlight it, to the chagrin of at least one Netizen.

The religious angle here is beside the point. If only the piece had been properly translated and reworded...

However, releasing eye-catching soundbites like "Ultraman banned due to public safety concerns" before following up with the real reason and more details later was probably not a good idea. To much of the civilised world, that statement - taken at face value - makes no freaking sense.

So, once again, we've given the world something else to talk about.

Masterclass In Session: Light Malaysian Bites With Chui Hoong

Malaysians. We love our food. We trawl the newspapers and the Internet, searching for food reviews and accounts by fellow gourmands of their (mis)adventures at latest artisanal coffee joint, high-end Shangri-La of cuisine, or a hitherto unknown hole-in-the-wall that existed for decades. And when someone claims a certain local dish as their own, we will fight tooth-and-nail to keep it Malaysian, however absurd it might sound at times.

But with a growing number of people turning away from such calorie- and sugar-laden, artery-clogging, and liver-taxing delights as char koay teow, nasi lemak, teh tarik, mee mamak and kopi C peng, can we still trump for much-vaunted Malaysian fare?

There might have been some attempts to make some of our local dishes more palatable to the increasingly health-conscious, which purists might consider heresy - what's char koay teow without the egg, cockles and all that garlicky grease?

Goo Chui Hoong's Lite Malaysian Favourites - yes, I believe she
eats what she cooks

Enter dietitian and cookbook author Goo Chui Hoong and her compendium of Lite Malaysian Favourites. After co-authoring and co-publishing Food for Your Eyes, a cookbook of dishes for eye health, with her ophthalmologist husband, Goo goes solo for this cookbook which features healthier options to some Malaysian dishes and snacks. This will be the first of a series of Masterclass Kitchen cookbooks published by MPH.

Goo claims to be a foodie, one who loves to experiment with different ingredients and try new things. Her tendencies to tweak recipes took off when she began studying dietetics and continues, perhaps to this day. Some of the results of those experiments ended up here.

Snacks are improved by baking rather than frying. Coconut milk is eschewed in favour of the lighter low-fat milk and slightly heavy evaporated milk. And can you imagine baking muffins with fruit purées or leftover bits of fruits or veggies from the juicer? Or a dish of oat-and-wolfberry noodles?

Other surprises include banana 'fritters' that's basically bananas wrapped in rice paper or spring roll pastry, not unlike what's being served at several other cafés in the Klang Valley, and cucur udang (prawn fritters) that are baked (not fried) in muffin tins. There's even a low-fat ginger-milk pudding, in case you're hankering for a taste of Hong Kong/Macau at home, minus a few calories.

Like the dietitian she is, Goo tacks on nutrient comparison tables to lay down all the caloric reductions if one uses her recipes rather than the 'originals'. Heresy? So was believing that the earth rotated around the sun.

She also shares some tips on measuring portion sizes when one prepares food or eats out. And you will, at some point, dine out with others who aren't as OCD with calories. The author's advice: moderation, and portion control.

Sadly, not all Malaysian favourites are covered in his book. For one, there is no skinny version of char koay teow, which leads one to conclude that such a thing is impossible.

Perhaps we do need something comfortable to land on should one fall off the wagon. The road to wellness is fraught with temptation, and things can get out of control when one bottles it all up.

But one needs to start somewhere, somehow. Let Goo Chui Hoong's Lite Malaysian Favourites guide the way.

---

Goo Chui Hoong's Lite Malaysian Favourites

Goo Chui Hoong
MPH Group Publishing
188 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-967-415-185-0

Buy from MPHOnline.com

Waiting For Rain

"I miss your old writing," someone commented a while back.

And thus, reality came a-knocking. Again.

I stopped counting how many times.

For weeks I haven't been writing as much as editing. Manuscripts. Lots of them.

I went through some of my old stuff. I couldn't recognise the author. He seems sharp, articulate, and, well ... happier. He also seems to have more time to dream, scheme and pontificate on things that excite him, even if his arguments aren't well thought out.

It has been a while.

And it might be like this for a while or two longer.

I'm looking for real estate. As it is with potential first-time property owners, I'm getting the jitters.

Landed property, especially within the narrow locus of my current neighbourhood, is out of the question. The condo unit I have my eye on looks okay, and rather well situated. Except that it's kind of aged, and is a leasehold unit.

The elders advised caution. As they should. I'm taking this recommendation on the advice of an agent under the supervision of Melody's former colleague, who she says cares a lot about his reputation and therefore does not hawk lemons.

With that comes other worries and fears. Lawyer fees, money transfers, property assessment rates, more taxes, what to do when the lease period draws near and I can't, for some reason, let the unit go...

This, on top of the need to ubah gaya hidup over rising costs of living, water-rationing, the coming introduction of the goods and services tax, as well as worries at work, it's no wonder the ink on the old pen isn't flowing like it used to.

And my health hasn't been fine. For the past several days my blood pressure (top end) hopped past the 135 mark. I haven't been sleeping well. The same lymph nodes are still swollen after about two years.

No more book reviews. No more food reviews. No more opinion pieces. The blog, a pseudo-chronicle of my journey through the world of books and publishing, is as parched as my inkwell.

Yes, I am, like parts of the country, going through a dry spell. The country's will get better, because in this part of the world, the rain has to fall sometime - which it did last weekend.

Me? I'm still waiting.

Hopefully, not for too long.

Media And Publishing Break Into A Gallop In 2014

I kind of dropped the ball on the blog during the Chinese New Year celebrations, but I'm hoping to get back in gear soon; this is supposed to be my life.

Josephine Phang, blogger and founder of online Chinese metaphysics consultancy outfit Bazichic and protégé of Joey Yap (I think), predicted exciting times in 2014 for the media and publishing industries in this radio podcast.

Just days into 2014, both industries got a-galloping like a horse on fire.

After a lot of noise by some Hindu nationalists, Penguin Books India recalled and pulped The Hindus: An Alternative History by Professor Wendy Doniger of the University of Chicago as part of a legal settlement (maybe in exchange for not hauling some Penguin asses to jail).

The case, the latest among recent outcries over 'offensive' publications, also raised hackles among the writing community. The author of The God of Small Things railed against these men of (seemingly) small minds over the pulping of the "contentious" book. Some less gracious souls feel that Penguin betrayed Doniger by surrendering to "fundamentalist book-pulpers".

India's laws with regards to hurting people's sensitivities doesn't help at all; as far as I can understand (from this piece in The New Yorker), in India it can be easy to make someone's life hell if he upsets certain individuals or groups of people. "No political leader will dare speak in defense of a text under attack unless the book in question targets his enemies; supporting the freedom of unpopular speech only costs votes and never wins them," says the writer, Jonathan Shainin. "And the state does not offer much protection from physical harm. When death threats are phoned to your home, or a mob comes to vandalize your office, you're on your own."

While Malaysian authorities tried to explain away its slide in latest World Press Freedom Index report by Reporters Without Borders, China simply blanked out all mention of its fifth-bottom position on that list.

Earlier, the publisher of a book critical of China's president Xi Jinping was arrested. Books on feng shui were also banned in China in an apparent attempt to curb superstitious tendencies - inadvertently creating a bonanza for bootleggers who were selling such material online. Ms Phang should probably take note.

Closer to home, a biography of Anwar Ibrahim by Charles Allers is not making an appearance in a local bookstore chain. A radio interview with the opposition leader was also barred from the airwaves, even though the podcast of the interview is available.

At the National Art Gallery, a painting with a not-very-subtle title was taken down along with another piece during an art competition at the premises because they "caused 'distress' among some visitors." No clues so far as to who those distressed visitors were.

And it seems that Boey Cheeming's When I Was A Kid books have been deemed unsuitable for children in Singapore.

But, as usual, "the worst enemy of censorship is always curiosity". The right-wing nutjobs may have kept The Hindus from being sold in India, but they also propelled it briefly to stratospheric heights in the bestseller lists elsewhere. Allers's Anwar bio appears to be selling briskly as well. How will these play out?

Looks like Ms Phang was spot-on.

News: Silverfish Turns 15, And Literary Hipsterdom

• Q&A with Alex Myers, author of Revolutionary, the story of cross-dressing US revolutionary Deborah Sampson.
• "When you work 12 hours a day, and you are a shopkeeper-cum-publisher who translates, edits, critiques, writes, runs workshops, administers and manages a business, is the IT technician, the webmaster, and the plumber who fixes the toilets, time is often short. Still, I have never been afraid to dream. When I wanted to organise the first KL International Literary Festival in 2004, everyone else around me had palpitations, but not me. (It was scary how steely I was.) What do you have to lose from a dream, anyway? Besides the dream itself?" Silverfish Books is now 15. Happy birthday.
• "...the culture of reading can quickly be smeared from a communal and pivotal way to learn and be transformed into an isolating and exclusive way to socially expound personal intelligence." Literary hipsterdom (if there is such a thing) is apparently not worth pursuing.
• Turns out there's an Arab version of the Booker Prize out there: the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. But how many people are reading the shortlisted books?
• Loaded question from Salon: Is the literary world elitist? Here's what Eleanor Catton (The Luminaries) thinks: "The machine of consumerism is designed to encourage us all to believe that our preferences are significant and self-revealing; that a taste for Coke over Pepsi, or for KFC over McDonald’s, means something about us; that our tastes comprise, in sum, a kind of aggregate expression of our unique selfhood."
• Haruki Murakami caught flak from townspeople for a passage in a short story that suggests they threw cigarette butts out of their moving cars. But he's not the first writer to insult a town.
• And the Hatchet Job of the Year goes to AA Gill's takedown of Morrissey's autobiography.
• Could clues to deciphering the infuriatingly cryptic Voynich Manuscript lie in Mexico?
• The late Sudirman Arshad: all-round entertainer, soft-drink brand, and children's book author (posthumously published in 1994).
• How to train your brain to think critically.
• From the annals of H-dropping: It's Y-O-G-U-R-T now.

Hatchets - Not Just For Firewood

The nominees for Hatchet Job of the Year 2013 are in.

Not everyone is happy, though. Here's a much-quoted excerpt of Mark O'Connell's critique of the Award at Slate: "The problem with the Hatchet Job of the Year Award isn’t just that it publicizes and rewards mediocre and shallow criticism by the kind of people who’ll shoot a baboon point-blank in the tits for their own amusement. It’s that it actively promotes such criticism, going out of its way to ensure that more of it gets written."

If O'Connell's rant is based solely on this year's shortlist, I don't think it's fair. The Award, founded by The Omnivore, is three years old - hardly enough time to build a body of "provocative or challenging or insightful" criticism "that makes an argument about and around a book" and "stands alone on its own essayistic merits".

And critics - whatever level of literacy - don't need much encouragement to write a hack job. The hatchet-job avalanche O'Connell dreads is happening - has he seen what's on Goodreads and Amazon? I believe that buried under the avalanche of throwaway one-liners are some real creatively cut gems.

What The Omnivore's encouraging is more thoughtful criticism of what's written out there. Nothing beats a skilful, witty takedown of a stack of written words performed with a surgeon's precision, as long as the positives in it are pointed out. Yelping about what's bad about Fifty Shades is too easy.

So this year's shortlist isn't as outstanding as, say, the one for the previous year. But if EL James's trilogy and its ilk deserve its place in the sun, so do the sharp words of their critics telling us why we should read something else - all in the vain hope that the reading public will wise up and writers will get better.

At least "the scathing takedown rip" that Buzzfeed's books editor Isaac Fitzgerald says is rife in "so many old media-type places" has more thought put into it than the stuff that packs the 'review threads' on some book-related social-media platforms. These days, takedowns appear to be more effective than praise in helping to popularise books.

But as more and more books are being churned out, it'll be tougher to separate the chaff from the wheat, and the book reviewer with too much on his plate will have to cut back on the scalpel-work. Other ways of reviewing books which the general public can better digest, like this "dialogic" marginalia on Dan Brown's Inferno, which USA Today says is the best-selling book of 2013, will slip into the mainstream.

By then, I expect that these hatchet jobs will get shorter, sharper and harsher as the volume of books overwhelm the dwindling number of reviewers because, well, who wants to take a scalpel to a 500-page monstrosity in the future when it's easier and much more fun to use an axe?

When that day comes, The Omnivore might need more than just one year's worth of potted shrimp to convince critics to think deeper before taking axes to bad books.

News: CSI: Metafilter, U-Turn On Mein Kampf U-Turn, And Coffee

So this book got published:

Stronger than an ice-shaken triple-shot espresso

I'm pitching this because I like how it's blurbed. Having proofread some of the stories inside, I can pretty much concur.

The publisher has a habit of stopping reprints of its titles after a certain period, so go get it now.


Other things that happened include:

• Ask Metafilter and ye shall receive (help to solve a 20-year-old mystery): Some "cancer-addled ramblings" may actually be prayers.
• Are stories better than science in helping us approach life's complexities?
• Do these figures show the decline of the American book lover? Has anyone compiled similar figures for Malaysia?
• Was a blind spot responsible for Grantland's inadvertent outing of a transgendered person that ended with a suicide?
• Can you make kids love books? Short answer: No. "...if a parent wants a child to read, then they should not push a book on the child. Let the child discover the book for herself." After all, isn't the adventure and thrill of discovering something great a huge part of why we open books?
• Fifty Shades publisher Vintage Books to release a book on Edward Snowden. Sounds like it's gonna be good.
• Bavaria makes U-turn (away from another U-Turn) on an academically annotated edition of Mein Kampf, a best-selling e-book.
• "Outstanding schools" in the UK are reportedly having trouble recruiting headteachers and senior staff from applicants who can't spell and have bad grammar. Time to recall all the expat English teachers in China, Korea, etc?
• Seems little has changed in South America since the first South American Handbook was first published in 1924. For one, Chilean youths "still stare at ladies" and "make audible remarks on [the ladies'] appearance" because this "is not rude according to the Chilean canons, but rather correct conduct."
• Look, the "DNA" of a successful book. Funny how men don't seem to cop to reading books under the "Adult" category.
• Wall Street Journal Asia talked to maybe three or four people and decides that Malaysia's coffee scene is heating up. Really now?
  
  Elsewhere, like in France, the coffee is bad. Maybe Artisan Roast KL can swoop in and help out.

News: "Overrated" American Literature, Found In Translation, And Books

American literature is "massively overrated" and "our reading habit has totally been transformed by the mainstream", says Jhumpa Lahiri at the Jaipur literature festival, according to dna India. SHOCK GASP WHEEZE ... Especially when The Guardian says that Guo Xiaolu said those words. So, who really said what?

The point of the discussion was about a "global novel", and the writers on the panel, which include Guo, Lahiri and Jonathan Franzen, were talking about whether the tsunami of US literature has washed the stuff from other countries out of our reading consciousness. Franzen didn't seem fazed by what Guo (or Lahiri) said, FYI.

---

A couple of FIXI-related tweets:

"Baru dapat surat tahniah dari MPH yg menyatakan #ASRAMA salah satu drp 20 novel Melayu terlaris di MPH @MuhammadFatrim" - Tahniah dude!

GinaYapLaiYoong @‏Cmate86 • 16 Jan 2014

FIXI Verso, a new branch of Amir Muhammad's mainly pulp imprint that publishes translations of English novels, has released BM editions of Stephen King's Joyland and Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Fans soon asked for more, but:

"@adamSanwar Harap2 fixi translate buku neil gaiman Tuhan Tuhan Amerika. BukuFixi" Nanti JAIS marah.

BukuFixi @BukuFixi • 15 Jan 2014

Well, anyhoo...

• Meet Shirin Segran, author of a 450-page science-fiction adventure novel and founder of a youth NGO, profiled in The Star. Meanwhile, South China Morning Post speaks with Hong Kong-born stockbroker-turned-author Julian Lees. And Lee Su Kim airs some laundry, from kebaya tales to sarong secrets.
• A new Pew study reveals that print is holding its own in the face of growing acceptance of e-books.
• Seems US schools are having trouble getting students to read because of the focus on an exam syllabus.
• Rizzoli, a bookstore on New York's Fifth Avenue that boasts a clientèle which includes Madonna, Michael Jackson, the Queen of Thailand, Elton John and controversial Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, may have to close.
• Why was a book on Air India pulled off the shelves?
• Machines aren't good enough to spot potential best-sellers - but they will be.
• Malaysian publishing house seeking Stuff to publish. FEED ME.
• This year, let's try and stop making these linguistic mistakes. And, by the way, are you using "myself" correctly?
• Is this a kangaroo on a 16th century Portuguese manuscript? And if it is, can it alter a chapter in Australian history?

News: Hellebore, Mein Kampf, And A Hundred Words For Snow

A New Zealand toxicologist thinks Alexander the Great may have died from drinking wine spiked with a toxic herb, most likely "Veratrum album, a poisonous plant from the lily family also known as white or false hellebore."

Won't be the last time somebody comes up with a theory about how The Great Alex died. And the last time I encountered the word was in this takedown of an idea for an urban-fantasy novel. Strange, how different stuff we read eventually link up.

---

Dani Shapiro 'apologises' to a reader for not writing what said reader wanted.

"We choose a view. We pick a story to tell. We shift through the ever-changing sands of memory, and in so doing create something hopefully beautiful, by which I mean universal. We try to tell the truth – by which I do not mean the facts. Listen to me closely, because here is where I apparently have enflamed you so: it is not the job of the memoirist to present you with a dossier."

---

Instead of moaning about how US and/or the West has fallen behind the rest of the world, folks like Thomas Friedman and Niall Ferguson should just accept the dawn of a multipolar world and figure out how t engage it, says an author:

The relative economic decline of the United States is not about gridlock in Washington, stupidity or venality on Wall Street, the lack of can-do spirit among the young, or even the death of “the Greatest Generation.” It is about the rest of the world finally getting its act together. That’s not to say that America is doing everything right, of course; much of the rest of this book is about what the country could do better to engage with a new world of opportunity. But it is important to recognize that policies to “regain US dominance” are destined to fail—and are likely to be counterproductive.

From an excerpt of The Upside of Down: Why the Rise of the Rest Is Good for the West by Charles Kenny, of course.

---

"...the sky is falling because a thing has changed books are dead now for sure you guys...." Um, no, Peter Damien says. Also, why the development of books lies with the reading public, not book critics: "It is their rampant enthusiasm for books -- their opinions and their time and effort sifting through the books and finding plenty for everybody in the community to read -- which is sustaining and expanding the book world, which is making it a crowded and noisy and excited tavern and not [a] lonely, pretentious beach...."


OK, what else?

• Emoticon overload is not new: check out these olden-days emoji rebus puzzles.
• Behold, a guide to literary tourism in Edinburgh.
• Link alleged between economic slumps and rise in literary misery. Should we be expecting some downer reading soon?
• Cache of previously unpublished letters by Mary Shelley found, reveals that writers are like everybody else.
• It seems former French president Charles de Gaulle was in the running for the 1963 Nobel Prize for literature.
• Remember how they say Eskimos have at least 100 words (a hundred? Isn't it fifty?) for snow? Phil James listed them all down.
• Hitler's Mein Kampf topping e-book charts, thanks to the "50 Shades of Grey" effect? SHUDDER. But that also means this ban on an annotated edition of the book is probably redundant now.
• "(Munshi) Abdullah's Bible", written by Farish A Noor for the March 2008 issue of the now-defunct Off The Edge magazine. You'd think it'd be dated by now.
• This book says cats think of us as giant (and probably useless) cats. Who, me?
• Looks like more teen writers are finding publishing success.
• Decades-old Al-Saeh library becomes victim of sectarian violence in Lebanon.

News: Books, Buses, And Hidden Snark

Is the corporatisation of book publishing threatening the industry? Seems that way, according to the late Andre Schiffrin, an indie publisher, who was not keen on the profit-driven model for book publishing.

"Whereas before, the average annual profit for a publishing house stood around 3 to 4 percent, now every imprint in a publishing house had to turn 10 to 15 percent profit per year or face closure. This pressure to meet targets, Schiffrin believed, "profoundly altered the output of the major publishing houses.'"

On a slightly related note, there's a study out there that says good fiction "enhances connectivity" in the brain. Until this study is debunked, we now have a compelling reason for the proper screening of manuscripts and publication of good books.

But not everybody agrees that great lit can change your life radically for the better. Nor should it.

"Reading Faulkner doesn’t make me a better person, nor does it teach me much, aside from the realization that Faulkner was a marvelous storyteller," writes Malcolm Jones in The Daily Beast. He adds that "The mid-century novelist Junichiro Tanizaki's women aren't much like my mother and my aunts, but when I read The Makioka Sisters, my family, or at least that sisterly dynamic, snapped into focus like never before. I don't think the pleasure I take from such awakenings will get me into heaven, but it’s enough for me."

All right, moving along:

• Is this really the secret to reading a lot of books or an endorsement of the tools featured inside?
• Hunting for snark in academic papers: Did these people really slip those into the acknowledgements sections? Can't tell, from the way it's written.
• The chief, the "good books advocate", in The Malay Mail Online. Go, chief!
• Forbes's predictions for the book-publishing industry for 2014.
• "...we read or listen to author interviews for the same reason we read novels: to find out how to live. But where novels are often opaque in their wisdom, declining to tell us how to live as plainly as we might like, the interview offers clarity." Seeking writerly wisdom is, apparently, why we read author interviews.
• Laura Miller at Salon couldn't finish these books in 2013.
• "Don't call me an author." This maid in Gurgaon writes books - best-selling ones.
• "Is it time to forgive Greg Mortenson?" asks Jon Krakauer. Short answer: "Nope."
• In memoriam: The Millions remembers some writers who left us in 2013.
• "Speedy consumption of infinite info facilitates short cycles of indignation". How to break the online "rage machine"?
• Dick Metcalf, former Guns and Ammo writer, speaks out in The New York Times.
• Manufacturers of London mayor Boris Johnson's buses want to block a book critical of the design of said buses. Talk about throwing something under a ... bus.
• Got a cocaine habit? If yes, you're killing people. Lots of people. At times, in gruesome ways.

2013: The Year That Was In Words

I'm not generally big on year-end reflections but, given what happened to me last year, I can't help but think back on how ... eventful 2013 has been.

Apart from my steps into the kitchen, I managed to attend a couple of great events.

I didn't expect a whole lot from the inaugural Cooler Lumpur Festival, where I'd hoped to learn more about, among other things, Malay publishing. I probably have enough material from that event for three short pieces or a really long one - if I can get over the information indigestion. Yes, still.

Sadly, pigeonholing seems to still be the order of the day where Malay writers were concerned. The parents of Gina Yap, one of the writers of the Fixi imprint, even refused to attend the launch of her first Malay novel.

Discussing the 'changing face' of the Malay writer (from left): Uthaya
Shankar SB, moderator Umapagan Ampikaipakan, Singaporean playwright
Alfian Sa'at, and Fixi author Gina Yap

But in the overflowing rows of seats in all the events I attended at Cooler Lumpur 2013, I saw a lot of energy and hope and the occasional Kodak moment. If you could just see how close Alfian Sa'at came to tears as Pak Samad recited Balada Hilang Peta (Ballad of the Lost Map) on stage....

Indeed, the future lies with the young. Would it be fine to say that I expect great things from them?

I'm probably not alone in this. Chuah Guat Eng said something about "street Malay" being the language of the young and how they are using that to do their own thing, as well as Fixi's role in that.

Chuah Guat Eng (foreground) in the discussion on "A National
Literature" (with UK writer Suzanne Joinson, Alfian Sa'at, and
National Laureate A Samad Said), live-streamed for the Edinburgh
World Writers Conference

And I'm also looking forward to the next Cooler Lumpur Festival, which is scheduled to take place within the fasting month.

---

When I wrote this response to some "fed-up Penangite's" grouses over the 2012 George Town Literary Festival, adding that I might parachute into it at some point in the future, I never imagined that I'd do it so soon, i.e. one year later.

Things just fell into place that year. I felt compelled to balik kampung then and, hey, might as well be a tourist in my hometown while I'm at it.

So much has changed.

Western-style cafés that look more at home in Publika or Damansara Uptown are now jostling with decades-old kopitiams for customers. Old pre-war shophouses now house cafés, restaurants, art galleries and backpackers' inns. In the city, the skyline has grown higher.

My priorities then meant that I couldn't attend every single event duing GTLF2013, but I managed to catch the Q&A with Datuk Lat as his session drew to a close. I think he was talking about paper.

Datuk Lat (right) fielding questions as his session wraps up; the
session was moderated by the other guy, Huzir Sulaiman

"You'd think that, oh, there's some good quality drawing paper, I think I'll buy some and then you go home with your good paper and you'll start drawing ... that will never happen."

So it's not just writers who draw a blank when confronted with white space.

Whatever can be said about the George Town Literary Festival, I'm glad that there is one. But I'd reconsider getting Huzir Sulaiman and Shamini Flint back for GTLF2014 - those funny, witty, chatty people kept stealing the show.

"...well, I thought it was pretty funny."

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

---

"Too much of a good thing" pretty much sums up the Big Bad Wolf book sale as well. I managed to find a route that took me to the venue, but it was all too much for me. I didn't feel like picking up anything from the mountains of fiction titles.

Still, I ended up with several non-fiction titles, including a cookbook on curry, which I've yet to (and may never satisfactorily) master.

But I'm not sure if I want to go to next year's.

Then again, since production of new books picked up at work towards the end of 2013 I couldn't look at another printed page when I'm home.

The Beginnings Of An Epicurean Editor?

I recently cooked a spaghetti aglio olio for an early pre-Christmas party. Nothing new about that, except...

I used Chinese-style roasted pork belly, along with sun-dried tomatoes. Well, it was sort of inspired by the Pork Lover's Aglio Olio from Three Little Pigs & The Big Bad Wolf in Bangsar Village.

I cooked for six people.

It took place in someone else's bigger, better-equipped kitchen. I had to use a wok to toss the ingredients and it was hard work. But the experience left me with, among other things, kitchen envy.

Stirring up a storm in a kitchen (left) and the final product

It was the first time I'd made spaghetti for anyone else, outside the home - and I somehow got it al dente. At least the assembled thought it was.

And I'd only seriously begun what most would call "cooking" several months ago.

One thing I didn't know, though, was to toss the freshly cooked spaghetti strands in olive oil to keep them from sticking together. One of the hosts pointed that out as I struggled to free the strands from congealing into a heavy tangled mass.

Everybody loved it, and I'm sure they weren't just being polite. Two partygoers took home what was left for dinner the next day - I'm not sure if it would taste the same.

I've been dabbling with some pasta recipes of late, the latest step in my progression towards some degree of self-sufficiency in the home kitchen.

A curried carrot-potato soup with a drizzle of olive oil and
some sunflower seeds (used chicken-stock cubes, so it tasted
like something out of a Maggi packet)

An earlier version of my roast pork-belly pasta; it's advisable
to cut the meat to smaller pieces and fry them with the garlic
before tossing the whole lot with the pasta

The seeds of that might have been planted during a lunch date with a former colleague. I used to do the occasional restaurant review for the media back then, and when she knew about this, she asked if I cooked anything myself. I didn't.

"How can you write about food when you don't cook?" she asked, puzzled. "Isn't that kind of hypocritical?"

I don't know about her cooking skills but, man, she doesn't mince words. That stayed with me since, even though I can throw something simple together now.

My idea of a good hot chocolate is a bit different; this cup is a
mix of Valrhona Guanaja (70% dark) and Jivara (milk chocolate)

Here, I use Whittaker's Dark Ghana, and split it into two
portions: one plain and the other with cinnamon

Since my first experiments with milkshakes and smoothies with a blender, I've been wondering about what else I can do with my hands besides what I do at work with red pens and highlighters.

Putting things in ovens and heating them to death doesn't count as cooking in my book, though I have tried doing that as well - less cleaning up than dishes that require fire and a pot or pan.

A baked salmon - not much work required and great as a lean dinner
when served with blanched vegetables

Pigs in blankets, with a little bit extra (garlic and herbs). These later
burst out of their skins (and blankets) under the intense heat, but I
never got around to solving that problem - yet

After I first boiled a bunch of tri-coloured spirals (not sure what they were really called), I've had plenty of successes with pastas aglio olio - a no-brainer of a dish. You don't even have to fry the pasta.

Sauce-based ones were a bit trickier. An attempt at a sardine thingy left my spirals wallowing in some orange-coloured, sardine-flavoured slurry that smelled strongly of fish oil and tasted fine.

Several attempts at a curry-sauce variety were not as successful. The first time, I used too much masala powder. Another time, I got something that smelled and tasted vaguely of Nyonya-styled chilli paste (I used shallots instead of onions).

Every time, I got a bitter taste in the spice mix or sauce. I've learnt since then that some curries need cream. I used Greek yoghurt in my last experiment.

Not-very-good curry sauce pasta; used sausages because I wanted
the protein but nothing good was available

But I'm not giving up. Hell, if my Dad managed to make the family's chicken curry once....

And I'm guessing that these skills will come in handy when we start paying extra for tolls, electricity, petrol and stuff, on top of the GST that's coming on April 2015.

But more importantly ... can I write about food now? Or do I need to learn how to cook and rest a steak next?


As I post this, I'm recovering from a(nother) throat infection - and a bout of possible food poisoning, both of which occurred on Christmas Eve. I feel like I'm being told something, but I'm not sure what exactly.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

News: Cooking Anarchy, Letter-Writing, And Whatever

William Powell, author of The Anarchist Cookbook regrets writing it and wants it out of print.

Written when he was 19 and angry, "the central idea to the book was that violence is an acceptable means to bring about political change. I no longer agree with this."

No kidding, considering that the book, dubbed by some as a "murder manual", has been linked to a bunch of violent plots. But the book's publisher, who owns the rights, wants to keep it on the shelves.

What goes on the Web, stays on the Web, they say. Looks like the same goes for print.


So, what else went on?

• The ten best lines from Anthony Bourdain's Kindle Singles Q&A makes you want to pick it up
• No Mistake, an editor's memoir. Wondering if it's anything like a tell-all a la Kitchen Confidential?
• RIP Paul Torday, author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
• The seemingly random list of books banned from Guantánamo.
• The argument for negative book reviews, partly in response to Buzzfeed's 'ban' on them.
• GrammarCheck.net has an infographic on what it considers the top ten grammar mistakes and why they should be avoided, brought to you by Lifehacker.
• I don't know enough about NYT columnist Ross Douthat's (almost spelled it "Doubthat") "notorious" mansplaining tendencies, but this attempt at reviewing books with his mindset sounds interesting.
• E-mail killed the art of writing letters? Nuh-uh, says a WaPo review of To the Letter: A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing by Simon Garfield. "In 1919, the Yale Review lamented that 'the art of writing letters has been lost,' with blame cast on the telephone, the typewriter, the telegraph, even the train — for delivering letters too promptly."
• Heartbreaking: the looting of one of Italy's oldest libraries - and the librarian was among the culprits.
• So Facebook wants to know why you didn't share that status update: Well, WHAT'S IT TO YOU, FACEBOOK?
• John Scalzi reminisces on the word processors he's used through the ages: He also rebuffs the notion that "self-loathing is in the writer's blood". And here's his take on the "death of the blog".
• Why putting numbers in text might not be a good idea.
• Is this real? Someone who has a severe allergy to (particles trapped in) BOOKS?
• Is the small book the answer to our TL;DR syndrome?
• Tired of selfies? Here are some "shelfies" - and they don't disappoint.
• Because it's France, France decided that it needed a French word for sexting "because the phenomenon often comes up in legal cases", apparently.
  
  And it seems that the word that annoys Americans the most is ... "whatever".

Not book-related, but I found this article about Ooi Eow Jin, Malaysia's "forgotten" music man, a somewhat powerful piece of writing. Read it before he and his era are forgotten again.

The Desolation Of Smug

November 2013 marks my third year as a books editor. Though I had few illusions as to what I'd be facing when I took this job, these three years have thrown quite a fair bit my way.

"Spend one year in this job and you'll see it all," I was told. Well, not quite. I ended up believing I ain't seen nothin' yet.

Certain issues keep me from fully chronicling my editorial exploits in public. What I can say, though, is plus ça change, plus c'est la même. What does change is the pace. Production has been ramped up of late and it's hard to keep up.

Nine months after I had my sinuses operated on, they have started running again. Just when I've gotten used to sniffle-free mornings.

These days and a little while back, my days looked just like this:

Hint: I'm the one with the sword (photo from here)

And the dragon often won.

My ego - or what's left of it - has taken a beating in the past few months. Not since my brief stint in the media have I experienced anything similar. Although I will always regard the ego-kicking I received in my media stint as the hardest.

In a previous life, I was considered among the best technical writers in my company. My skills in documenting were in demand. My command of English was once graded "superb".

But all that didn't help a lot with the copywriting and editing I'm doing today. There are techniques to be even better at those, which I have yet to master.

Don't be fooled into thinking that cookbooks and children's books are easy-peasy because of the simple grammar and writing style. Blind spots will appear and you'll be left red-faced.

It's been a long, hard comedown from those heady tech-writing days.

I have some hope that the next year will bring new things, more things. Right now, I'm also looking at the press releases and promo materials, besides the growing pile of manuscripts under my care.

I'm also hoping to acquire skills and means that will help me edit 'scripts better, en route towards being a reputable editor that strikes awe into hearts and minds.

I imagine that one day, after a couple of decades, a mountain of 'scripts, gallons of red ink and a dozen or so best-sellers, every meeting with an aspiring author will look like this:

Hint: I'm NOT the one with the sword (photo from here)

I was told that I'm a simple man with low-key preferences, no lofty ambitions, and no desire for the spotlight. True in a sense.

But I think I might have the makings of an ambition now.

First, I need to revisit the other parts of my life I seem to keep neglecting: time management, sleep schedules and priorities.