A Black Viking Warrior Makes Her Mark

When I laid eyes on the book, one of the names on the cover leapt forth. Oh, surely not... . But it was.

So Willow Smith, daughter of actor Will Smith, co-authored a book about an African woman in medieval times who, about to be sold as a slave, ends up running with Vikings up in the cold north. Intrigued by Viking culture, Smith delved further into the history of Vikings, and wondered whether they had contact with or even enlisted Africans in their ranks. This book, written with Jess Hendel, was the result.


Check out the review of Black Shield Maiden.

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Black Shield Maiden

Willow Smith & Jess Hendel
Dl Rey
480 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 9781529102000

Writing Shades Of Grey

Amy Leow on her debut novel's savage antiheroine and penning villain protagonists


Amy Leow's The Scarlet Throne, the first novel in the planned False Goddess trilogy, has made waves since it dropped in September 2024. The protagonist, Binsa, is a living goddess facing "retirement" who schemes to hold on to her position by any means. We asked Leow about Binsa and about crafting not-so-heroic characters like her.


Briefly, what made you want to write about a morally grey character like Binsa? Did you have any aims in mind in telling her story?

When I wrote Binsa's story, I set out to portray an irredeemable, remorseless female villain character. Female villains in current media are often presented as people swayed to the dark side, and are not necessarily villains out of their own volition, while their male counterparts are allowed to be evil for the sake of being evil. We also tend to glorify morally grey male characters, but a woman who does the same is immediately labelled as a badly written character. I wanted to break that mould and show that women should be allowed to be bad, sometimes.


Go here for the rest of the Q&A.

Pressed For Time In The Kitchen

I love most of Anthony Bourdain's works. Kitchen Confidential remains an evergreen favourite. While Bourdain also preaches about what cooking is and how things should be done in the book, readers are reminded that everything is based on what he feels should be, his experiences in kitchens he worked at and what it took to survive in them, so do not treat his words as gospel.

So what does this have to do with the garlic press I now own and use a bit too frequently?

In "Kitchen Confidential", Bourdain scoffs at the results of garlic presses, which produces a garlic paste when, well, pressed. "I don't know what that junk is that squeezes out the end of those things, but it ain't garlic." He asks that garlic be treated with respect, and has harsh words for those who use pre-peeled cloves. "Too lazy to peel fresh? You don't deserve to eat garlic."

Bear in mind that his tone may stem from the assumption that his book won't be widely read or quoted from to browbeat wayward cooks. The swagger and machismo in Kitchen Confidential come from a tiny corner of the big wide world of global cuisine, one that can only be appreciated by cooks of his ilk.

Hence, he may have never taken into account that some, especially the disabled, miiight take shortcuts whenever they're hankering for garlic or anything made with stock. "Make stock [from scratch] already! It's easy!" Not for certain groups.

Anyone going to preach to the Japanese who use wasabi powder instead of grating the fresh root on a sharkskin grater that "it's not how it's done"? Wasabi, ginger and garlic in Japan can come out of a tube. Would one decry the Indian home cook's use of jarred ginger-garlic paste?

If the product is fine or won't make you sick, what's the problem? Does it affect the taste of the food?

A strong argument against pre-made ingredients would be the presence of additives, some of which aren't good for us if consumed in large amounts or over long periods. I think consumers these days have enough – perhaps too much – resources to make informed choices, so it's up to manufacturers to make their products safer.

Also, Tony B can be remarkably sensitive and empathetic, and his travels since have changed him, for better or worse. Who's to say he didn't revise some of his opinions since he wrote that book? He went back against his "don't eat fish on Monday" rule, for one.

Myself, I've been chopping extra garlic to add to my takeaways – an arduous task on some days when I can't be bothered to wash the cutting board and knife. So when I saw a Daiso selling garlic presses, I thought, what's the fuss?

That I'm using the press more now speaks of the convenience I'm enjoying. Mincing garlic can be meditative but not after peeling those annoying tiny cloves in the middle of each garlic bulb. And I seem to get more of the flavour. One issue is that with the press, I sometimes end up using too much garlic. The burn from raw garlic can be worse than spicy chillies. And there's still some fried garlic in a jar somewhere in the kitchen.

But by all means, press your garlic. Take all the culinary shortcuts you need – but not those that mess up your dishes – because time is precious and limited. Cooking and food should be accessible and enjoyable even for non-chefs.

Among the many things Bourdain wanted was for more people to cook. In the wake of COVID and other outbreaks many will lose some degree of physical mobility and cognitive ability and those who want to cook will be grateful for anything that will ease their time in the kitchen.

Do what works for you.


This is a version of a post published on Instagram on 23 December 2024

Make Yourself At Home In Alix E. Harrow's House Of Secrets

Welcome to Eden, a gloomy, decaying former coal-mining town in Kentucky and a misnomer if there ever was one. All known coal deposits are mined out, and thanks to a coal-fired power plant, air quality is poor and the water tastes strange. Some of the denizens would leave for greener pastures, if they could.

Opal is one of those who probably couldn't. A high-school dropout with bad teeth, a menial job, and a history of delinquency, she and her younger brother Jasper have been orphaned for years after their mother died in a car crash that Opal survived. Seeing Jasper's performance in school and talent in filmmaking, Opal strives to pave a way out of Eden for him.


Read the full review of Alix E. Harrow's Starling House here.

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Starling House

Alix E. Harrow
Pan
448 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 9781529061147

Leadership Lessons From The Kampung For The Global Village

When it was first published in 206, Boonsiri Somchit's When the Chicken Dies, Everyone Cries promised "authentic leadership and life lessons from the heart of the kampung" because textbook leadership skills aren't bridging the gap between management and people. Was the author aware of how much that chasm would grow since then?

A finance and operations professional with over three decades of experience, Somchit spent nearly 20 years in Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and established AMD's Global Business Services, the US-based chipmaker's first accounting and financial shared services organisation. She also co-founded the Penang-based training and consultation firm Xtrategize.


Read the full review.

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When the Chicken Dies, Everyone Cries
Authentic Leadership and Life Lessons from
the Heart of the Kampung

Boonsiri omchit
Clarity Publishing
256 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 9786299812203

Can't Read? Take Up These Reading Challenges

Who doesn't love reading challenges? Well, some of us have days where picking a book feels like a pain already, never mind sitting down to read for a couple of hours. That to-be-read pile, however, is not going to read itself. Nor will you be doing anything to jump-start your reading habits by staying away from books. But where to start?

Well, we humbly suggest...


Full article here.

Book Marks: Emerging From The Cave (Again) With More Updates

Whew! I didn't expect my new job scope to keep me away from this space for this long but slowly, I'm figuring out how to balance a full plate. While a lot has come to pass, I'll just highlight some of the more recent happenings...

TODAY reported Singaporean writers stating that their literary scene is "healthy" and "energetic", citing the emergence of new writers and the abundance of content being published".

Speaking to the media, The Singapore Book Publishers Association added that the launch of the Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2015 "was a 'meaningful turning point' that created a substantial increase in the number of novels published" in Singapore. "At the same time, more Singaporean authors (based here and overseas) are being published by UK and US publishers, either directly or after growing their career locally."

From the sound of it, Singapore's lit scene looks lit. Hoping this lead to more eyes on writing from this region.


In other news:

• Under the slogan "Baca Jap" (Read for a While), Silent Book Club JB, an offshoot of the US-founded Silent Book Club, aims to create "a space where book lovers can gather and engage in literary activities at local cafes and recreational parks". Do have a look when you're in the neighbourhood.
• "Our inspiration to set up Sunda Shelves was actually from a bookshop named 'The Borneo Shop' in Kota Kinabalu (Sabah) which also specialises in natural history." If you're in Damansara Kim, Petaling Jaya, find your way to The Sunda Shelves, a nature-themed bookstore specialising in "books relating to the environment, nature, natural history, culture and travelling in South-East Asia."
• "Some people tend to wave off comedic writing, saying 'Oh, it's just light fiction or chick lit', like it doesn’t take much effort, but honestly, it takes a lot of skill to write it well." Lauren Ho on writing comedy in her fiction and exploring new genres.
• "I started self-studying Korean when I was 18. At the time, Korean wasn't a very popular language to learn, so I had to be very resourceful. I used anything I could get my hands on, be it from the library or online." Translator Shanna Tan – who recently shared the spotlight with author Hwang Bo-reum in KL – shares some parts of her job and experience translating Hwang's Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop.
• James Queally was on a flight to a sibling's wedding when he received news that his publisher, Jersey-based indie crime publisher Polis Books, may be shut down. Not an enviable position to be in, but it's (fingers crossed) not the end of the world. To help others in the same situation, Queally "chatted up a few other writers whose works were previously marooned by industry collapse to put together a survival guide on what to do when your publisher dies."
• The number of titles from authors of colour is increasing. We're getting stories from cultures beyond the nominally white anglosphere, which is great. But is there a tendency to lock these authors into strictly writing about their own cultures? And if they attempt to step out of their pigeonholes, are they being not true to themselves? Sreedhevi Iyer, a lecturer in creative writing at RMIT University, explores the question of authors and authenticity in The Conversation.
• Now that JK Rowling has pretty much fallen from grace, what else can kids look to as an alternative? Perhaps they can have a go at what Katherine Rundell has written? "'Impossible Creatures,' Rundell's sixth novel for middle grade readers, became an instant best seller in her native Britain when it was published last year and has garnered numerous awards, including the Waterstones Book of the Year."
• Speaking about books for kids (or not): I only vaguely recall how unsuspecting parents were misled into buying "explicit" novels for their tweens and kids because of the cartoonish covers, such as the one for Hannah Grace's Icebreaker. But is it intentional? A book designer dishes on how these covers work.
• In the New Yorker, a brief history (as brief as a New Yorker article can manage) of bookstores in the US and where it can go from here. The writer appears to be arguing for bookstores to become "community-building spaces" – warm, welcoming, and not necessarily stocked with or offering every title under the sun.
• Several professionals in Ukraine's publishing industry ponder the future of contemporary Ukranian literature – a heavy topic while the war over there rages on and some of their compatriots are out on the front lines. Every now and then, one hopes for the end to the war so that they can rebuild what they've lost and grow again.
• Occasionally, you will encounter a book you can't bear to finish. What to do then? Like Sophie Vershbow in The Atlantic, Maya Chung says it's okay to DNF a book you don't like, with some caveats. "Of course, if I want to recommend a book widely or rave about it on the internet, I need to complete it, in case the story takes an unexpected turn or something happens in the last few pages that changes my perspective. The same rule applies if I feel like hating."
• "It has been a peculiar and exasperating five years. I'm a writer. I do other things but writing feels like my main reason for being on the planet. Thanks to a triple heart bypass, some underperforming psychiatric medication and long Covid, however, I've been unable to write for most of that period. Much of the time it's been impossible to read as well." As someone who writes but not as often, walking down author Mark Haddon's five-year journey towards recovery is unimaginable.
• "We have this problem in our culture," says Solène Marchand, the female lead in Robinne Lee's The Idea of You "We take art that appeals to women—film, books, music—and we undervalue it. We assume it can't be high art. Especially if it's not dark and tortured and wailing. And it follows that much of that art is created by other women, and so we undervalue them as well. We wrap it up in a pretty pink package and resist calling it art." The same seems to be happening to The Idea of You and Lee has something to say about that and about art for women.
• How many of you have learnt by now of a would-be burglar in Rome who was caught because he was engrossed in a book he found in the place he broke into? "The 38-year-old reportedly gained access to a flat in the Italian capital's Prati district via the balcony but became distracted after picking up a book about Homer's Iliad on a bedside table." The book, by the way, is Giovanni Nucci's The Gods at Six O'Clock – now probably known as the tome that was so good, it stopped a crime. Who needs an ocean of positive reviews on Goodreads?