Shadows, Secrets and Starstone Spears

We wanted to get this out sometime last year, but one or two issues held it back. The art shift, for one.

Books one and two of The Jugra Chronicles

We couldn't get the illustrator for the first book to work on the second, but isn't the cover as lovely?

I've seen this kind of face before. Where, I wonder?

The long-awaited release of the second volume of The Jugra Chronicles begins three years after Miyah and village outcast Rigih rescue the former's younger brother from the clutches of a forest demon. Miyah, however, is seized by the demon instead and suffers a cruel curse.

Three years later, the denizens of Miyah's village, Tapoh, have largely moved on from the incident, though Rigih and Miyah's brother Bongsu remain the most affected by her disappearance. Especially the latter, who has been plagued by dreams and memories of things he doesn't remember experiencing.

An illustration from the book

One day, Malidi, younger daughter of the village chieftain and one of Miyah's friends, finds a bracelet of glass beads in the jungle. The item horrifies her sister and mother; they now believe that she, by picking it up, is under the spell of the penyamun, dreaded marauders who use black magic to ensnare their victims.

She is placed in confinement while a way to break the spell is devised. Like Miyah before her, she defies the wisdom of her elders and escapes, taking the beads with her. Then, she vanishes. Her disappearance leaves a cloud hanging over Tapoh, on top of rumours of a strange man-beast prowling the jungle with the penyamuns.

More potential trouble comes in the form of the Dutch and their interest in the natural resources of Borneo - a worry for the royal house of Tanjungputra.

Meanwhile, Bongsu's visions intensify, even as he struggles to forget his abduction and imprisonment by the forest demon. Heeding the advice of Nenek Kebaya, he seeks out Rigih, convinced that the time has come to find his sister and put the demon to rest.

It's not long before Rigih and Bongsu are joined by the young warrior Temaga and the headstrong Suru on their quest, which will take them to a hidden valley where the secrets of the man-beast, the dreaded forest demon and the Jugra bloodline, and the truth behind the penyamun will be revealed.

Who is Jugra, the legendary shaman and what are his connections with Rigih, Miyah, Bongsu, Nenek Kebayan, the demon, and the mysterious woman with the tattooed arms? Will they overcome the jungle's mortal and supernatural threats to find and rescue Miyah?


The second volume in The Jugra Chronicles, Rigih and the Witch of Moon Lake, will soon be available at all major bookstores.

Material for this series is by Tutu Dutta-Yean, whose repertoire includes fairy tale collections such as Timeless Tales of Malaysia, Eight Jewels of the Phoenix, Eight Fortunes of the Qilin, and Eight Treasures of the Dragon.

Art for this book is by prolific children's book illustrator Tan Vay Fern, whose vast body of work includes Hayley's Vegemania Garden and Hayley's Fruitastic Garden by Mohana Gill; The Zany Zebra, The Ugly Green Umbrella and The Xenophobic Xylophone by Wong Ching Hsia; and Dutta-Yean's Eight Treasures of the Dragon. Also, the cover for Wee Su May's Nine Little People Who Lived in a Chest.

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The Jugra Chronicles: Rigih and the Witch of Moon Lake

Tutu Dutta-Yean
illustrated by Tan Vay Fern

MPH Group Publishing
148 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-967-415-085-3

Buy from MPHOnline.com

Late News: Bestseller Figures, Rejection, And A Publishing Miracle

Last week's general elections was definitely eventful, but it seems a new circus is forming around the aftermath. So I dropped the ball on what's been happening in the book/publishing thing. On top of several planned articles and work.

• Another reality check for self-publishers.
• Rejection sucks. So take that rejection letter, shove it and carry on writing.
• How many copies makes a self-published book a bestseller? Some success stories share some figures.
• "...simply publishing e-books is already a thing of the past...". The Rumpus interviews writer Miracle Jones.
• Microsoft is thinking of buying Nook after the B&N division was sort of spun off from the main retail arm. If this sale goes through, TechCrunch thinks B&N and Amazon might as well stop competing over e-books.

A New Quill For A New Year

They said they were revamping Quill into a lifestyle mag. However, I wasn't quite prepared for the new look, which was finally revealed last week.

The new Quill, not quite like the old Quill

It's like watching your prim-and-proper little girl grow up into Lady Gaga.

While book-related pieces will have a place in the 'new' Quill, expect to see more everyday stuff behind the covers. As this incarnation of Quill evolves, we hope to feature more great stuff as the mag finds its voice (because now everybody can contribute, not just authors and book people).

What you'll find in this issue:

• With her new guide book on how to be a successful model, Amber Chia pays it forward. Find out how she made her name.
• Stephen HB Twinings of Twinings Tea, talks about the beverage and the company, and shares his reading habits.
• A note from Datuk Abdul Kadir Jasin of Berita Publishing on Tun M's Blogging to Unblock: A Citizen's Rights.
• An excerpt from Adibah Amin's As I Was Passing II: "A laughter of eggs" and other odd-sounding collective nouns.
• Chef Malcom Goh from AFC's Back to the Streets re-invents several hawker delights.
• Strategies to start saving for one's retirement, from Yap Ming Hui.
• An excerpt from Only 13 the "sordid sexposé" about a young victim of Thailand's sex industry.

And more. It's still RM8 per copy and available at all major bookstores and news stands.

News: Book Snobbery, Copyshop Capers, And "Am I Good Enough?"

Among 30 things to tell book snobs:

People should never be made to feel bad about what they are reading. People who feel bad about reading will stop reading.

...Stories, at their essence, are enemies of snobbery. And a book snob is the enemy of the book.

I suppose it's a fair point, but a world without book snobs can be potentially dreadful. Another point:

...Snobbery leads to worse books. Pretentious writing and pretentious reading. Books as exclusive members clubs. Narrow genres. No inter-breeding. All that fascist nonsense that leads commercial writers to think it is okay to be lazy with words and for literary writers to think it is okay to be lazy with story.

What about commercial writers who think it is okay to be lazy with story? Hate to trot out Fifty Shades for this, but there you go.

In other stuff:

• A teacup whirlpool is being stirred in India over whether photocopying of textbooks will kill their publishers. An on-campus copy shop in Delhi University apparently drew the ire of several big publishers over photocopied material from some of their textbooks.
• These famous quotes are grammatically incorrect - but only technically. Linguistic perfection is seemingly overrated when the message is the most important thing. Thoughts?
• Books are said to be reviewed in The New York Times at the reviewers' own discretion - and that's the system. Probably the same story elsewhere.
• How to write about nature. Probably not like how Nabokov does it.
• The nine ways big publishers are like Big Pharma.
• The Hitler diary hoax - how did it happen?
• Words like "penmanship" and "fisherman" are gender-biased? For the love of...
• Here's one question every new writer asks and wants answers to: "Am I good enough?" The next question then, is: "Do I wanna be 'good enough'?"

News: Farmers And Some Boring Stuff

After the deluge of interesting news last week, things seem to be slowing down. Really slowing down. Or maybe I just feel that there's really nothing of note. Last week was also a downer, what with bombings, earthquakes and the rise of 'independent' candidates for GE13.

One would think that Feedly could help find more bookish stuff to highlight.

---

Urban women in US apparently flocking to greenmarkets hoping to get down and dirty with farmers. A natural progression, I suppose, after hot chefs.

...a 6-foot-1, strapping-but-married dairy farmer — a grandfather — tells of a barrage of texts sent from an all-too-regular customer, a green-eyed beauty in her 40s who was eager to milk their exchanges for more.

We could really have some fun if you weren’t married, read the first sext. Then came: Are you going to be at USG this weekend? What are you doing after the market today? Do you need somewhere to stay in the city?

Milking exchanges with a dairy farmer for more... love the phrasing. But OMG WATS WITH DAT PIC.

Well, it's interesting reading, isn't it?


Also:

• A review of Michael Pollan's Cooked. It's more than applying fire or fermentation to a bunch of ingredients.
• Tips on building a library on the cheap. Maybe #11 could be, "social networks"? People junk books all the time.
• Miranda Richardson, actress and this year's chair for the Women's Prize for fiction, takes a hard swing at tall poppy syndrome in the UK. Meanwhile, Gaby Woods reminds us of another poppy who should be allowed to flourish.
• Do you read author interviews to glean writers' tricks from them? There may be no such holy grail.
• Has modern religion become a MacGuffin? A Q&A with author (and possible heretic) Peter Rollins about his book and how "'God' has fallen prey to our grasping, market-driven existence — just another shiny thing we acquire to make ourselves feel OK."
• Randy Susan Meyers wonders whether readers owe writers $#!+. Of course they don't, but that doesn't stop some writers from being pushy. Self-promotion can go too far, like this author who thinks he may have 'predicted' the bombing of the Boston Marathon.

More News: Ink, Steak, Tweeting 'Turk' And Inside The Kindle

• Ancient ink says "Gospel of Judas" is "most likely authentic". Feel like some Lady Gaga now.
• Of these ten ways self-publishing has changed world of books, not sure if "self-publishing brings happiness".
• A 'letter' to Filipino immigrants from a Filipino writer: "We'll be here if you want to read us." Dawww. If not for the Filipino hacks (and their emotion-stirring eloquence) hating on us over Sabah I'd be all teary-eyed.
• Of these eleven stories of book burning, most were perpetrated by warmongers and religious fanatics.
• Cats reign on the Internet, while dogs rule in print. Two schools of thought on the matter: one involves attention spans, the other, human narcissism.
• A profile of the People's Recreation Community, a tiny Hong Kong bookstore that holds a trove of books banned in China, illustrates (as if it's not obvious by now) just how futile book bans are.
• Is English spelling is 'so messed up'? Doesn't feel that way to me.
• I'm OK, you're okay, we're all O.K. The most annoying or blah non-word began as a joke and took on a life of its own. Is it among history's first memes?
• When I Was A Kid II headed for Kickstarter. Is it too early to book a copy?
• Jason Merkoski, former Kindle development team leader, dishes on e-books, personal data, and Amazon. His inside story on the Kindle was serialised in The Huffington Post: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
• Picking up Mahir "I Kiss You!" Çağrı's baton is the Twitter feed of a London-based Turkish restaurant. I'm not sure if the mind(s) behind the edgy, witty Tweets are actual Turks or local sockpuppets. Feel free to follow them, but no kisses - they have knives.
• Steak is "manly"? Try some blood in a gourd cleaned with cow piss, like AA Gill says he did. Apparently it's the same. Gill goes on to write more about steak, which reminds me: I haven't eaten that in years.

Return To Nambawan

Generally I make it a point to never review the same place twice; every time I return to a place it has folded, become an entirely different shop, or remains the same. Nambawan Restaurant and Café is the latter.

I don't know if I'll ever do something similar to this, but it wasn't too long ago that I wrote two pieces about the same establishment within two weeks. It helped that the other place had slightly different characters during different times of the day. ...I don't think the Three Little Pigs/Big Bad Wolf needs any more endorsements, do you?

Thing is, Nambawan did nothing to warrant a second write-up - maybe other than sticking around and still doing what they do. Which is the only thing my makan kaki and I wish for all restaurants. Can't ask any more than that.

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Nambawan — Part Deux

first published in The Malaysian Insider, 15 April 2013


That newspaper clipping is still there. I snapped a photo of it on impulse. Melody was tickled by that, as was the manageress of the place.

What memories.

The quality of Nambawan's roast pork belly is recession-proof

We have been to a number of eateries over the years, some of which folded within several years since our last visit. A couple of those had become second homes, which made their closure all the more depressing. Invariably, they were all moms-and-pops; franchises were only for convenience, not conviviality.

Over two years ago, Melody was introduced to Nambawan Restaurant by a fellow Ipohite and more well-travelled food crawler. The owner, it seems, just decided to set up shop at Sri Manja Square One. Nambawan's gruff, taciturn chef (‘kay, I was scared of him) had worked in New Zealand for a time.

In spite of the humble décor and bad copywriting ("Taste your sense to infinity"?), we were struck by the price-to-portion ratio—affordable, even by the neighborhood's standards. The portions aren't really that big, so one can sample up to two or three items. On top of that, the chef's pretty skilled.

Burger that's 50 per cent pork + 50
per cent bacon equals 100 per cent
satisfaction

Everything we tried: the amatriciana pasta, the signature stone-charbroiled pork belly, and the 100 per cent home-made pork burger, was good and made just right. They had a 100 per cent home-made beef burger for a while, starring a patty said to be made of hand-chopped tenderloin.

Suffice to say that Nambawan has a good week-day menu, but fans and first-timers alike will look forward to the weekend specials. These include favourites such as roast pork belly, maybe lamb shank, and two other items.

You never know what might turn up. On our "homecoming" to this place, they also served a Tex-Mex pulled pork dish and a "50% pork + 50% bacon burger."

"50+50 burger?" Melody gasped. She was a bigger sucker for bacon than I was, so that's what she ordered. "Hold the fries and add more coleslaw," she added.

I stuck with the familiar roast pork belly, which is really a Western-style strip of siew yoke. We thought we could slip in a carbonara if there was enough room.

My order hit the table first. I felt a bit deflated. Inflation seems to have crept up on this little corner of Taman Sri Manja. The pork belly looked a bit smaller than the last time I ate it, and there was one less half-a-potato.

One bite restored my hopes for his place. Oh, yes... that's how I remembered it. The roasted pork skin was dense, so I applied more pressure on the fork. Glistening, semi-transparent fat oozed out from various crannies as I cut another piece of belly.

The shiitake mushroom soup is so
good you'd want to lick the bowl...
but please don't

The lean parts had flavour, the fatty bits were silky and unctuous, and the partly caramelised skin was crispy and chewy in turns. I had little use for the sweet apple sauce meant to balance the richness of the meat, which I'd rather pair with the lovely light-brown sauce covering the spuds.

The second half of the main event began when Melody's 50% pork/50% bacon burger arrived. Instead of devouring it the conventional way, she deconstructed the dish with knife and fork, eating each component as she saw fit.

I leaned in as Melody sliced into the patty, which was large for a RM9.90 burger, and released the familiar smell of cured meat, fat and salt. I almost swooned. She "mmm"-ed in appreciation of the flavour and the genius behind it. "Why didn't anybody else think of this before?" she gushed.

In between bites of belly, Melody slipped me a few pieces of her bacon-enhanced patty. How to describe the fine balance of textures between fresh and cured meat, the mingling of the flavours and the smoky sharp tang of salt that gets people begging for more, despite the health hazards?

I gave up and just surrendered to the sensations.

"'You must try this'," Melody supplied as she mentally drafted a sales pitch for her Facebook update. Trust her to come up with the pithiest lines.

"So, got room for carbonara?" I later asked, after I wiped my mouth.

Melody pondered it briefly, and shook her head. I thought as much.

Madam Yap the manageress had different ideas, however.

"Would you like a little soup?" she asked. "Made with shiitake mushrooms. It tastes great. You'll love it."

We exchanged wary looks. Why not? Soup's more manageable than a carbonara.

"Just a bit," Melody pleaded, just in case.

What arrived was a normal portion of light brown not-very-runny and somewhat hearty shiitake mushroom soup. The chunks were finer and the broth was so ... yes, this is how you do Western-style shiitake mushroom soup.

When the soup was gone, I looked around to see if it was safe to lick the bowl. Across the table, Melody glared at me as I ran a finger all over the inside of the bowl and sucked up what it had collected.

You'd think the chef would be chuffed, Mel.

I know I was.

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Nambawan Restaurant and Café

10, Jalan PJS3/48
Sri Manja Square One
Taman Sri Manja
6½ Miles, Off Old Klang Road
46000 Petaling Jaya

Non-halal

Lunch: 12pm-3pm
Dinner: 6pm-10pm

Closed every other Monday

+6016-224 1533 (Yap)
+6013-263 2772 (Gilbert)

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