Click here to subscribe/unsubscribe to our fortnightly newsletter.Click here to see what we send out once a month
New on the shelf

The Headman was a Woman (Book + DVD)
RM 30.00

A comprehensive ethnography of one of the few remaining hunting and gathering peoples of Southeast Asia, The Headman Was A Women presents the gender concepts, roles and relations of the highly egalitarian Batek of Peninsular Malaysia. Based on longtime fieldwork, the book describes the lives of Batek men and women in the tropical rainforest, and includes discussuins of fieldwork, hunting and gathering, social organization, religion, gender, nonviolence, and cultural persistence in the face of a changing landscape. Rich in detail yet clearly written, The Headman Was a Woman introduces readers to an egalitarian people whose way of life is both thought-provoking and rare. The ethnography is accompanied by a 37-minute DVD, The Batek: Rainforest Foragers of Kelantan, Malaysia. Footage shows vivid highlights of camp life and social activities as well as all of the important economic processes described in the book.


The Headman was a Woman (Book + DVD)
RM 30.00

Hak Untuk Berbeza Pendapat
RM 20.00

Ottoman Connections to the Malay World
RM 39.00

Transfer of Modern Science and Technology to the Mulsim World
RM 40.00

At A Plank Bridge : A Play
RM 18.00

Malaysia Human Rights Report 2010
RM 25.00

Malaysia Human Rights Report 2009
RM 25.00

Unmistakably Chinese, Genuinely Malaysian
RM 19.90

Yusof Gajah Creative Learning Series (Boxset)
RM 40.00

The Lil' Guardians (flashcards)
RM 15.00

The Flow & the Power of Chi Dynamics (VCD)
RM 30.00

Tabu
RM 20.00

Kelabu
RM 24.90

Equality Under Construction
RM 45.00

The Black Cheongsam
RM 24.90
Silverfish magazine
camelot test
Camelot Hosting Test
01/20/2012

we are testing this

Read more

Opinion
Living in interesting times
January 03, 2012

It was the best of times, and the worst of times for the book industry in 2011; a year of living dangerously. Borders finally shuttered its stores after a long terminal illness. It seemed like the end of an era when, in fact, it was not. The international age of the superstore started only in 1999, when the super chain store opened shop in Singapore. Within 12 years, it was all over. Twelve years is not an era; it is an aberration. It was bizarre to any thinking person: how could bookstores that operated on such small profit margins, most of which they were giving away as discounts on bestsellers, afford to rent such large expensive real estate in prime locations in major cities throughout the world? After killing off thousands of independents over the decade, the romance with the mega bookstore has ended, leaving the landscape looking like Japan and Germany after the second world war.

Read more

News
Silverfish Writing Programme
January 03, 2012

Registration for the next programme that will commence on Saturday, 4 February 2012, was opened in early December. As is usually the case, at this jucture, we are half full. There is always a last minute rush in the days before we close. The early bird discount of 10% ends on (including) 10 January 2012, so please hurry to avoid disappointment.

Read more

News
Create your own local hero
January 03, 2012

MobyLives reported recently: According to the Businessweek report: A (free downloadable barcode) app, called Price Check, allows shoppers to look up Amazon's prices by scanning physical products at a store using their phones.

There is nothing wrong with comparative shopping, nor is there anything wrong with one store checking the price of goods in another (it happens all the time), but to pay one's customers to spy on competition smells of sulphur. Does the app also allow information to be sent back to the mother ship?

Read more

News
Malaysian government allocation for writers
December 21, 2011

A Bernama report on 13 December 2011 said, "The government is prepared to provide allocation so that writers will be more active in producing books to help Malaysia achieve developed nation status by 2020 ... Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah said Malay literature works could illuminate the literary world and mould the people's thinking."

The report added: "In an effort to improve the country's status as a high income economy, the government is prepared to help Malay literature writers," he said. And guess who wants to put up the paper? Utusan Publications and Distributors Sdn Bhd. I will say, no more.

Read more

Books
Saramago's last hurrah
January 03, 2012

Title: Cain
Author: Jose Saramago (Translated by Margaret Jull Costa)
Publisher: Harvill Secker (2011)
Price: RM 69.90

To say Saramago didn't believe in God, would be an understatement. He was a life-long Communist and an atheist, and Cain, his last book that was first published in 2009, a year before he died could be described as his last middle-finger salute to the old guy (whom he has made no secret of disliking).

Cain carries on where Saramago left off in his 1991 masterpiece (depending on who you ask), The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.

Read more

Books
A magical mystery tour
December 21, 2011

Title: 1Q84
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Secker
Price: RM91.50

As I have mentioned before, I was determined not to buy this book. First, I decided there was no way I was going to plough through a one-thousand-page tome. I am too old for that, I said. When I actually saw the book, the cheesy jacket and page design, not to mention its wrist spraining heft, it only reinforced my view. If ever there was an argument for the ebook, this is it, I told my friends.

Still, I decided to read a few pages, more to look for faults than anything else. The first paragraph got me hooked.

Read more

Opinion
Sharjah: three stories
December 01, 2011

iOS rules

The Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) professional programme on Tuesday, 15 November was revealing. The event was unusual enough, not to mention fascinating, for me. It was speed-dating on steroids: imagine a hundred and fifty publishing professionals from around the world, buyers and sellers, all confined to a room for six hours (generously watered and fed, no doubt), meeting, matching and making deals, many prearranged or match-made, but several spontaneous.

IQ84

This is one book I had decided I was not going to bother to read. The hype was enough to kill it for me. Then, when I saw the book (from afar) in Frankfurt, I said: there's no way I'm going to waste my time on that huge tome. Then it showed up in the shop, at Silverfish, just before my Sharjah trip. The weight of the book, its cheesy page-design and its oh-so-Japanese Mikado: the pop opera dust jacket (Harvill Secker edition), had me resting my head on my hands with a sigh.

Still, curiosity, go the better of me and I read the first few pages, if for no reason other than to criticise it. I got hooked.

The third-world trap

The professional programme was organise to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the SIBF. All countries want to have book fairs; all countries now have book fairs. Trading rights is the new thing. Sharjah's professional programme was ambitions. While the SIBF was not a humungous affair like Frankfurt, it was targeted and effective with, I suspect, a higher deal rate. Other countries caught in a third-world trap with a '˜can't do' mindset, could do worse than pay attention.

Read more

News
First-class whore book banned
December 01, 2011

The Malaysian Home Ministry's ban, with immediate effect, on an explicit sex guide published by the Obedient Wives Club (OWC) has reportedly drawn much amusement in the world media.

Those found in possession of the material will be liable for a fine of up RM5,000, the ministry added, while reproduction or distribution will attract a maximum fine of RM20,000 and a three-year jail sentence.

The OWC says that the book titled, Seks Islam, perangi Yahudi untuk kembalikan seks Islam kepada dunia (Islamic sex, fighting Jews to return Islamic sex to the world, is a guide -- with explicit graphics -- for Muslim brides on how to pleasure their husbands in bed. It says its studies showed women only gave their spouses 10 per cent of what they desired of their wives. (The club's vice-president, Dr Rohaya Mohamad, advises women to behave like 'a first-class whore' if they want their marriages to succeed.)

Read more

News
The DBP/Dawama marriage - comment
December 01, 2011

So, Dawama Sdn Bhd is taking government publisher Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) and its director-general to court for defamation, following claims that the latter suggested on a radio show on 21 April 2011 that the company was being mismanaged.

Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Malaysia (or literally, the Malaysian Hall for Language and Literature), was established (in 1956) to promote the use of the national language in the country. Somewhere along the way it became a sort of a language police to regulate (and, ostensibly, to protect) the national language. Then, they went into translation and into publishing (not sure which came first) selling books at incredibly low prices '˜for the benefit of the people'. For a long time DBP was the Malaysian publishing industry, period.

Dawama was formed in October 1999 and, in September 2002, it signed a 12-year privatisation contract to print and market DBP's books and magazines, ostensibly to strengthen DBP marketing. Earlier this year, both parties started accusing the other of breach of contract. Now, the courts will decide.

So, what went wrong?

Read more

News
Innovative insults
December 01, 2011

If you are tired of the same old insults, you may try some creative ones we found in Wired.com, mined from 'Green's Dictionary of Slang, a 6,200-page lexicon spanning more than half a millennium'. You probably know and have used the term oxygen thief for someone who is completely useless. How about flaba-flaba? Guess the sound says it all. What do you call these? Onomatopoeias?

There are others in the category like Shabberoon n. A shabby person from 1650-1700; or Gollumpus n. A large, loutish, uncoordinated person from 1750-1800 with are quite easy to guess meanings of, as would Beef-witted adj. Stupid, simple. But, we don't quite get Chafe-litter n. An impudent, cheeky person (1550-1600); Lerrycometwang n. A fool, a simpleton (1600-1650); or Crow mcgee adj. No good, unreal, false (1900-1950). We love Sir Posthumous Hobby n. An obsessive dandy (1650-1700); and Demi-rep n. A woman of doubtful reputation (1700-1750); though we have no idea of the origins of these term. Does Abrahamer n. A tramp, have anything to do with Abraham, or is Fhawkner n. A thief who steals poultry related to Faulkner or to the word fowl?

Read more

New Books
Children's art
December 01, 2011

The Malaysian Art Book for Children by Rahel Joseph & Jo Kukathas (RM 64.95)

Can a washing line be considered art? Why did Ibrahim Hussein paint a portraits of his father with an astronaut? What are Yee I-Lann's kerbau staring at? Where is everyone going in Wong Hoy Cheong's Boats? Why does Syed Ahmad Jamal portray Gunung Ledang as a blue and green triangle?

The Malaysian Art Book for Children features some of Malaysia's most exciting artists and is a perfect introduction for all those encountering Malaysian contemporary art for the first time.

Read more