News

I heard a stand up comic on television once. She said how she absolutely admired Paris Hilton who proved once and for all that one did not have to be poor to be 'white trash'.

A new psychology study, headed by Nathanael Fast of Stanford University in California, tries to explain why some stars continue to burn bright, long after their talent has faded -- if it ever was there to begin with. And the answer: people simply need something to talk about!

What exactly is Paris Hilton famous for? "Take Paris Hilton, somehow or other she became well known and now people are more likely to talk about her," Fast says. Prominent people stay popular for longer than they ought to because they serve as conversational fodder, which in turn drives more media coverage.
Mark Schaller, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, says, "It does provide an answer to the question of why fame is self-perpetuating, even when the famous person isn't doing anything fame-worthy anymore ... Catching an idea is not a whole lot different in some metaphorical way than catching a disease," he says.

Bottom line: people who talk about people basically have no life, and there are plenty of people in the world who are famous for being famous, but not necessarily for doing anything worthwhile.

Hmmm. Sounds familiar.

New Scientist
share this:

Alfonso Daniels writes for the BBC News: Jose Saramago, the Portuguese Nobel Prize laureate, is 86 years old. He recently called Italy's leader, Silvio Berlusconi, "vomit" and compares the Palestinian territories with Auschwitz. And he is, arguably, the best living writer today.

Born in Azinhaga, Portugal, he spends only a few months of the year in his native country. He lives mostly in the Spanish Canary Islands where he has been in symbolic exile since 1992 when the Portuguese government blocked his allegedly heretical novel, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, from being nominated for a European literary prize.

"I'm a hormonal communist," he says, "my body contains hormones that grow my beard and others that make me a communist. Change, for what? I would be ashamed, I don't want to become someone else."

Although he published his first book in 1947 (and some poems in 1966), he started publishing novels only in 1981 at the age of 59, his first being Journey to Portugal (1981) and rose to world fame with his publication of Balthasar and Blimunda in 1987. He won the Nobel Prize in 1998. Trained as a mechanic, he worked as a civil servant, as a manager of a metal company and in publishing.

He says he has three or four years more to live, maybe less. So he is speeding up his writing. His latest book, El Cuaderno (The Notebook), is a compilation of his popular blog entries. His next novel will be published before the end of the year. "I wrote it very quickly, it's possibly the book that I've written the most enthusiastically. It will have some 200 pages and will contain a surprise," he says. "I can't say any more, not even announce its title or else I would give it away."

BBC
share this:

There was an interesting SMS from a reader in an English daily recently. Referring to a recent warehouse sale, she said that she bought a (presumably brand new) book for RM8.00 that would normally cost RM40 in regular bookshops, and suggested that if book prices came down and bookshops reduced their profits, perhaps more people would read in this country. The implication here was that a retailer's profit on a book amounts to some 400%! How we wish that were true. Unfortunately, is quite far off the mark; the retailer's profit barely covers his overheads, but we don't expect customers to understand that. When a book sells for RM8 in one place and RM40 in another, what else would a customer think?

The warehouse sale in question was the recent Big Bad Wolf sale by BookXcess. Unverified sources have informed us that this was, in fact, a Pansing sale in disguise. And judging from the imprints on offer at the sale (and the observed appearance of Pansing staff at the warehouse over the period), it does appear to give that report some traction. Market talk appears to suggest it, anyway. (Established in 1974, Pansing is now a member of the Times Publishing Group. They are the sole distributors in Malaysia of several 'literary' imprints like Vintage, Picador, Harvill and so on.)

Here is a book industry primer for the uninitiated. The distributor is the wholesaler who acts between the publisher (the manufacturer) and the bookseller (the retailer). The publisher determines the recommended retail price, and the distributor buys the books at a discount from the publisher and then sells it to the retailer, who deals with the public. The publisher does not undercut the distributor and the retailer by selling the books directly to the public at ridiculously low prices, and the distributor does not, likewise, undercut the retailer to ensure a healthy industry and fair competition.

If a wholesaler does indeed sell his books to the public directly (or through an agent) at a ridiculously low prices it would be a serious breach of ethics, and probably be in violation of a whole host of anti-competition laws in quite a few countries in the world including, possibly, even Singapore. (Ask Microsoft about it.)

According to the same source, Pansing supplied more than 100,000 books for the warehouse sale, with the unsold books designated to Carrefour hypermart. (We have been wondering about the appearance of several 'Pansing' imprints, selling for RM5 each, in the hypermarket bins for some time now.) Where did all these books come from? Some, seen from their condition, are evidently returns from bookshops. But, quite a large number were in 'mint' condition. Why Pansing has chosen to dispose of its books in this manner is, currently, a matter of conjecture and some fanciful speculation. But, it has generated a quite a bit of unhappiness in the industry at the moment, with words like 'boycott' being bandied about. Perhaps, there is a need for all parties to clear the air including publishers like Pan MacMillan and Random House (UK) whose books Pansing distributes here and Singapore.

In the meantime, we have reduced our order of books from Pansing (unless absolutely necessary). American editions are nicer, anyway. Some major chains might even consider returning all books, and look for alternatives sources for the same titles. Or, maybe, even buy them back at their next warehouse sale at a fraction of the cost! That would be a good way of reducing prices!

And, to answer the SMS lady who complained about book prices: the reason imported books cost so much in Malaysia is due to our lousy exchange rate. Simple. And, the reason local books are not cheaper is because of our extremely small market size. But right now, the entire book industry in Malaysia has been put in jeopardy. We have had warehouse sales before, but not like this, where such a large quantity of books in very good condition have been dumped at between 10 and 20 percent of the RRP. The Malaysian book market is too small to absorb too many shocks of this nature. We don't have the diversity.
share this:

The book is entitled 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, and it features a character, Mr C, similar to Holden Caulfield, the mixed-up adolescent in Catcher in the Rye. Mr Salinger, 90, has filed a lawsuit to prevent the publication of the book in the US. (The book is already available in the UK.)

In the sequel, a 76-year-old man wakes up in a nursing home in New York. This seemingly normal day brings with it an unnerving compulsion to flee his present situation and embark on a curious journey through the streets of New York City. The original was written in 1951. The 'sequel' is written by a writer going by the name John David California.

The lawsuit says the right to create a sequel to Catcher in the Rye or use the character Holden Caulfield, belongs only to Salinger who has "decidedly chosen not to exercise that right". Salinger has never allowed his novel to be filmed, staged or adapted in any other way. The author stopped the BBC from filming a television production of his novel in 2003, and has reportedly also turned down requests from Steven Spielberg to acquire the film rights.

The lawsuit, according to the Associated Press, says "The sequel is not a parody and it does not comment upon or criticise the original ... It is a ripoff, pure and simple."

Fredrik Colting, founder of Nicotext Publishing says, "We think it's completely ludicrous."
share this:

It has been in all the newspapers and most people would have already read the story that Shell has agreed to pay US$15.5m in an out-of-court settlement of a legal action in which it was accused of having collaborated in the execution of the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders of the Ogoni tribe in Nigeria in 1995. This is one of the largest payouts agreed by a multinational corporation charged with human rights violations.

Kenule "Ken" Beeson Saro-Wiwa (October 10, 1941 -- November 10, 1995) was a Nigerian author, television producer, environmental activist and a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic Nigerian minority whose homeland, Ogoniland, in the Niger has suffered extensive environmental damage from decades of indiscriminate oil waste dumping. Saro-Wiwa led a non-violent campaign against the operations of multinational oil companies, especially Shell. He was also an outspoken critic of the Nigerian government, which refused to enforce proper environmental regulations on the foreign oil companies. Saro-Wiwa was arrested, tried by a special military tribunal, and hanged in 1995 by the military government of General Sani Abacha.

But many would recall that Saro-Wiwa's son, Ken Wiwa, was at the first Kuala Lumpur International Literary Festival in 2004 and was interviewed by Amir Muhammad on how he handled his father's legacy. In his very personal memoir, In the Shadow of a Saint, Ken Wiwa examines his (often troubled) relationship with his father, and describes his personal search for answers.

The Guardian
share this:

Charlie Sorrel writes in wired.com that apple has relented and "finally approved the gorgeous-looking e-book reader, Eucalyptus, for the iTunes App Store." I have seen the visuals and I had to agree that it is gorgeous, and that I am finally beginning to buy into the e-book mania. It is so cool, you simply have
to have it, even if you never actually read a book on the iPhone or the iPod Touch.

The application was initially banned from the iTunes store by Apple because it could be used to download pornographic material, like the Kama Sutra, into the iPhone. Err ... I don't get it. Can one not do that with any e-book? Charlie Sorrel says, "Whoever was on Approval Duty at Apple that day obviously saw the name Kama Sutra in the list of downloadable books and had such a knee-jerk reaction ... that the book is some kind of sex manual." Oh my God, Apple is behaving like KDN, or KDN has infiltrated the company. Run for cover, the world is not safe anymore!

He continues, "... it isn't (a sex manual), although it does contain some sex advice -- take a look at an issue of Cosmopolitan if you want some real, juicy sex talk." KDN, listening? Probably wouldn't understand, too many words.

Eucalyptus costs US$10 and has access to around 20,000 Project Gutenberg texts. Pros: proper hyphenation, a hand-rolled typesetting algorithm and lovely page-turning animation (video on website). Cons: currently, can’t add own books, only public domain.

Wired Magazine

share this:

Manuel Alguacil, 9, who has published his first book Thok, the Vain Dragon, has had to take a day off school to sign copies of his book at the Madrid Book Fair.

According to the story, or the spin, Manuel Alguacil could barely hold his copy of The Lord of the Rings when he was 6, but he got hooked on writing after reading it. Three years later, he has become one of the youngest authors in the world. His modest 38-page fantasy tale is inspired by (surprise) J R R Tolkien’s book and J K Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Manuel learnt to read when he was 3, but became bored by children’s books. By the age of 6 he had read The Lord of the Rings in two weeks. He wants to be an astronaut when he grows up. The boy is all right.

Other young talent

Britain’s youngest published author is Libby Reese, whose 60-page self-help book, Help, Hope and Happiness, was published when she was 9. Her book is based on her experiences when her parents separate. Her second book, about moving from primary to secondary school, came out in 2007.

United States' Amelia Atwater-Rhodes had her first fantasy novel, In the Forests of the Night, published in 1999 when she was 13. Now 23, she has published nine subsequent novels.

India's Ankit Fadia became an author at 15 with his book, The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking, published in 2001. He now blogs for CNN, runs training courses, and is employed by the Singaporean Government to defend against hackers.

TimesOnline

share this:

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the world's most famous fictional detective, was born in 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Conan Doyle became a doctor and practised medicine while creating this archetypal protagonist of crime fiction other writers still struggle to match, even today. I read them as a boy, and I still read them to relax. Sherlock Holmes combines his skills of observation with science.

Sherlock Holmes is said to be a homage to one of Conan Doyle's teachers in medical school. "Elementary, my dear Watson" is one of the most memorable lines in modern literature, although that line does not appear in any of his books. It could have originated from the 1929 movie The Return of Sherlock Holmes. (Holmes says "My dear Watson" and "Elementary" on different occasions in The Crooked Man published in 1893.)

Holmes might have been fictional, but legend remains powerful. Tourists still flock to 221B, Baker Street in London to the museum dedicated to him.

The joke, voted as the funniest in the world, also features Holmes and Watson (though I do not recall reading it in any of the SH books.)

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson go on a camping trip, set up their tent, and fall asleep.
Some hours later, Holmes wakes his faithful friend.
'Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.'
Watson replies, 'I see millions of stars.'
'What does that tell you?'
Watson ponders for a minute. 'Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, it's evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?'
Holmes is silent for a moment, then speaks, 'Watson, you idiot, someone has stolen our tent.'

Conan Doyle died on July 7, 1930. He wrote 56 short stories and four novels.

Wired.com

share this:

Waiting for Godot  -- Samuel Beckett: Vladimir and Estragon stand next to tree and wait for Godot. Their status is not updated.

Lady Chatterley's Lover -- DH Lawrence: "Upper-class woman gets it on with gamekeeper."

You can get all these and more from Tim Collin's The Little Book of Twitter. "Maybe we are only just beginning to appreciate the potential of Twitter as an art form," he says.

Ok ... aaaay.

But I am sure it is fun. What was that book by the Frenchman, about talking about books you have never read? Guess, we can now talk about more books. But Tim Collins does admit he had difficulty with Finnegan's Wake.

Here are a couple more:

The Catcher in the Rye -- JD Salinger: Rich kid thinks everyone is fake except for his little sister. Has breakdown.

Pride and Prejudice -- Jane Austin: Woman meets man called Darcy who seems horrible. He turns out to be nice really. They get together.

Excellent for teachers. Wonderful material for seting multiple choice questions:

Question: Which book is this? Man walks around Dublin. We follow every minute detail of his day. He’s probably over tweeting. 
A. Ulysses -- James Joyce
B. Great Expectations -- Charles Dickens
C. The Catcher in the Rye -- JD Salinger

Now, if only someone will come up with a workbook for these darn things.

The Telegraph
share this:

Maev Kennedy and Catherine Neilan of The Guardian compare a novella, Clisson and Eugénie, about first love, a pieced together manuscript of lost book by Napoleon Bornaparte that has just been translated into English, with a Mills & Boons classic.

They write: "Napoleon is already credited with writing some of the most romantic – or revolting, depending on your sensibilities – words in his urgent message to Josephine: Will return to Paris tomorrow evening. Don't wash." Eeeuwww.

But the ruthless tyrant who conquered nearly the whole of Europe was also failed author of romances, until now that is. I feel numb. Come to me without delay is a line from the book. Is that what chick-lit is like? I must confess I have not read any.

Here are extracts. Decide if it is great literature.

"The sad young soldier [Clisson] takes the waters ... It was a place of enchantment ... Unknown as he was, he wandered amongst the crowd ... He gazed with interest at the beauty of the women and their dresses, mostly made of linen. People feel comfortable while taking the waters and he was able to engage in a great number of inconsequential conversations, which brought him relief from his melancholy and solitude."

Eugenie writes to him.

"I am worried and unhappy. I feel numb. Come to me without delay. Only the sight of you will cure me. Last night I dreamt you were on your deathbed. The life had gone out of your beautiful eyes, your mouth was lifeless, you had lost all your colour. I threw myself on your body: it was icy cold. I wanted to bring you back to life with my breath, to bring you warmth and life. But you could no longer hear me. You no longer knew me."

The Guardian
share this:

Literature Director of America's National Endowment for the Arts and programme director of the community reading scheme The Big Read, David Kipen, pledged to eat Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird if he could not persuade the entire literate population of of Kelleys Island in Lake Erie in Ohio to read it. As it tuned out the 131 residents of the island proved to be a literary-minded lot, so he didn't have to eat the book.

Alison Flood writes in The Guardian that Kipen, had been searching for a town "small enough and brave enough to accept the challenge of dragooning every last literate resident, without exception, into tackling its chosen book". Then he found the four square mile Kelleys Island – population 131. He said that if residents failed to finish Harper Lee's classic novel, he'd eat a copy of the book.

He is quoted. "The prospect of 'terrible indigestion' already has me up nights thinking about it ..." Really? How about choosing another small island, Manhatten, next?

The Guardian
share this:

Bertrand Russell, the philosopher, logician, mathematician, my school-time philosopher hero, and Nobel prize for literature winner who wrote the seminal work on mathematical logic, the Principia Mathematica, is now a graphic novel hero. The hit 'comic', Logicomix has become a bestseller in Greece and has been picked up by several publishers across the world -- from China to Turkey, Israel to Italy. The UK version by Bloomsbury is expected in September this year.

Bertrand Russell died in 1970 at the age of 97. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth portrays the story of his life and the great 60s pacifist's quest to pin down the foundations of mathematics. Sounds so tera menera yah? But it was a tera menera period, the 60s, with the Vietnam war, with the Beatles and Bob Dylan, with Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro, with nuclear proliferation, with the hippies, with Charles Manson ... and with Bertrand Russell. It was he who got me interested in the scope and universality of mathematics, and the language of philosophers.

Logicomix is written by maths expert and novelist Apostolos Doxiadis, who was admitted to Columbia University at the age of 15, and Christos Papadimitriou, a computer scientist and novelist. The artwork is by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna.

"Covering a span of 60 years, it tells the story of Russell's life, taking in his childhood, brought up by his grandparents after he was orphaned aged four, his four marriages, the writing of his great work Principia Mathematica, his rivalry with Ludwig Wittgenstein, and his quest for nuclear disarmament in the last decades of his life."

The Guardian

share this:

It used to be a joke in the seventies that India was the only country in the world where one could actually have an intelligent discussion of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance with a bus conductor during a rural pit stop, and the only place on earth where taxi drivers had Master's degrees. Now they are talking about India (and China) rescuing the entire English publishing industry.

With the US and the UK industry stagnating, publishers are looking for new markets. India, the world's third largest English language book market, is particularly enticing with its reported 10% annual growth and 350m English speaking segment of the population, and where PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie and Enid Blyton are still a hit and every John Grisham title sells on average 70-80,000 copies. But that is miniscule compared to the potential of the market.

The Chinese market for English books is much smaller, but there is a great appetite for 'books about earning money and making a family healthier'. Who Moved My Cheese, the motivational book that celebrated its 10th anniversary last month, is one of China's all-time best-selling translated titles with several million sold, which is not entirely surprising given that, to them, English is primarily a language of business. Many English books in China are used as educational tools; people use them to improve their skills in a language.

The importance of these 'new' markets are clearly underscored by Malaysian author, Tash Aw, who's second novel, Map of the Invisible World is first published by Harper Collins of India. (Tash Aw will be at Silverfish Books, 58-1 Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru on Sunday, 7th of June from 11.30am to 1.00pm. Remember it is a Sunday.) Also, Random House has announced that the record-breaking first print run of 6.5 million copies of The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown will include over half a million for overseas territories including India and South Africa.

Thaindian News

share this:

They have been threatening to come for a long time. And now they are here. Matthew Moore of The Daily Telegraph reports: "A freshly-bound edition of Fyodor Dostoevsky's classic -- ordered by The Daily Telegraph -- was one of the first tomes to drop out of the Espresso Book Machine when it opened for business for the first time ..." (The printing itself of the 540 pages took only five minutes. The sheets were then sent into the binding section of the machine were they were pressed, covered, glued, and cut to shape in under four minutes.)

"And the results were impressive. The hefty work that skidded out of the chute, while slightly sticky to the touch, looked and felt like a standard edition, even down to the correct ISBN number on the back. The paper and ink are the same quality used in larger presses, and the binding appeared flawless."

The Blackwell bookshop on Charing Cross Road is offering that novel amongst 400,000 titles, many of them rare and out of print. This GBP 68,000 machine -- one of only three in the world -- is on a three-month trial. It allows readers to track down rare books, and also offers mainstream works that happen to be out of stock. Customers will also have the benefit of being able to load files from their own discs.

Printing cost? Apart from a set fee of GBP10.00 a book, there is 2p charge for every page. So Crime and Punishment would have cost GBP 20.80. (I am assuming this is for a paperback.) But what are the alternatives. One could order a copy of the book from Amazon.com, wait for a week and pay the shipping costs. Or one could have a cup of coffee, or browse through the shelves, or read something, or nip into the shoe shop next door while waiting for the book to be cooked. The other alternative is the ebook. But with a cost of over GBP 200.00 for the reader and another GBP 5.00 to over GBP 50.00 a pop for the titles, will it ever take off. Besides, the bragging rights associated with a well-bound (or any) copy of Crime and Punishment sitting on the bookshelf which are so much more, there is also the way they furnish your house and determine its character. So what are you going to tell your friends when they drop into your bookless house; that you have an electronic copy of Dostoevsky on your Kindle? Duh!

The Daily Telegraph

share this:

According to www.OnePoll.com, which conducted the research, To Kill a Mockingbird has been voted the most inspirational book of all time, beating the Bible into second place.

The 1960 Harper Lee classic has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. Set in the deep-south depression era, it recounts the life of middle-aged lawyer Atticus Finch, who is appointed to defend a black man accused of assaulting a white woman. It was made into an Oscar winning movie with Gregory Peck in 1962.

The Bible has been translated into 2,233 languages, and has sold an estimated 2.5 billion copies since 1815. Still, it lost to To Kill a Mockingbird. A spokesman said: "Despite To Kill a Mockingbird being written in the 1960's, it is still considered the most inspirational book ... The novel is renowned for its warmth and humour, despite dealing with serious issues of racial inequality. The narrator's father, Atticus Finch, has also served as a moral hero for many readers over the years ... It's interesting that the book is considered more inspirational than the bible ..."

Books on the top ten list:
1. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (1960)
2. The Bible
3. A Child Called It - Dave Pelzer (2001)
4. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus - John Gray (1993)
5. Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank (1947)
6. 1984 - George Orwell (1949)
7. A Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela (2002)
8. The Beach - Alex Garland (1994)
9. The Time Travellers Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (2005)
10. The Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger (1951) ENDS


The Telegraph
share this:

Mad scientists, hardboiled detectives, sensuous starlets, murderous robots, vengeful goddesses, saucy heroines -- what they all have in common, Tamil Pulp Fiction. Accessibly priced and with lurid photoshopped cover designs, they sell at tea stalls and railway stations and has a huge avid readership.

When I was kid, my mother used to devour Ananda Vikadan, Kalki and Kumutham in stacks. If only I knew how much fun she was having, I would have surely not neglected my Tamil education.

The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction, is an effort by translator Pritham Chakravarty and publisher Rajesh Kanna to bring some of this to non-Tamil reading readership, which for all intents and purposes includes me. I read an extract of a couple of stories produced exclusively by Outlook magazine recently. What can I say? They were corny to the max, but delightfully inventive.

According to the Outlook exclusive, the first book in Tamil for popular readership appeared in 1869. Later, inspired by the 'penny dreadful' novels of post WW1 Britain, another crop of authors appeared. A 1933 guideline for writing commercial novels appeared in Sudhandhira Sangu thus (from Outlook):

1. The title of the book should carry a woman's name -- and it should be a sexy one.
2. Don't worry about the storyline. All you have to do is skilfully adapt the stories of (penny dreadful author) Reynolds and the rest. Yet your story absolutely must include a minimum of half-a-dozen lovers and prostitutes, preferably 10 dozen murders, and a few sundry thieves and detectives,
3. The story should begin with a murder. Sprinkle in a few thefts. Some arson will also help.
4. You can make money only if you manage to titillate. If you try to bring in social messages, forget it.

Of the two writers I have read, Subha is the penname of two writers, Suresh and Balakrishnan, who have been churning it out since the 80's. They are reported to have written 550 novellas, 50 longer novels, and more than 400 short stories, apart from screenplays for cinema and television. The other author, Rajesh Kumar, has been writing since 1968 and has to his credit 1250 novels and over 2000 short stories.

No time for lazybones in that industry!

Blaft
share this:

In his story Footballers reveal their favourite books, Richard Garner, Education editor of the Independent, writes how English Premier League (EPL) footballers revealed their favourite literary works in a campaign to persuade more children to read books. 20 EPL players (one from each club) were selected as "reading stars" by their teams, and, interestingly, eight of the teams selected their goalkeepers as the person most likely to devote time to help children with their reading. The books range from children's books to the classics.

Wayne Rooney, of Manchester United, chose Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone by J K Rowling as the book he would read to children, while Robert Green, the West Ham and England goalkeeper, selected Homer's The Iliad. Wahhh!

Rooney says: "Harry Potter is almost every child's favourite book and ... J K Rowling is a fantastic author ... I would encourage any child to read the Harry Potter books: they are full of excitement and adventure and they really get your imagination going."

And Green's take: "Everyone should try to make a bit of time each day to read more. You should never be scared of a book either, reading classics like The Iliad might seem daunting but if you take your time you gain such a lot from trying them."

Here are some of the rest:

Bolton, Jussi Jaaskelainen, How To Speak Dragonese, Cressida Cowell;
Blackburn, Paul Robinson, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Robin S Sharma;
Hull City, Boaz Myhill, Lord Of The Flies, William Golding;
Wigan, Emmerson Boyce, Wallace And Gromit: The Bootiful Game, Ian Rimmer;
West Bromwich Albion, Chris Brunt, James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl.

The Independent
share this:

From The Guardian: Walkers have republished some of some of the best-loved children's stories using  the best illustrators to produce a beautiful collection of books. They intend to publish one book a month throughout 2009. These beautiful, critically acclaimed books of children's literature are targeted at the 'new generation'.

The collection, so far, includes:

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, illustrated by Inga Moore
Classic Poetry, selected by children's laureate Michael Rosen, illustrated by Paul Howard
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury
The Secret Garden by F Hodgson Burnett, illustrated by Inga Moore
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, illustrated by Nicola Bayley

I so want to buy a collection (for myself, never mind the children).

The Guardian
share this:

The Guardian reports: More than 9000 books, some valued at more than GBP 20,000.00, have been reported missing from the British Library although not all of them are thought to be stolen. Some have been 'mislaid' for over 50 years in the library's over 650 kilometres of shelves!

Among the books mislaid or stolen are:

• Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1876 illustrated edition. Missing since 1976. Valued at GBP 350 by Abe Books.

• Wolfgang Musculus, Of the Lawful and Unlawful Usurie Amongest Christians, 1556. Missing since 2007. British Library valuation GBP 20,000.

• Moses Ben Maimon, Letter on Astrology, 1555. By 12th-century Jewish philosopher and Torah scholar. Missing since 1977. Nothing comparable on market.

• Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891. First edition missing since January 1961. Valued by Bookride at over GBP 1,300.

• Ezra Pound, Canzoni, 1911. First edition of poetry collection, missing since 1999. Copy on Amazon at GBP 425.

The Guardian
share this:

Some may have already noticed the Twitter sidebar in the News, New Books, Writings, Events and Short story pages of our website. When we started these pages, there was just about enough material for fortnightly updates. There is a lot more now, especially books, new Malaysian books.

We used to be hard pressed to find one new Malaysian book every two weeks to feature. Now we receive so many every week, we have difficulty choosing. Hence, the SilverfishNews Tweets. We will still continue to feature one favourite Malaysian book of the fortnight, but our tweets will list the rest that are worthy of note. And since we already have the sidebar for the Tweets we will also list other interesting stories we come across that you might wish to check out (including some of not exactly literary nature).

But our bias will be towards things regarding reading, writing and publishing. You choose to follow 'SilverfishNews' on Twitter for which you need an account, or you may merely follow it on our website without one. (But, I think you need to be a twitterati to post replies -- I am not sure of that, maybe someone can clarify).

And, speaking of replies, please use the direct mode. Responses will not be automatically displayed on the website but we will be able to read it on our desktop client before posting them -- we are using Twirl, but there are many out there -- because, like we said before, this is a literary website and we would like to keep it that way. Mostly. Anyway, we believe most readers will not be interested in who had what for breakfast. Friends might, not others. You may also communicate with us by email. Send us interesting things you read or see and we will Tweet it, with or without your name. You decide.
share this: