The King Of Terrors

I had a little taste of terror when I opened the paper and saw the number of pages there. I was sure the book I reviewed was not "400 pages long".

Then I remembered a colleague had e-mailed The Star, to publish the details for Fourth Estate's edition of the book. The original review was based on a 571-page edition from Scribner (Simon & Schuster).

And I was so relieved to complete the review in the midst of a hectic week, I forgot to nominate a title and standfirst for The Star's overworked editors. Nor did I confirm whether Dr Mukherjee still holds all the posts listed in the profile. My bad.

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The king of terrors

The Emperor of All Maladies is written by a cancer specialist. It might be 400 pages long but it makes for very effective encouragement to live healthier.

first published in The Star, 27 February 2011


Sales of cigarettes in Malaysia still appear to be brisk, despite the redesigned packaging with the awful images of diseased lungs. As a better deterrent to smokers, may I recommend The Emperor of All Maladies? This book written by a cancer specialist might be 400 pages long but it makes for very effective encouragement to live healthier. I don’t smoke, so I’m changing my eating habits instead.

Why, of all the books written about the disease, read this one? Well, not only is it among the latest, it’s also written in an accessible way. Yes, it’s dry in places, with loads of medical jargon, history, and references to genetics, virology and such, but it is also, as the author notes, “a personal journey of my coming-of-age as an oncologist (a specialist on tumours and by extension, cancer).” This is what makes the book different.

For oncologist Dr Siddharta Mukherjee, associate professor of medicine at New York’s Columbia University and staff physician at the university’s medical centre, this book had modest beginnings. What started as just a journal grew into a more in-depth journey into the realm of cancer, and an attempt to answer some questions about it. When did it first appear, and when did the fight against cancer start? Is there an end? Can we win?

The story begins in 2004 when, behind the doors of a Massachusetts General Hospital ward, a leukaemia patient waits for the author – one of the patients we will read about that helps to give the disease a face. The disease is also profiled through a historical examination of some major cancers, including leukaemia (cancer of the blood), lymphoma, and cancers of the breast and lungs.

Among the many characters that appear, two are prominently featured: Sidney Farber, considered to be the father of modern chemotherapy, and Mary Lasker, a Manhattan socialite widowed by the illness she would spend her life fighting.

Ancient Egyptian wise man Imhotep (2667BCE-2648BCE) was the first to diagnose breast cancer, according to this book. The treatment? “There is none,” wrote the physician and part-time architect.

Since then, there have been numerous causes proposed as the cause of cancer, almost as many as the epithets it has been given, some of which demonstrate the hidden literary talents within the medical and scientific professions. An unnamed 19th century surgeon called it, rather poetically, “the emperor of all maladies, the king of terrors”.

Inspired by a revelation about how cancer starts in our bodies, one researcher compares it to Grendel in the 8th century Old English epic Beowulf – “a distorted version of our normal selves”. Why? “Cancer was intrinsically ‘loaded’ in our genome, awaiting activation,” the author laments. “We were destined to carry this fatal burden in our genes.”

It was also compared to a crab during the time of the “father of modern medicine”, Hippocrates (c 460BCE-c 370BCE): thick, with something that seems almost carapace-like, burrowing deep into the afflicted. That explains the seemingly unrelated crustacean on the cover of some editions of The Emperor of All Maladies.

After the discoveries, came the fight. But what and how much can one do against one’s own rebel genes?

Man’s hubris in this area is well-documented in the book, from Mary Lasker’s apparently quixotic anti-cancer campaign, to the tobacco lobby’s efforts in denying links between tobacco use and lung cancer.

The accounts about the latter will shock, given what we know today and how most people feel about corporate whitewashing. Within and without, it seems the human race is its own worst enemy.

The glimpses into the lives of cancer patients add some humanity into an otherwise weighty read.

Like the biography of someone still alive, there is no clear ending. Nor is there always a happy ending for patients. The last one profiled in this book dies, driving home the point about the terror of cancer.

Overall, the book is a good balance of the clinical and human. There aren’t enough books like this written about cancer, its myriad forms, the pain it inflicts, and the urgent need to end its scourge.

After the table of contents in The Emperor is this chilling note:

“In 2010, about six hundred thousand Americans, and more than 7 million humans around the world, will die of cancer. In the United States, one in three women and one in two men will develop cancer during their lifetime.

“A quarter of all American deaths, and about 15 percent of all deaths worldwide, will be attributed to cancer. In some nations, cancer will surpass heart disease to become the most common cause of death.”

Whoever it was that crowned cancer “the emperor of all maladies” had genius and foresight. No epithet is more suitable for this disease that marks our times.

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The Emperor of All Maladies

A Biography of Cancer

Siddhartha Mukherjee
Fourth Estate (2011)
400 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-0007367481

An Unimaginable Journey To Publication

My account of Imran Ahmad's talk at The Annexe, Central Market last December during the Art for Grabs weekend, as published in the annual issue of MPH Quill for 2011, which was briefly mentioned here.

Though the book is not available in local bookstores, Sharon Bakar says Imran is in town and will be at the launch of Readings from Readings: New Malaysian Writing at MAP/Publika, Solaris Dutamas on the evening of 25 February to sell copies of the book. For those who can't make it, contact her at sharonbakar[at]yahoo[dot]com, or the author himself at author[at]unimagined[dot]co[dot]uk.

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Unimaginable
The story of Imran Ahmad’s journey to authorship is as hilariously entertaining as the book he penned

first published in the annual issue of MPH Quill for 2011

I am with a friend at The Annexe, Central Market for Dr Farish Noor’s lecture, which has just ended. Without anything else planned for the rest of the afternoon, we stayed back for.... a “performance narrative” by Imran Ahmad, author of Unimagined – Muhammad, Jesus and James Bond. From the programme, it says that he’ll be talking about “following your dream, making it happen, keeping your day job, travelling to America, and the struggle to get published in a post-9/11 world”, which sounds interesting.

There’s a wait for Imran’s books and more people to join in. By the time it started, the books hadn’t arrived and the audience was only half the number drawn by Dr Farish, superstar historian and academic.

Imran’s long road to getting his works published – and his lifelong struggle against corruption and injustice – began when “blatant nepotism” robbed him of the title of Karachi’s Bonniest Baby. “First prize went to the child of organiser!” Imran thunders. “The judges were her friends! This is absolutely typical of third world, banana republic unfairness.” The audience laughs at the painful familiarity.

Things didn’t get a whole lot better when he and his family moved to England. He encountered racism even as he longed to belong. He felt he did belong at one time because of his apparent resemblance to James Bond. He helpfully pointed out the more discernable features to the audience. “...dark clean-cut face ... eyes wide and level ... longish straight nose....” It’s a fairly accurate description of the man now, I mentally note. Just that he also needs to lose about 15 pounds and something more dapper than his short-sleeved shirt (not tucked in) and trousers.

Looking like James Bond didn’t help much with his social life, especially after 9/11. Not with a name like his. Every time he travelled to the United States on business, he would be called up to “secondary” by immigration officers. It eventually got to him, so he decided to clear the air about Muslims by writing a book. He couldn’t get started for a long while, so he tried to prod himself through meditation.

“I will start writing this book, ommmm....” he demonstrates. The audience is tickled. I look around curiously. A Muslim just went ommmm in here and Special Branch agents have been known to loiter around The Annexe, particularly when it hosts events featuring NGOs and the likes of Dr Farish. This man is self-deprecatingly frank and hilarious. Why haven’t we heard of him? My companion is charmed, and thinks he can be a competent stand-up comic. I don’t want this talk to end prematurely. What happens next?

After The Secret failed him, Imran decided that he should just start writing his book. He made good progress after that, and he began to enjoy the writing process. There were times, however, when he enjoyed it too much. He was writing a particularly enjoyable chapter during a business meeting. “It was all about budgets and finances and such,” he reminisces, “and there I was, typing away and smiling to myself.”

He pitched his completed manuscript to literary agents and publishers, but to no avail. He then decided to use Amazon’s BookSurge publishing service. He remembers being thrilled to receive a copy of his self-published book and being obsessed with the online sales report. He recalls daydreaming about his book putting smiles on his sombre and grey-suited fellow commuters in a London train, and a big fat advance that he’ll spend on a silver Peugeot 307 (or 308?) and a nice flat (apartment) to go with the car. To top it all, appearances in BBC radio programmes such as Midweek.

When sales for a particular day jumped to 250, he sent a copy of that report to Scott Pack, then the Head Buyer of Waterstone’s, England’s biggest bookstore chain. Pack had received a copy, and Imran was sure the report would make him pay attention to it.

Not long afterwards, a note from BookSurge came. “Dear Mr Ahmad, we regret to inform you that due to a computer error...” We laugh in anticipation of what comes next. Or so we think.

Imran Ahmad reads at Readings
@ Seksan's, December 2010

Pack didn’t chew Imran up for his presumptuousness, although the book’s “crap cover, terrible title (it was then called The Path Unimagined), and dodgy production values” didn’t impress him. Nevertheless he gave the book his 50-page test over a cup of tea. An hour later, he had read more than 50 pages and the tea had grown cold. He was convinced that the book was going to be huge, but needed a better cover. With Imran’s consent, he sent the book to literary agent Charlie Viney, who also liked it and promised to help get it published.

Filled with some hope, Imran waited, still haunted by visions of the silver Peugeot. Despite the agent’s help, publishers still rejected the book. Seems they wanted someone who was or wanted to be a terrorist, not a funny story about a Muslim boy growing up in the West. “They said it wasn’t miserable enough,” Imran exclaims. “It’s not supposed to be miserable!”

Unimagined eventually got published and Pack was proven correct. The reviews were mostly positive. Imran got his radio show appearances. He was invited to literary events and writer’s festivals, and gave talks about his book. Talks like this one. At one time he ended up back in the US to give talks. This time, his passport was stamped and he was not sent to secondary. “So the lesson for terrorists is: if you want to sneak into the US, publish a book,” Imran jokes.

The biggest joke, I think, was on him, when he was once compelled to mail a copy of Unimagined to all 646 MPs in the British Parliament – except to Conservative Party MP Ann Widdecombe. Her conservative Christian views and TV appearances where she looked like a “miserable dragon” convinced him she won’t read it. An image comparing her to an example of such misery appears on the wall, and we all laugh. He tells us that he sent her a copy anyway.

Not long afterwards, Unimagined made the list of Best Books of 2007 in The Independent – with a quote by The Miserable Dragon, who called it her “favourite book of 2007”. The room erupts with laughter when Widdecombe’s name and quote is projected on the wall.

He recognises the irony. “I wrote a book to tell people not to judge Muslims based on appearances,” he says ruefully, “and here I was, judging this–” On the wall, the “miserable dragon” gained the wings and halo of an angel, with the word spelled out in huge letters. “–based on her TV appearances,” Imran concludes, amidst even more laughter.

I try not to draw any parallels with my initial attitude towards his talk. It was, as advertised, a remarkable and incredible story, an inspirational tale to aspiring authors. There was no mention of that silver Peugeot 307 and the matching apartment.

I never get to find out just how remarkably honest, hilarious and heartstring-tugging the book is until a week later, when Imran shows up unexpectedly at a book-reading event with copies of a limited edition. Although the book ends when Imran is 25, it also hints at the continuation of his unimaginable journey as a Muslim in the big, wide world – in another one or two volumes.

I hope they deliver those on time for his next appearance at The Annexe.

Readings' Sixth Anniversary

Every January, Readings @ Seksan's celebrates its birthday. This year marks the event's sixth year - "kindergarten age", according to its co-founder Sharon Bakar. "Next year we'll be sending it to school," she joked.

Poet Jamal Raslan working the crowd

Both she and Bernice Chauly started the as-monthly-as-possible Readings to get people reading and writing. In recent years it has also become a platform for local and (sometimes) international authors to mingle and sell some books. The inclusion of poets and musical acts of late have further enlivened things.

This month I played chaperone, chauffeur and stenographer to Yvonne Foong, author, spokesperson for Neurofibromatosis Type II patients, and future psychologist. Her request and wish to attend the event was unexpected.

Readings' sixth birthday was greeted with a cloudy sky and showers. The traffic which can be paralysed by a mere drizzle, like our only satellite TV service, was worsened by road closures due to the Lé Tour de Langkawi bike racing event. I know, what the heck, right?

Despite the traffic we arrived early. I had brought along a small whiteboard and several marker pens. Anticipating the setting up of a book sale corner, I figured they needed a price list more than I needed a to-do list. It filled up very quickly, with books from Amir Muhammad, Haslina Usman (daughter of Usman Awang), and Jeremy Chin. What was on sale included:

• I'm Not Sick, Just a Bit Unwell, Yvonne Foong (RM20)
• Teohlogy, Patrick Teoh (RM38)
• Orang Macam Kita, pelbagai (RM20)
• Love and Lust in Singapore, various (RM22, after a 45% discount)
• Jiwa Hamba, Usman Awang (RM30)
• Scattered Bones (novel), Usman Awang
• Sahabatku (collection of poems), Usman Awang
• Turunnya Sebuah Bendera, Usman Awang
• Fuel, Jeremy Chin (RM30)

No, I couldn't remember all the prices. Never occurred to me that I'd want to go into that much detail. Though Yvonne managed to catch up with some old friends, she didn't manage to sell a single copy of her book.

Damyanti Ghosh was unable to vocalise loudly because of a medical procedure to her mouth or throat, so it would seem insensitive to ask her to elaborate. Despite not being ale to read, she showed up anyway with Saras Manickam to sell a book, a short story collection Damyanti contributed to, to help keep a charity home afloat. All proceeds for Love and Lust in Singapore that day would go to the Bangsa Ria Centre for the Mentally and Physically Disabled in PJ.

Because I didn't want the book right now, I put some cash into the donation box they brought along. "They need every ringgit," Damyanti said, because it seems the Centre will fold due to lack of funds.

Patrick Teoh, broadcasting live from Seksan's

Sharon kicked things off by reading the story Damyanti would have read if she were not, in Sharon's words, "pleasurably silent". In "The Peeping Toe", a middle-aged woman in a Singapore subway distracts herself from an ah beng/ah lian couple's amorous in-train antics by looking at someone's peeping toe. "If you want to know whose toe it is, buy the book," Sharon announced when she was done.

Poet and slam champion Jamal Raslan Abdul Jalil rocked the venue with recitals of youth, social issues and the future - things his generation are concerned with. Yvonne's condition rendered her deaf, among other things, so she had to "read" the gist of what was being read being typed out on her laptop. But my mental buffer runneth over too quickly, and most of it evaporated before I could key them in. Jamal was so good, he was invited to do an encore to end the event.

There was a small misunderstanding during Patrick Teoh's introduction. Neither Sharon nor I prompted Teoh to start compiling (not writing) his "Teohlogy" essays in the now-defunct Off The Edge magazine. After I'd heard about Hishamuddin Rais and Julian CH Lee's respective releases of their own compilations, I tweeted Sharon:

@sharonbakar First Hisham Rais, now Julian Lee. Will @patrickteoh follow suit?

10 August 2010 20:58:03 via Echofon in reply to sharonbakar

I can't remember what I was replying to, and Teoh had no idea what I was talking about. I responded:

Former Off The Edge contributors Hisham Rais and Julian Lee compiled their previous articles into books @patrickteoh. Waiting for yours.

11 August 2010 23:41:40 via Echofon in reply to patrickteoh

A brief summary of the Teohlogy saga: Teoh was invited to pontificate on issues that concerned the average Malaysian in a column, in the voice of a grumpy old man - hence the slightly anagrammatic term. It was Ezra Zaid of ZI Publications who approached Teoh with an offer to compile his essays into a book. Teohlogy was recently launched at Popular @ Ikano to a more or less star-studded audience that included, according to Teoh's description, a Special Branch operative. Wished you were there, hmm?

Naturally, Teoh read from his book. His August 2009 essay for Off The Edge, "All aso donch hep" is a commentary on our short memories and the establishment's spin machinery: "We have ways of making you forget. And that's an order!" And ah, that voice. If he returned to radio tomorrow, no one would even remember his long absence from the airwaves.

After the break, two contributors to the Malay-language gay anthology Orang Macam Kita (People Like Us) read their contributions.

Fadli Al-Akiti (left) and Nizam Zakaria, lanun darat

Sci-fi author Fadli-al-Akiti not only wrote several novels (Jian, Saga Horizon), but contributed to other short story collections such as Elarti (2008) as well. I think his piece was about a robbery victim who, strangely, develops a same-sex crush on the guy who nearly spilled his guts. Writer, author and film director Nizam Zakaria's contribution was a more scholarly commentary on (I think) gay culture in film. Or was it the other way around? At that point I wasn't really focusing; the damp weather and shady surroundings at Seksan's does that to me all the time. Nizam was sporting an eyepatch; it seems Damyanti's wasn't the only medical complaint that afternoon.

No Readings anniversary would be complete without an appearance by its co-founder Bernice Chauly. She read something from what she once dubbed a work of "faction": Growing Up with Ghosts, a (sort of) fictionalised biography based on her own life. "The Third Man" was inspired by a relative's fear from using the old-fashioned toilet at her grandpa's old house.

The backdrop was quite appropriate for what Bernice Chauly read;
the grandpa in the story sold pigs

Bernice and Sharon also announced the upcoming launch of Readings from Readings, a compilation of some of what was read in previous Readings, on 25 February at MapKL, Solaris Dutamas, "if all goes well".

Don't wish. Just go. You might not know what you'd miss if you don't.

Not Bed-Time Tales

Unlike most of my reviews, this took two days from the moment I put the book down. Anxiety about the status of this review turned to embarrassment when I realised that I italicised story titles (a big boo-boo) and used the word "genius" twice. And a misspelling of "United States", which might or might not have been my fault. Yeah. Me, editor.

Time to bury myself deeper into the grammar and style guides on my desk.

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Not bed-time tales

Sedaris's twisted genius will leave readers seeking a solution after each story

first published in The Star, 30 January 2011


"For my sister Gretchen", reads the dedication to David Sedaris's latest book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. Again, I looked at the little hardcover tome with the nice picture and wondered why Sedaris is moving to the under-12 market.

Then I consulted Google. While Gretchen Sedaris is younger than David, she should be at least 50 by now. And there was something he was supposed to have said in an interview, holding a knife with a hoof for a handle: "I love things made out of animals. It's just so funny to think of someone saying, 'I need a letter opener. I guess I'll have to kill a deer.'"

That'll teach me to judge a book by its cover. Still, it's pretty hard not to, even though Sedaris's writing isn't the kind one associates with bed-time stories.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary (the subtitle is missing from the jacket flap) isn't really about a dating service for woodland rodents. It's one of 16 very short stories based on typical human dramas, except the parts are played by animals. Think Aesop's very short fables for cynical grown-ups.

You've probably queued up with the "Toad, the Turtle and the Duck" at a busy counter; endured the "Migrating Warblers"' travel tales; and the dialogue between the "Cat and the Baboon" sounds like something you'd hear at a beauty salon.

Some of these are sad, particularly the one about the orphaned bear, and the mouse with a pet snake, but it's because they were asking for it. The latter reminded me of a documentary in which someone was crushed to death by his pet python. It's kind of familiar but funny – Sedaris's dark kind of funny.

Reinforcing the book's dark adult theme and the mental near-immortality of the stories are the doodles of Ian Falconer, well-known for his kids' books about a pig and covers for The New Yorker. Quite a few images could fuel nightmares, even when you're awake.

The gloomy theme of the book is upset a bit by the title story, "The Squirrel and the Chipmunk". This short and bittersweet (more bitter than sweet) tale of a doomed, star-crossed love affair is perhaps the best example of Sedaris's genius. After its conclusion, you look at the cover again and, if you have a heart or "been there, done it", it's hard not to tear up.

Of course, chances are you won't recognise some of the situations being written about here. The tale of two lab mice sounds like a jab (pun intended) at die-hard adherents of New Age hocus-pocus, but I don't quite know what to make of "The Faithful Setter" and "The Cow and Turkey".

Is "The Parenting Storks" a parable on the perils of a lack of sex education? Is "The Mouse and the Snake" really about snakes, or an allegory for some governments' (read: the United States) habit of coddling two-bit dictators out of political expediency?

When countless Internet searches yield few clues and no cheat sheets, you curse and swear at and stew over Sedaris's twisted genius. You cannot solve it, but you know there's a solution.

Like Fermat's Last Theorem (proposed in the 17th century and proved only in the 20th), the fables you can't figure out will likely torment you long after you put the book down – an amazing feat for something that's just 160 pages long. Just hope you don't have to spend over three centuries figuring out what "The Grieving Owl" is really about.

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Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

David Sedaris, Illustrations by Ian Falconer
Little, Brown and Co.
159 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0316038393

Fishy, Much?

The Malaysian corner of cyberspace is (slowly) buzzing with horror at the BN-led government's intentions to expand the Printing Presses and Publications Act to everything published on-line by Malaysians. Bloggers, in particular, appear concerned about arbitrary or indiscriminate prosecution.

They forgot irate restaurateurs.

Already no stranger to controversy, Poh Huai Bin of sixthseal.com was reportedly sued for allegedly defaming a Lonely Planet destination: Jothy's Fish Head Curry Banana Leaf Restaurant, in Kota Kinabalu. The RM6 million suit even mentions Google as a co-defendant.

As Malaysians, we have strong attachments to food. Much of it still feels as if they came out of our own kitchens. When we have bad experiences in restaurants that we felt had let us down, we express that hurt in many ways. This is particularly true for the institutions and places that grow old with us.

Poh's history aside, it appears on the surface to be a case of scapegoating. Taste buds usually don't lie. Still, he's being accused of "defamation". Would it have been better for Poh to go through the "proper channels", i.e., complain to the restaurant's manager? Would it have worked?

Also, how long has it been since the Lonely Planet listing? The work that goes into such guides means a long time between updates, perhaps as much as several years. Any noticeable drop in quality could have happened since - and it doesn't have to take years. Besides, favourable listings by any authority isn't something set in stone.

A chef will have a bad day on occasion. Maybe it's just bad luck that it was also a bad day for Poh to be at the restaurant. However, his harsh commentary, which includes allusions to a veneral disease, could have been worded differently.

If the quality of Jothy's food has been on a steady decline, nothing will improve its fortunes short of a revamp of how it does business. This multi-million-dollar lawsuit, however, is more likely to isolate the place further.

(I also question the wisdom in naming Google a defendant, a move one tends to associate with lawsuits-for-show. Google's probably too busy to care, and this isn't McDonald's vs McCurry.)

The only thing a court victory for the restaurant would achieve is that no-one will publicly badmouth it. However, it's also unMalaysian to subject friends and family to a bad restaurant experience. Nobody - and certainly no Malaysian - would knowingly patronise an eatery with substandard offerings.

About The Real Bibilophobia

For some time now, people have stumbled onto Bibliophobia...! while researching... bibliophobia. Even if it's by accident, I can't let them go away empty-handed. So...

Bibliophobia is, according to the Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), "a dread of books".

"Bibliophobia" was said to be first used in popular English literature sometime before 1914, according to the Wikipedia. A much earlier use of the term - to refer to something else entirely - was in Religio Christiani, a Churchman's Answer to Religio Clerici, quoted in the October 1818 issue of The Gentleman's Magazine, in page 345, to refer to what I think is a fear of the Bible.

Bibliophobia has been defined as an irrational fear of books. It's not a common phobia, and I don't know anyone who has this. I picked it as the title of my blog to avoid changing domain names. I do have an aversion to books, but it's not serious enough to be a phobia.

A fear of books is rarely because of the book per se, but past experiences related to certain kinds of books, or the contents themselves. For a long while, I dreaded opening past issues of Reader's Digest dated more than 25 years ago. I hate and am deathly afraid of roaches, and a certain pesticide ad with a magnified shot of the insect's nightmarish segmented underside made occasional appearances in the magazine during the Eighties. It's the same reason I avoided a certain Papa Roach album.

As yet, shrinks have no big name for this kind of fear, but "subsets", or derivations of bibliophobia are out there.

Many people suffer only a subset of this phobia, fearing textbooks or historical novels or children’s stories, rather than a fear of all books. Mythophobia, or the fear of legends, can be considered a subtype of bibliophobia if the fear is of those legends that are written down. Metrophobia, or fear of poetry, is another subtype of bibliophobia.

- American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual
of mental disorders (4th Ed.)

And bad writing. Elements of bad writing, such as complex similes and metaphors, verbiage, and purple prose will put you off reading stuff. The publishing sector has its risks.

Possible symptoms of bibliophobia is marked by difficulties in reading, particularly when you're "encouraged" or rather, forced to read, say, out loud in front of class. If you have a learning disability, speech impediment, a fear of pronouncing difficult words (no big word for this, either) or foreign names (ditto), or simply illiterate, that might be the basis for being afraid of books.

At times, it's not just individuals who fear books. History is replete with incidents of book burnings, also called "biblioclasm" or "libricide". Notable ones include the immolation of Maya codices by Spanish missionaries, Qin Shi Huang's torching of scholars' books (and live burials of said scholars) and the Nazi-era biblio-bonfire.

The Wikipedia defines libricide as a "practice [that's] usually carried out in public", which "is generally motivated by moral, religious, or political objections to the material." In short, there isn't any logical or rational reason to be afraid of books.

To date, there doesn't seem to be any detailed record of bibliophobes or accounts of how they became afraid of books and how they managed to beat it. I suppose if there's no specific cure for the phobia, consultations with psychologists might provide some answers. Being afraid of (paper) books can be a bummer in civilisation, unless e-books take off in a big way.

Stuff for MPH Quill This Month

Just a month into my new job, I began contributing articles and editorial work for MPH's Quill magazine. It was particularly hectic in December as we were closing two issues of Quill: the Jan-Mar 2011 issue and the 2011 annual issue.

I confess I've only glanced through a number of pages from Anjali Joseph's Saraswati Park, not enough for a decent review. To formulate questions she hadn't been asked before, which was tough, I trawled the Internet for past interviews.

What I wasn't told was that Ms Joseph was in the midst of moving house and was travelling in India at the time. Which was why she sounded kind of brusque in many of her replies. I hoped it had little to do with the questions I posed.

First two pages of the three-page Q&A with Anjali Joseph,
author of Saraswati Park; the full text is here

I had the good fortune to hear Imran Ahmad speak at The Annexe, Central Market during the Art for Grabs weekend last December. His was among the events that enlivened what would be an otherwise dull weekend.

Days later, the editor in charge of Quill showed me a copy of the Australian edition of his book, Unimagined. I, as usual, opened my big mouth. The blog post commemorating the event became an article in the 2011 annual issue of the magazine. I must've revised it three times before it was good to go.

Feature: Imran Ahmad, author of Unimagined and his talk at
The Annexe, December 2010; full text here

Sadly, MPH won't be distributing or selling the book. I was given several reasons, but it seems they're worried about the potential hassle when a thousand or so copies of a book published overseas, imported at a considerable cost, is impounded by the Ministry and ultimately banned.

I'm also doing additional (uncredited) write-ups, such as announcements for new books, advertorials and the like.

New book announcements: Tom Plate's Conversations with Mahathir Mohamad
and Catherine Lim's Ms Seetoh in the World

Both issues are out in MPH stores and major newsstands now.