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.

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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."

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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.

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"...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.

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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.

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"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.

Masterclass In Session: Fashion With Carven

Zang Toi. Jimmy Choo. Melinda Looi. Edmund Ser.

You've heard of them, wore them, seen them in the papers and magazines, and maybe took pictures with them at some glitzy fashion do.

Some of you probably think, "Wow, isn't this the life! I could probably do this too."

Hold that thought. A fashion designer and industry veteran has a few words for you before you jump in.

The latest in the MPH Masterclass series, Carven Ong's Guide to the Fashion Industry, is not merely a guidebook on how to become a fashion designer. Rather, it is tailored for all those aspiring to make the cut in the glamorous, yet competitive world of fashion.

Fashion designer Carven Ong packed the sum of his experiences in the fashion industry into this book's ten chapters for this purpose. "This book is an opportunity for me to share my knowledge experience on a wide range of fashion industry topics, with those who are interested in entering the fashion industry," says Ong.

Fashion-industry aspirants, whether one wants to be a buyer, boutique owner, or follow in the footsteps of Ong, will find much to appreciate in the pages.

Ong uses his own personal story - one of missed opportunities, luck, and determination - to illustrate the potential payoffs and pitfalls that lie on the road towards fashion stardom. Behind the glitz and glamour of the catwalk and dressed boutique windows is a lot of hard work and, for the unprepared, stress.

Carven Ong's web site and online showcase, www.carvenong.com.my

Readers will be guided towards the proper way to enter the fashion industry. But first: do you want to just design clothes in the background, or do you want a share of the limelight as the progenitor of your own styles? That sets the framework of your business plan, which Ong recommends one does first.

"Be prepared to run a marathon, not a sprint," he writes. "It won't be easy, and the stronger your foundation, the higher your chances of success."

Also outlined are some of the processes involved in product development, be it for a couture or prêt-à-porter (ready-to-wear) business, as well as things to note when sourcing and using materials such as fabric and lace, some branding and marketing strategies, advice on opening boutiques and online stores, and more.

Gifted in the arts and an eye for style, it was natural that Ong would embark on a career in fashion.

From humble beginnings, he is now the proud owner of a couture boutique, some fashion counters in department stores and his own fashion academy.

"A mixture of passion, good business sense and a willingness to take risks has gotten me to where I am today," he says humbly. "Recalling just how tough it was to get the right type of guidance when I started out, I want to help anyone who wishes to make a career out of fashion design."

Now, with this single volume, he can.

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Carven Ong's Guide to the Fashion Industry

Carven Ong
MPH Group Publishing
157 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-967-415-167-6

Buy from MPHOnline.com