News

Beruas: one step closer to the Commonwealth Prize

2012-01-30T14:27:00.003+08:00

The Beruas Prophecy "has made it through the first stage of the judgingprocess for the Commonwealth Book Prize for best first book ..." said the email from the Commonwealth Foundation in London. The short list will be announced in May, the email said further.

The rules have changed this year. In previous years, there would be a Best Book and a Best First Book. This year there is only the Best First Book. Last year, books were shortlisted by regions and awarded the prize for the region with the winners going in for the final shortlist. We have no idea how it is going to happen this year, considering London appears to be handling all the judging this year. (In previous years, regional prizes were judged by the regional centres -- Australia in the case of the Asia-pacific zone of which Malaysia is a part of). The website does say, "There will be five winners, one from each region. The overall winner of the Commonwealth Book Prize will receive £10,000 and the remaining four regional winners £2,500." Apart from that there are few details.

Still, we are happy for Iskandar Al-Bakri. This is the third Silverfish Books title to make it to the next stage of judging for a major international award. In 2009, Ripples by Shih-Li Kow made it to the final shortlist for the Frank O'Connor Award; in 2010, 21 Immortals by Rozlan Mohd Noor was shortlisted for the Asia-Pacific Commonwealth Writer's Prize for the best first book, and in 2011, it is The Beruas Prophecy by Iskandar Al-Bakri. At Silverfish, we feel vindicated. We have always believed that Malaysians need not live overseas to become good writers. Considering the poor education system and the decades of marginlisation of English in the country, the success of these writers is outstanding. Congratulations to all of them; we know how hard they have worked. And to others aspiring to write, Silverfish will be here to assist you. All we ask is for you to be willing to work hard and take criticism. (Some talent helps, of course. But talent without effort is of no use to anyone.)

Now, let's go out and win something.

Silverfish Writing Programme

2012-01-03T15:52:00.003+08:00

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.

The world is full of stories. Humans are the strangest of all animals. We may miss meals (ask your teenager buried in a book or your aunt or mum hooked on a television soap) but not our stories. Even in famine stricken zones, while people wait for the food trucks to arrive, they tell one another stories to keep alive. In war zones, where life is in danger every single minute, people cannot resist telling stories. All religions have tons of stories that are constantly repeated. Stories are part of our very being, our claim to be human.

We are surrounded by stories every waking minute of the day. When we turn on our radio or television to listen to the news, or to watch a drama or sitcom or even a cooking show, when we open our newspapers or surf the net for news, when we go to the movies, to a dance, listen to a song, or look at a painting, when we go to the office, pitch a proposal to our boss, our clients, meet our co-workers when we relax over tea and gossip, or tell them about our day, or listen to their stories. When we read books, we read stories. And stories will make us laugh or cry or angry, and dozens of other things. We will love characters or we hate them. Good stories never leave us indifferent. We have a desperate need to tell stories in whatever form. That’s why some of us want to become writers. But what do publisher's want?

READ MORE ABOUT THE PROGRAMME and REGISTER

Create your own local hero

2012-01-03T15:15:00.003+08:00

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? But that is Amazon, and that is America; can't see them getting away with it anywhere else in the world.

“MobyLives report found it interesting to observe that the survey in question meant brick-and-mortar bookstores were a crucial part of almost 40 percent of Amazon’s sales. We asked then what it would mean to Amazon shoppers, if those stores went out of business.” Talk about killing your golden goose. After books, what?

As a reaction to this (or it could be entirely coincidental), Publishing Perspectives had another story about an extension for Google Chrome that has been created by the owner of Marcus Bookstores, a small chain in San Francisco and Oakland, that warns customers each time they are about to shop at Amazon:

“When’s the last time Amazon brought one of your favorite writers in to read from her work — for free?

When’s the last time Amazon recommended a book based on your actual interests, not a bunch of data they’ve fashioned into a half-assed consumer profile of you?   

Sure, you might save a couple of bucks on this order, but what’s that compared to supporting local businesses, maintaining a local tax base, and buying your books from somebody who actually cares about books?”

Good luck, David. You sling shot is not going to be any good against a Goliath with nuclear bombs. Amazon is hell-bent on world domination, even if it destroys the entire planet. Books, schmooks.

If you really want to fight Goliath, read this: Indies battle Amazon — by becoming publishers. Are you up to becoming a 'creative intermediary'? That's what Silverfish Books did ten years ago. Get Amazon (and the other big boys) to sell your books and give you money. Promote your local small-town author! You'll be surprised how good some of them are.

Let 2012 be the new '1984' for the book industry.

Malaysian government allocation for writers

2011-12-21T16:41:00.002+08:00

A Bernamareport on 13 December 2011 said, “The government is prepared to provideallocation so that writers will be more active in producing books tohelp Malaysia achieve developed nation status by 2020 … Second FinanceMinister Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah said Malay literature workscould illuminate the literary world and mould the people's thinking.”

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

Then on 17 December 2011, The New Straits Timescarried this report, “Local young writers are getting assistance fromthe government to have their literary works published … This would bepossible through a RM5 million allocation announced by Prime MinisterDatuk Seri Najib Razak last night …” This will be handled by NationalInstitute of Translation (ITNM). "It will be involved in publishingoriginal works to help promote the book publishing industry and thenation's literary scene," the PM said, adding that it would be renamedInstitut Terjemahan dan Buku Malaysia.

Its unclear if the two initiatives are linked.

The second one announced by the PM appears similar to the allocationby the National Book Council in Singapore that initially gave money topublishers, but now given to the authors. Or is it the other way round?It doesn’t work in either case. There will be quantity aplenty, but noquality. If one gives it to the publisher, they’ll only want the moneyregardless of the standard of the work. If the money is given to thewriters, there is no incentive for good writing, editing and control bythe publisher who will only inflate costs. It will reward mediocrity;the Malaysia Boleh way.

A system that could work would be to have more transparency in bookbuying by the National Library and other government institutions; tobuy and distribute widely the best works. Unfortunately, the buyingmachinery is so broken and biased, so politicised, with so many vestedinterests, that it would be impossible to fix.

There will be many who will be quite happy to exploit the situation butfor genuine publishers and writers, handouts will be another disaster,another NEP. What they need is fairness and equal opportunity. As itis, we cannot even sell a pencil to a government department withoutbeing registered with the Ministry of Finance or going through an‘approved’ contractor (not that it stops government agenciesapproaching us for donations for their sports club, hari keluarga or whatever).

First-class whore book banned

2011-12-01T13:56:00.001+08:00

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.)

But according to the ministry’s Al-Quran Text and Publishing Control Division, the book was banned because of its links to the outlawed Al-Arqam movement and for violating the Department of Islamic Development’s (Jakim) censorship rules.

Al-Arqam, an Islamic sect branded as deviationist and banned by the government in 1994 (and their commune in the outskirts of the city Kuala Lumpur shut down) was founded by Ashaari Mohammad who died of illness in May 2010 at the age of 73.

The OWC is seen by some as an attempt to revive Al Arqam, but some say the organisation never died; the ubiquitous black turban, green robes and kohl lined eyes, once visible all over Kuala Lumpur, just gave way to normal clothes so they could blend in, using sundry shops and other businesses as fronts. Although its members have been detained for long periods without trial under the draconian ISA laws, the Al-Arqam have never been linked to terrorism.

Considering how the government is very prickly about anything it considers deviationist, book importers routinely avoid importing books with titles that include the words Qur’an, Islam, Muslim, Sufi, and the like, to prevent harassment. Booksellers, too. (One can import Fanny Hill and sell it to children, but not Islam.) Often, locally published books on Islam manage to remain under the radar for a while but, once they are outed and found to be not in accordance to the ‘official’ version, they are quickly banned.

The Malaysian Insider

The DBP/Dawama marriage - comment

2011-12-01T13:42:00.001+08:00

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?

In the absence of transparency, one can only speculate, and many do. Fact: DBP was set up to promote and facilitate the use of the national language. Fine. Second, it assumed a policing role. Many would argue that no language police anywhere in the world have succeeded in stalling natural evolution and progression. But, never mind. Then translation. It is arguable that the cost of translation would be too prohibitive for the private sector, and some sort of Government intervention would be beneficial, but one has only to visit Jakarta to see how dismally DBP has failed in this respect. Finally, and most controversially, publishing.
It started with literary journals and magazines, then general books and, eventually, school text books. One could argue that this made books cheap for the public. Yes, so cheap that it killed competition and the industry. It can be speculated (and argued) that with money (and time) being no object, and fuelled by hubris and incompetence, what incentive was there for the inevitable not to happened, for DBP to choke on its own bureaucracy. Rumours ran rife: manuscripts were not read, writers were not paid, retailers could no longer obtain their titles, creative staff was replaced with clerks and managers, and sales disappeared. (At Silverfish, we, have been trying to buy DBP books without success for years.)

So, now there is a lawsuit pending. It will be a soap opera, but will it solve anything? Probably not. Not until a thorough examination of DBP is undertaken, to root out the empire builders and go back to basics. And, stop competing with the private sector in publishing: if you are not going to be help, get out of the way. The Malay publishing industry deserves better.

But then, this is Malaysia. If a private company follows a policy for five years and sees no progress or returns, it makes drastic changes and heads roll. If a government organisation fails in a policy after fifty years, the whining starts: oh, fifty years is too short, its too early to say, let’s do it for another fifty.

In Frankfurt last year, I met a gentleman from the Presses Nationales Haiti who was trying to explain his ‘new’ venture, at a seminar organised by the Invitation Programme: to publish books cheaply and distributor it directly to the people. One of the participants asked, “How will the private publishers and bookshops survive then?” There was some huffing and puffing, but no answers. It sounded very DBP.

I hope he’s reading this. Good luck to you.

Innovative insults

2011-12-01T11:48:00.001+08:00

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?

An abstractionist n. is a pickpocket. Sounds like an artist. And why is Cakey-pannum fencer n. A street-seller of pastries, an insult? Don’t quite get that.

In Malay, kayu (timber) is a useful word to describe someone who is clueless. What if one comes across a room full of clueless people? We like the term rainforest for that: an entire forest of hardwood timber. One only has to walk into some government offices, banks or call to complain about your broadband to understand what that means. Variations of the term include sawmill and lumber yard. Other useful permutations include blur central or like sotong (cuttlefish).

Wired.com

Dawama sues DBP

2011-11-01T15:33:00.001+08:00

From The Malaysian Insider (TMI): Publishing firm Dawama Sdn Bhd is suing Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) and its director-general for defamation, following claims that the latter suggested on a radio show on 21 April 2011 that the company was mismanaged.

Dawama currently holds a 12-year contract to print and market DBP’s books and magazines until 2014.

At the end of July 2011, Dawama Sdn Bhd had asked all 400 staff to take no-pay leave before the start of Ramadan due to financial difficulties. It complained that DBP had caused the crisis in July when it took over the publication of textbooks for the 2012 school year without notice, and handed over printing and marketing rights to a third party, and appointed its own printer.

On 4 August, another TMI reported: “Dawama workers no-pay leave letters have been rescinded and they remain employees, said Human Resource Minister Datuk Dr S.Subramaniam today. The minister explained that Dawama after discussion with Manpower Department director-general, Datuk Sheikh Yahya Shaikh has backed down from the no-pay leave enforced since Monday and will pay each worker for 12 days per month until its dispute with Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) is resolved.

The Malaysian Insider

Frankfurt notes

2011-11-01T15:31:00.002+08:00

From Publishing Perspectives

"Start making everything you have as sharable and findable as possible; then people can talk about it. Then, if you are really awesome they may have a conversation with you.” Mitch Joel, keynote speaker at Tools of Change Frankfurt conference. Publishers Need to Engage With the Mobile Consumer.

... the rapidly aging population should present publishers with opportunities to sell to “those book-loving baby boomers who finally have the time to read.” Nielsen Reports Print Book Sales in Decline.

“We found out that the car manufacturers are in a similar situation as us,” explained Frankfurt Book Fair Director Juergen Boos. “As we go from print to digital publishing, the auto industry is experience similar disruption as they move from the petrol to electronic engine. We want to learn from their transformation, from their problem solving processes.” Driving Into the Future.

“There is an increasingly diverse media out there—things like Angry Birds.” Global Ranking: International CEO Panel at Frankfurt.

“Some years back I unthinkingly gave my support to the removal of all restrictions on the retail pricing of books. It was in retrospect a dreadful mistake. At one stroke the British publishing industry delivered itself into the hands of the mass-marketeers—and a death blow to the beleaguered independent bookseller.” Le Carré: Death Blow to Indie Booksellers.

His experience with foreign publishers has taught him that, “it’s better to go with small publishers who are truly dedicated.” Icelandic Author Sjón on Myths and Crackpot Theories.

“Man is a narrative animal.” Icelandic Author Sjón on Myths and Crackpot Theories.

News roundup

2011-11-01T15:30:00.000+08:00

Toasters, coffee machines and vacuum cleaners are all perfectly good things to buy on Amazon, the general manager of Toronto-based Kobo told us yesterday when we sat down with him for a product demo of the company’s latest e-reader tablet, but not books. Kobo GM: Why Buy Books From Amazon?

The corner bookstore is supposed to go extinct once Amazon takes over the world. If Borders — and even mighty Barnes & Noble's — couldn't fight off the behemoth, how would the lowly local shop even stand a chance? Used Book Stores Are In A Great Position To Benefit From The E-book Apocalypse.

Self-published authors frequently take the hit for poorly edited and badly formatted e-books. But the truth is, many of them are more careful about proofing their work than traditional publishers seem to be. Why Are E-books Filled With Errors?

Old people read faster than normal on an iPad, even though most claim to prefer 'real books', a study shows. German researchers discovered that people of different ages could read just as well from iPads and Kindles as they do from traditional books. In fact, old people read even faster using the the iPad as it made reading easier than both the Kindle and traditional book. Elderly people 'read iPads three times faster than normal books’.

Every book counts. Malaysia’s Silverfish Books.

Borders closes in Singapore

2011-10-01T10:58:00.001+08:00

Bookstore chain Borders closed its Parkway Parade branch, the last remaining outlet in Singapore, at 9pm on Monday, 26th September, according to The Straits Times.

“Borders put their goods on sale over the weekend in order to clear stock, and prices were slashed further on the last day of its operations, with items going for $1 a piece in the final hour.

“Books were not the only items for sale to the hundreds of shoppers who visited the store. Shelves, signs and computers at the cashiers' counters were also available for sale,” said the newspaper.

The Orchard Road store at Wheelock Place closed on the 16th of August. The final nail for the Parkway Parade outlet was driven on21st September when the US company terminated the right of Borders Singapore to use the brand name and gave it 90 days to cease all activities.

All this brings us back to Malaysia. While the bookstores themselves are not in the same danger of closing, there appears to be no reason why the US company will allow them to continue using the brand name. Maybe the letter has already been sent out. Let’s hold our breath and watch!

The Straits Times

What kind of bookshop do you like?

2011-10-01T10:56:00.002+08:00

Says Larry McMurtry in Business Week, “Neatness doesn’t count: Customers prefer stacks on the floor to books on the shelf.” Really? This has made me think of what I’d like in a bookshop.

Piles of books on the floor? No, I’m really not sure. You see, for one thing I would worry about tripping over and getting killed or, worse still, breaking something or, even worse, step on one of the books. (I still have that hang up from childhood, I’m afraid.) Books arranged neatly on the shelf vertically, give me a crick in the neck that can last for days. I prefer them stacked horizontally, which makes it easier to read the spine.

Categorisation and classification helps because I really don’t like to spend hours looking for what I want. So I hate big bookshops: those megastores bore the life out of me, and legs start to hurt. Medium to small is what I like best, say, with 3000 to 5000 titles, several of them, neatly arranged and displayed like the deserts at a deli that you promise yourself even before you order your main meal.

McMurtry says, “Some people don’t like too much order in bookshops and want to feel like they’re finding something. You can have 300,000 books perfectly arranged on the shelf, and every time, people will walk in and want to look at the books stacked up on the floor. So if you really want to sell something, jumble it up and pitch it on the floor.”

I suppose some people do like to pick things off the floor. But for me, the very thought of going through 300,000 books tires me out. I’d prefer to zoom in to the section they have my favourites and skip the rest. I love to browse. Few things give me a high better than book discovery, but I prefer my books to be arranged, though not all in a straight line like policemen on parade. Some creativity would be nice.

The comments are mixed. Some people do like to pick books right out of the boxes, but I prefer some order.

Business Week

How to furnish a room without books

2011-10-01T10:51:00.000+08:00

When you walk into a person’s house for the first time and see a plasma TV, you know what the conversation is not going to be about: Milan Kundera’s latest book of essays. When you see a bookshelf in a corner or a stack of books under the glass of the coffee table, you would sneak a peek at the spines before picking a topic, or not. A room full of books, a proper library would establish the class by itself.

But in the age of e-books, you could be in a pickle. A new Harris Interactive survey finds, first, 15% of Americans now use an e-reading device, up from 8% one year ago, and one in six other Americans plan to buy one in the next six months. Second, those with e-readers read more books. Third, those with e-readers buy more books.

All this is bad news for the furnishing industry -- Ikea’s entire range of bookshelves will become redundant -- and we will all need to learn new social skills – when you have a full library all you need to do is to keep the door slightly ajar so your guest can peek into it on the way to the kitchen, or bathroom, or wherever, to take up class positions. “Most of them are my husband’s – he’s such a reader, you know – but many of them, I confess, are mine. I tell him they’re his; he’s got so many he wouldn’t know. Ha ha. But I do love the classics.”

What, if anything, can you do with a Kindle? How does one brag?

“Denuded of books, all that wall space presents a fresh canvas on which to express yourself,” says Harry de Quetteville in The Telegraph. Wallpapers are making a return. What would one put in the toilet for guests to read? What would one do with the room one uses as a study, the library? Put in a pool table perhaps. If you have the money, why not make it an art gallery? But the most difficult part, I think, will be giving the home the lived-in look. Books can be strewn about on any horizontal surface, even the stairs. What can we toss around to give our home that classy-cluttered look?

The Telegraph

DRAMATIC WORKSHOP

2011-09-06T15:31:00.000+08:00

OVERVIEW: A workshop to help participants grasp what it takes to write a play, and how dramatic writing can be applied to other uses. It will be interactive and conducted over two days during which participants are expected to take part in writing exercises and discussions. At the end of it, they would have written at least a 10-minute play. They will also experience the sensation of having their plays read out in class. Participants are encouraged to come with an appetite for fun, sharing and learning.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: By the end of this course, you’d be able to:

* Read and understand plays better
* Write short sketches and longer plays
* Employ the techniques of playwriting not just for writing plays but for any other purposes that make use of drama to communicate, e.g. event launches, radio advertisements

TRAINING OBJECTIVES: Gain understanding of what goes into the writing of a play:

* Grasp the basic ingredients of a play
* Appreciate plays through reading them
* Learn that the basis of drama is conflict
* Learn about crisis, complications, rising action, inciting incident, point of attack, climax, resolution, denouement
* Learn how to plot a play
* Learn how to construct characters
* Learn how to write dialogue
* Learn how to write a 10-minute play
* How do you sell your play?
* Find out the uses of drama and its applications in everyday life and work

WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
* Students who want to learn more about plays and playwriting
* Professionals in the creative industry who use drama in the course of their work, e.g. advertising copywriters
* Those who aspire to become professional writers
* Those who have ambitions of becoming playwrights
* Arts lovers

TRAINER’S BIODATA: As a playwright, Kee Thuan Chye is best known for 1984 Here and Now and We Could **** You, Mr Birch. The former is included in the international anthology Postcolonial Plays published by Routledge UK. We Could **** You, Mr Birch is a text studied in Malaysian universities.
Another play, The Big Purge, was featured in Typhoon 4, a playreading festival in London held in 2005. All three plays are published by Marshall Cavendish.
Another play, The Swordfish, Then the Concubine, came out among the top 5 in the International Playwriting Festival 2006, organised by Warehouse Theatre, UK.
It premiered on stage in 2008 as the opening play of the Singapore Theatre Festival, directed by leading Singapore stage director Ivan Heng. In January 2011, it was restaged in Singapore by Young ’n’ Wild.
Kee has also written numerous radio plays many of which were broadcast on RTM in the 1970s.
He has also directed about a dozen plays for the theatre.
As an actor, his acting credits over the last 30 years include speaking roles in the films Entrapment and Anna and the King. Other international productions he has acted in include the Hallmark TV-movie Marco Polo and Secrets of the Forbidden City for the BBC and the History Channel.
He played Tan Cheng Lock in Shuhaimi Baba’s film 1957 Hati Malaya, and was in the main cast of the film Sell Out!, directed by Yeo Joon Han, which won an award at the 2008 Venice Film Festival (Critics’ Week).
On Malaysian TV, he was the regular character Han Lee in the long-running series City of the Rich. He has also appeared in guest roles in the series Kopitiam, Each Other, Impian Ilyana, Realiti, Gol & Gincu II and Bilik No. 13. His latest role is as the villain in the TV series 10 (Sepuluh).
He has also appeared in numerous TV series and TV-movies in Singapore, including Phua Chu Kang, Perceptions and Sense of Home: Kampung Kid.

KEE THUAN CHYE’S APPROACH
He tells it like it is. He will point out your mistakes, and suggest remedies. He doesn’t mince his words or try to give you a false sense of security.
He treats everyone the same, be they royalty or peasant. He has no time for titles.
He encourages everyone to speak freely on any subject. And also to challenge him on whatever he says. He only expects you to be honest.

COURSE OUTLINE
This outline is subject to change according to the trainer’s discretion.
These issues will be addressed, accompanied by writing and other exercises:
Types of plays and staging styles.
What is a play made of?
The basis of drama is Conflict.
The playwright’s vision.
How to write believable characters.
How to write snappy dialogue.
How to tap your imagination for ideas.
The 3-Act Structure.
How to write a 10-minute play.
How to write a sketch.
How to write a 30-second radio advertisement.

Please email Kee Thuan Chye directly for more information and registration.

News: The novel dies again

Neil Cross says in his Soap Box story: what is the point of the novel? He starts, "All the important things I know, I learned from novels. I learned about hate and love, about poverty and wealth, about idleness and about the workplace. I learned about the infinities of space and about ugly, windswept houses on Yorkshire moors. I learned what it was like to work in a blacking factory, to fight in the Korean War, to be part of a race gang in pre-war Brighton and to be a spy in Cold War London. I earned how to trick my friends into whitewashing a fence."

So have we, so have we. But I get confused when he says, "... To a contemporary teenager, a world without Facebook is like a world without running water." What? Is King Lear less relevant because his three daughters didn't have access to Facebook? I don't get it. He says that Jonathan Franzen's Corrections was published before the (now) ubiquitous iPod and how, "... the world has always been in flux, but the rate of change
has become such that novelists are struggling to keep up ..." and "... Suddenly, all novels are historical novels." Is keeping up with technology the only preoccupation of the novelist?

But when he says, "'The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life,' said Henry James. I don’t believe he was right; I believe he was talking about what became known as the ‘literary novel’, a tyrannically illustrious genre in the process of becoming redundant." Ah, so that's the beast Neil Cross wants to slay. At this point, I am thinking, 'Yes, that is an unruly monster that one doesn't quite now weather to love or hate, a moster created and nurtured by the Anglophone world and dwells almost entirely in it.' I cannot disagree with what "... Walter Scott called ‘the land of fiction’ – the artistic conventions of storytelling and the creation of myth ..." It is something that has facinates me -- storytelling and the creation of myths, which is the basis of Silverfish publishing. Niel Cross concludes, "Scott’s ‘land of fiction’ may represent both the novel’s deepest, truest form, and the shape of its future ... I kind of hope so."

Read the entire story here: http://alturl.com/t422c

News: Collateral damage

A Telegraph report says, "Heavy discounting by supermarkets, the rise of internet retailers and the growing popularity of e-readers such as the Kindle have forced nearly 2,000 bookshops to close since 2005 ... There were 2,178 high street bookshops left in Britain in July, according to research carried out by Experian, the data company, compared with 4,000 in 2005. A total of 580 towns do not have a single bookshop."

Dawama staff on no-pay leave

2011-08-03T14:33:00.004+08:00

A story in The Malaysian Insider says, “Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) printer, Dawama Sdn Bhd, has asked all 400 staff to take no-pay leave starting tomorrow due to financial difficulties.

It is understood that Dawama blames its ongoing school textbooks dispute with DBP, an agency under the Education Minister, for its predicament.”

Ramadan has just started, and Dawama wants its staff to take leave without pay? That's evil.

Dawama Workers Association president, Zainal Awit, is surprised to hear of the printer’s financial woes as the company was supposed to make a profit of up to RM60 million every year. He is quoted: “Dawama prints and distributes textbooks, books and magazines, where it’s not supposed to make a loss. But we understand that it... cannot even buy paper (now).”

DBP signed a 12-year contract with Dawama in 2002 to print and distribute its books, magazines and journals.

In a meeting with a former Director General of DBP (and some board members) a few year ago, I was asked if Silverfish would be willing to carry their titles. I said, we’d be ecstatic, but we couldn’t find any. Who were their distributors? Subsequently, we had a visit from a gentleman who said he was from Dawama, who promised to send us some catalogues. We never heard from him again.

It is not surprising that DBP is mad at Dawama. How many bookshops are there in Klang Valley that carry DBP books (besides the dictionary)? After taking the trouble to publish the books, one would think, DBP would expect to see them out in the market (for whatever it’s worth). Silverfish Books, for one, would be interested in the DBP backlist.

The problem is the lucrative school textbook largesse worth millions, which the rest of us minions are shut out from. Why would any printer, bestowed with such a bountiful concession even bother with any of the (slow moving) other titles, or even turn up for work?

Now, the workers are appealing to the Deputy Prime Minister to help solve the issue. How Malaysian can you get?

Latest -- 4 Aug 2011: According to The Malaysian Insider: "Dawama workers no-pay leave letters have been rescinded and they remain employees, said Human Resource Minister Datuk Dr S.Subramaniam today."

A bookless library

2011-08-03T14:32:00.000+08:00

It is a day I have dreaded, and it is here. “At Drexel University's new Library Learning Terrace, which opened just last month, there is nary a bound volume, just rows of computers and plenty of seating, offering access to the Philadelphia University's 170 million electronic items.”

I have not dreaded it because I am a luddite or I am anti-technology. Far from it. Anyone who knows me knows how I embrace the latest in gadgetry. The problem is with technology in the hands of people who have no idea of its limitations who are simply overwhelmed by the slick and shine. (I appreciate what an iPhone does and hugely admire its engineering and design -- my son has it, but I do not own one because I have no use for it.)

I am not mushy and sentimental about the smell of books and its tactile qualities. Those can be easily replaced with an odourant spray. I object to the devaluation of the serendipitous nature of knowledge and the glorious moment when it reveals itself to you from the most unlikely places; from books.

How does one use Google, for instance. Google is a great tool to look for stuff if you know what you are looking for. Same with Amazon. Knowledge and wisdom are far more omnipresent and subtle. We (or, at least, I) absorb through a process almost akin to osmosis -- from the surroundings, from books; in moments of lucidity and semi-consciousness.

I will not be surprised if one of the local universities decide to embark on a similar project. It would look cool, certainly and, besides, the largest roti canai in the world has already been made and eaten. I suppose, one could seek solace in the fact that, at least, they will no longer be throwing out precious hundred-year-old collections because no one is checking them out as frequently as Da Vinci Code (a major literary canon, no doubt). But then, there is always the delete key.

Qin Shih Huang, roll over in your grave and eat your heart out. Here comes a new generation of book burners.

TIME

New independent bookshop in London

2011-08-03T14:30:00.000+08:00

It used to be that only the opening of yet another humungous mega book store was news worthy. Maclehose Press reports: “Wonderful news for all devotees of translated fiction: independent publisher Gallic Books is to open a new bookshop on Ebury Street, SW1, that will specialise in translated fiction and stocking the books of fellow independent publishers.”

In its press release, Belgravia Books (address:51 Ebury Street, London SW1) aims to be a local bookshop with “home and workplace delivery, an interactive website, free teas and coffees and a vigorous events programme with reading groups and involvement with schools a key focus. They also aim to hold book launches, discussions, children’s readings, workshops and author signing evenings. Ironically, one of the opening discussions will be entitled ‘The Death of the Bookshop’.”

They do have a sense of humour. (The promised, interactive website is not online, yet.) Publisher Gallic Books specialises in translations of the best French works into English.

Jane Aitken, Founder and MD of Gallic Books says, "We are so excited to be realising our long-held dream of opening a bookshop. We want Belgravia Books to become an integral and active part of the local community, and the Big Green Bookshop, itself a model of local bookselling, has been more than generous in sharing ideas with us. We also have the benefit of the combined skill and expertise of Operations Director, Alison Savage and Head of Sales, Guy Ramage, both former Borders managers, to help guide our way. Alison Savage, will take on the role of Belgravia Books Manager."

The next time I am in London, I know who I’ll be visiting.

Silverfish Writing Programme - next intake

2011-06-03T12:54:00.001+08:00

We last ran this programme in January this year to a full house. To those who have been writing to us to inquire about our next intake (and there have been quite a few of you), please note that the next programme will begin on Saturday, 16th July 2011, at Silverfish Books' new premises at 28-1, Jalan Telawi, Bangsar (a few shops up from where we currently are) and will be limited to 10 participants.

The proof of a writing programme (or any other) is in the results. The aim is to discover serious writers, not those looking for magic solutions or pills. Not everyone will be interested in getting published (a surprising many aren't) but most are interested in writing well, be it for pleasure, to entertain friends or even therapy -- fiction or non-fiction. Writing is hard work, but there is a method to the madness. We prefer not to call it a creative writing course for a reason; we do not believe that's what it’s all about. It is about telling stories in written form, about engaging your reader and about being relevant. There is absolutely no reason an author living in Malaysia cannot be world class, as Shih-Li Kow (Ripples) and Rozlan Mohd Noor (21 Immortals) have proved.

Registration (with full payment) can be done either in person at the current Silverfish Books premises on Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru, Kuala Lumpur, or online at our website. (There is a link on the home page, http://www.silverfishbooks.com.) Fees for the entire ten-week programme will be RM1000.00, but there will be 10% early-bird discount for those who register before the 1st of July 2011. Please bring a laptop if you have one, and if you find it easier to write on it. Otherwise, simply bring a good pen.

Read more about the programme ...

Silverfish Writing Programme

Silverfish titles now available for Kindle, Nook

2011-06-03T12:41:00.003+08:00

Checked yesterday, and found that several titles published by Silverfish Books are now available for e-book downloads for the Kindle and the Nook. (We are not handling it, BookCyclone.com is.) We are starting with ten titles (two of which are yet to be uploaded), but we would like to put our entire catalogue up.

It has been (and continues to be) an interesting learning curve for us. First, in case there is any confusion, we are not anti-technology -- we have always embraced it. We see the e-book as the future, but despite the many Chicken Littles running around (mainly in the media) we don’t think the time of the dead tree edition is over, and is not going to be anytime soon. We believe the two will continue to coexist as the e-book evolves.

Second, the production of the e-book is quite different from the conventional form. In the case of the latter, we go into quite a bit of trouble in choosing the paper, the fonts, the page layout (with attention to spacing, kerning, orphans and widows), print quality and the overall look and feel for a beautiful product. In the case of e-books, conversion starts with a ‘Word’ document, with everything simply slapped on. People are right about that tactile thing. The e-book is closer to a nasi campur (a takeaway meal) that is convenient and does the job, while the dead tree book is like dining in a restaurant. So, I am guessing, both will continue to exist, just as McDonald’s hasn’t killed more sophisticated eateries yet.

Still, we are excited by the brave new world. You will find the following e-books at the Kindle and Nook stores:

1.    News from Home by Chuah Kok Yee, Shih-Li Kow and Rumaizah Abu Bakar (USD 7.99)
2.    Tanah Tujuh: Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos by Antares (USD 7.99)
3.    Ripples and other stories by Shih-Li Kow (Frank O’Connor shortlist, 2009) (USD7.99)
4.    Tales from the Court and other stories by Matthew Thomas (USD7.99)
5.    21 Immortals by Rozlan Mohd Noor (Commonwealth Prize shortlist, 2011) (USD 8.99)
6.    I am Muslim by Dina Zaman (USD 7.99)
7.    From Inderapura to Darul Makmur: A History of Pahang by Farish A Noor (USD 9.49)
8.    Qur'an and Cricket by Farish A Noor (USD9.99)

These two should be up soon:
9.    Without Anchovies by Chua Kok Yee
10. The Female Cell by Rumaizah Abu Bakar

The prices for the e-book editions are lower than for the print ones due to some savings (mainly from distribution). Also, some pictures have been dropped for technical reasons without reducing the value. Some books have also been re-edited to make it friendlier for international readers. Click here to see the list as it would appear in the US on Amazon. For other regions, go to the Amazon home page, select Kindle eBooks (under Books) and search for Silverfish. For the Nook, for now you will have to search for individual titles (because the ‘Silverfish’ meta tag has yet to be uploaded. It will be soon.

Other formats to be supported soon are: Omnilit, Kobo, Weightless Books, Xin Xii and Google Editions. Currently, the Silverfish e-book titles are available on BookCyclone which features many interesting Asian titles.

Silverfish is moving

2011-06-03T12:40:00.002+08:00

Yes, that’s right. After almost four years at the present premises, we are moving to 28-1 Jalan Telawi, just 15 shops up the road from where we are now, because the landlord wants to raise the rent. Unfortunately, it’s a bit too high for us, so we are leaving.

The new shophouse is only two stories, so there is no fear of another dance studio pounding us daily or smoking us out with incense. I think it has a nicer ambience and a little more space.

We will have a party not long after we open, so put yourself on our mailing list (if you are not already on it) and you will be invited. It will coincide with our 12th anniversary. (That’s a scary thought: we have been in business for twelve years; we are almost an institution!)

Look at the photograph with this story. That’s what we looked like when we first opened in 1999 in Taman Seri Hartamas.

200 million people in the US want to publish

2011-06-03T12:38:00.002+08:00

This story in Publishing Perspectives by Justine Tal Goldberg says about 200 million Americans (81% of the population) aspire to become published authors. He also says that self-published authors now outnumber traditionally published ones 2:1.

Unfortunately, most wannabe authors didn’t take their craft seriously enough to attend the Independent Book Publishers Association’s 27th Annual Publishing University, a concurrent event with BookExpo America at New York City’s Javits Center organised to help self-publishers.

“There are so many of us humans who are ready to self-publish or publish with little or no more thought than we would give to having a meal at a fancy restaurant,” says Cynthia Frank, independent press publishing consultant and publisher at Cypress House.

“Self-published books are almost uniformly badly published,” says Deb Werksman, acquiring editor and editorial manager for Sourcebooks, the largest women-owned independent publishing house in the country.

Malaysia, anyone?

Kulit Manis wins world cookbook award

2011-04-30T14:44:00.002+08:00

‘It was the biggest and perhaps most glamorous Gourmand World Cookbook Awards Gala ever: 1,250 guests attended the ceremony in the worldwide known theater of the Folies Bergère in Paris on March 3,’ says the website. And Kulit Manis: a taste of Trengganu’s Heritage was judged the best in the world in the WORLD CUISINE: LOCAL category. (I can feel my mouth watering already.)

Kulit Manis: A Taste of Terengganu's Heritage, is an unusual cookbook in that it is a 252 page literary 'heirloom'. Kulit Manis is a labour of love, a painstaking journey which reconnects the author, To' Puan Rosita, to her beloved state. Indeed, the author discovered many things that she had forgotten or never knew about Terengganu.

Kulit Manis takes a look at Terengganu's heritage from its culinary history. It delights readers with anecdotes and stories on personalities behind the recipes. It is a respectful appreciation of history, culture, places, nature and the citizens of Terengganu. The eighty-eight recipes in the book represent the true flavour of Terengganu; be it Malay, Chinese or Indian, or an amalgamation of all the three cultures. The recipes are unusual in that most of them require the chef to be instinctive: most have no precise measurements -- with a pinch of this and a dash of that. But they are all works of love.

The beautiful and energetic To' Puan Rosita Abdullah is as keen and passionate about cooking, as she is excited about Terengganu's heritage and culture.

Kulit Manis took three years to complete, juggling her roles as a housewife and mother, and interviewing strangers for recipes and history. She made many friends as she discovered new secrets about her home state. And the more she learned, the more she loved Terengganu.

Buy book

Exploding the myths of the information age

2011-04-30T14:42:00.002+08:00

Robert Darnton writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education, ‘Confusion about the nature of the so-called information age has led to a state of collective false consciousness. It's no one's fault but everyone's problem ...’

I agree about the false consciousness bit but I’m not sure about that its no one’s fault? I’d blame the combination of a hyperactive ‘chicken little’ media that blows everything out of proportion, even non-news, confusing themselves and everyone else in the process, and a hyper-secretive geekdom that protects its knowledge as witches and wizards would their magic spells. IT has now become the ‘new magic’ in the hands of new high priests and priestesses. Still, Darntons story is worth a read. (Whether you agree is different matter.)

The first myth he explodes is about the book being dead. ‘Wrong,’ he says. ‘More books are produced in print each year than in the previous year. One million new titles will appear worldwide in 2011. In one day in Britain—"Super Thursday," last October 1—800 new works were published.’ One may well ask, how many of those could have been shelved to save some trees?

Second: ‘We have entered the information age. This announcement is usually intoned solemnly, as if information did not exist in other ages.’ I can certainly agree with this one.

Third: ‘All information is now available online.’ Certainly not. I with Durston on this, too.

Fourth: ‘Libraries are obsolete.’ Malaysian ones are, but not because they are redundant.

Fifth: ‘The future is digital.’ Yes, I agree with Durston. It is mostly media hype, it's chicken little all over again. Besides it makes good copies.

Robert Darnton is a professor and university librarian at Harvard University.

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Read More:

Is multitasking harder for seniors?

2011-04-30T14:40:00.002+08:00

A story in Wired.com says, ‘A new comparison of brain activity in young and elderly multitaskers suggests an unexpected explanation for why older people frequently lose their trains of thought, and have more trouble juggling multiple tasks.’

I don’t know if I should feel relieved or insulted. Actually, I have always been this way: unable to multitask. I am normally so focussed on what I am doing that, I can forget the rest of the world exists. So if I try to do two things, I will mess one up. Maybe, I was born with an old brain.

‘In neuroscientific parlance, they (the oldies) experience “an interruption recovery failure, manifest as a deficient ability to dynamically switch between functional brain networks,” wrote the authors of the study, published Apr. 12 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.’

Sorry, catch no ball! All I know is that I don’t multitask. I know many who do, like chat on Yahoo messenger while doing something else. Me, I can’t and I find it annoying. I don’t like to be distracted when I am in full flow. That’s why I don’t even own a mobile telephone (the ringing will make me jump, irritate me and it will take me a while to get back to work) or wear a wristwatch (I like to be unconscious of time when I am working). Maybe, I am an extremist.

You can read all about it by following the link below.

Read More

E-book consumption pattern

2011-04-04T18:12:00.002+08:00

When I read this story by Cyndy Aleo in Bloomberg.com, I laughed out loud. She quotes Marc Parrish of Barnes and Noble who says, " Readers tend toward a favorite author, category, personal recommendations, or flap text."

Duh! He didn't know that? And he is a vice president of Barnes and Noble!

Writes Mike Shatzkin for the Idea Logical Company, "In theory, the more books are sold online the more sales should move to the long tail. Online bookstores have the advantage of “unlimited shelf space”. Nothing has to be left out of the assortment because of constraints on capital to stock inventory or room to hold it ... But it doesn’t seem to be working out that way ... it would appear that e-book sales are even more concentrated across a smaller title band than print."

Why did anyone think that e-book consumption patterns would be any different from print books?

I found another story; more interesting reading: Eric Landes writes in The Digital Reader about the Amazon bestseller list, "In the top 20, there are 9 books priced at $1 or less, and 4 priced over $10." This is brilliant! The 'Big 6' publishers who used to dominate these list should, certainly, be worried. Adds Landes, "If they can’t get their books onto bestseller lists, they’re losing both marketing cred and a tool that might generate further sales. Those lists are also very effective free publicity."

Now, that is a changing pattern of consumption. Are e-book downloads moving towards bestsellers, or are they recreating the bestseller list?

In other news in the Irish Times, Mills and Boons is going into e-books.

And in yet another story in the New York Times, Amanda Hocking, the self-published e-book darling has sold her next two books to St. Martin’s Press, part of Macmillan, for more than USD 2 million for the world English rights to “Watersong” a young adult paranormal series.

Read More

Making books, the way it was

2011-04-04T17:52:00.000+08:00

Saw this video on Huffington Post. This is how they used to make books in 1947. Watch it, its great.

Read More

Publishing industry in Japan hit by earthquake

2011-04-04T17:49:00.000+08:00

In an open letter 'To All International Friends in the Publishing Community', the president of the Japan Book Publishing Association, Masahiro Oga, says, "First of all, I would like to thank you all for deeply-appreciated message of condolence and sympathy to us since the disaster took place on Friday, March 11. According the Meteorological Agency, the earthquake which hit northern part of Honshu Island was magnitude of 9.0 that was the strongest in the Japanese history."

He adds, "The business is almost normal at Japan Book Publishers Association and most of publishers in Tokyo. However it is certain that this Tohoku Kanto Big Earth Quake have caused serious damage in the publishing industry. Firstly, some paper-manufacturing companies in Tohoku area, which produce about 40% of publication paper, have suffered grave damage, so publishing paper is going to be in short supply. Secondly, due to the fuel shortage, the distributors have decided to deliver books and magazines to each books shops all over the country every second day, which is every day on a normal basis. It must have a direct impact on the distribution of books and magazines. This serious distribution problem has occurred for the first time since the Second World War. It will take a long time to re-establish the afflicted area and to resolve the fuel shortage. Thirdly, some book shops off the shore of Tohoku Area have suffered serious damage from a Tsunami. Other many books shops not just in the Tohoku area have also have suffered severe damage whose books have fallen and gotten wet with a running sprinkler. Fourthly, some of land routes in Tohoku area were cut off. And we can not assume anything about when the distribution in Tohoku area will be restored."

Read more

Sleepless nights

2011-03-04T17:41:00.003+08:00

Inbali Iserles writes in The Independent: Vampires and their demonic counterparts accounted for a quarter of the top-20 fiction sales for children, and 18 out of 20 for young adults in January 2011, according to The Bookseller.

She quotes Mary Hoffman, the author of the bestselling Stravaganza series: "[The new horror is] the worst kind of Mills & Boon stuff. Especially when it takes the form of disguised propaganda against pre-marital sex." (Stephenie Meyer, the author of Twilight, is a famously abstemious Mormon.) "Males as dangerous, females as victims or prey: what kind of message is that for young women?"

When I was fourteen, I remember being sleepless for weeks after reading Bram Stoker's Dracula and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. (I simply couldn't get into Edgar Alan Poe at that age). Though both were not exactly YA fiction, I was way past the 'furry animals' stage. We had children's fiction then, and adult's fiction. Very few books came into the YA category. So, those of us who read graduated to adult fiction relatively early.

Iserles continues: 'The worldwide popularity of the Twilight series undoubtedly inspired ghoulish copycats to climb out of their coffins and on to the shelves. But is there more to it than that? If books offer a mirror to our world, what does the current popularity of horror and dystopia tell us?'
She quotes Hoffman again: "We are living in a particularly depressing world at present – recession, wars, terrorism, climate change – and teenagers have always been sensitive to the mess the previous generation has made."

Huh? When did ghost stories ever die? Have Iserles and Hoffman never been camping? Teenagers have always liked to scare themselves silly.

The Independent

Boutique bookselling

2011-03-04T17:41:00.000+08:00

I have some customers who refuse discounts Silverfish offers on the basis that 'big bookstores don't give any discount, why should you?' These are generally old friends (although some 'old friends' expect special privileges and discounts on account of being our cronies), or the 'self-avowed friends of independents' whom we love. Otherwise, most Silverfish customers -- regardless of income level -- do enjoy our discounts (with some even demanding it). The entire book industry is plagued by discounting, and is one of the main reasons for its imminent collapse.

So, I was more than a little intrigued by the story on Publisher's Weekly, Bookmarc: Bookstore as luxury brand. Are customer's willing to pay more for a book from a luxury outlet? Write Judith Rosen & Wendy Werris for Publisher's Weekly: " Books as lifestyle is evident in the juxtaposition of books and other merchandise at Bookmarc. Nonbook items include hand-embroidered canvas book clutches made by Olympia Le-Tan in Paris, which feature covers of classic American novels like John Steinbeck’s The Pearl and Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, and MJ-branded journals and notepads titled Huckleberry Finn Is My Homeboy or As I Lay Tanning. There are also paperbacks and hardcovers aplenty, especially by and about rock-and-roll stars, the 1960s cultural revolution, erotica, fashion, art, photography, and history, as well as memoirs, rare books, and even self-published titles from Blurb. Prices also tend to be eclectic, from $1,500 for a book-clutch to $1.50 for an MJ condom."

Ah, so that explains it. So, books become loss leaders once more. Or, in other words, the only way forward for a bookshop is to sell non-book items. Interesting.

Publisher's Weekly

Book piracy in India

2011-03-04T17:39:00.001+08:00

Ritwik Mukherjee writes in the Financial Chronicle that, " ... one-fourth of India’s total book market (which is estimated to be between Rs 5000 and Rs 7000 crore, except educational and text books) is dominated by pirated books. That’s what publishers and digital book sellers estimate." (That would be one quarter of between 1.0 and 1.5 billion USD, if my maths is right.)

That is about right, isn't it? India is, probably, the only country in the world where one can find books sold along pavements and bazaars. Though many of them are 'best sellers', I have been surprised at the number of 'serious' titles I have seen by the roadside. Many are books one will not find even on Amazon! One wonders what their production cost is: next to nothing? (A local writer once said that he would be flattered if anyone pirated his book.)

But with the digital age upon us, piracy in India must be even simpler. Online booksellers in the India sell over 10,000 books daily, worth an estimated Rs 100 crores (USD25 million). But even more exciting is the e-book sales, which has been described as phenomenal, growing at a rate of 50 to 70% annually.

Rahul Sethi, president, of e-commerce, ibibo Web, which owns Tradus.in, India’s fastest growing online shopping portal with special focus on books, says: "With piracy swelling up, publishers will be increasingly turning towards the online digital medium for the sale of their books."

That is strange. Wouldn't it be much easier to rip off digital books?

Financial Chronicle

Reality is broken

2011-02-07T15:54:00.000+08:00

Jane McGonigal Thinks Reality is Broken, and She Wants to Fix It, according to this story by Michael Anderson in the Wired magazine. He says:

"McGonigal’s new book, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make us Better and How they Can Change the World, hits bookstores (in the US) on Jan. 20, and expands upon the central point of her presentations: reality is broken, because games do a better job of making us happy. Rather than attacking games as an escapist outlet for avoiding real-world troubles, why don’t we subvert those game mechanics to make the world a better place?"

I am not a 'gamer' in the hardcore sense of the word. I play Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Bubble Ball on my iPad and iPod Touch for a few minutes daily. I am not obsessed with them, although winning a 'level' does make me feel good. I don't like to tax my brain too much after a long day, nor do I care much for 'bang-bang-bang', 'shoot-shoot-shoot' games. To each his own, I guess. Building cities and farms and what-have-you, don't excite me either. I cannot see the point.

Anderson says: " The book is structured in three sections: The first delves into what makes us happy, the second embraces the notion of entering alternate realities, and the third addresses the challenges and potential embodied in massive collaborative projects."

Fiction makes me happy. It embraces the notion of alternate reality like nothing else does. But I am still grappling with the part about, 'addresses the challenges and potential embodied in massive collaborative projects.' Sometimes I see it, sometimes I don't. For me, fiction is the greatest game of all. I would love get my hands on that book, though.

Wired magazine

Bedtime reading

2011-02-07T15:30:00.002+08:00

Read this on Galleycat: Author Sean Cummings has started a Facebook group with a practical way to save publishing. Cummings theorized that the industry could be salvaged if everyone made a habit of reading ten minutes before bedtime.

I have browsed through his Facebook and also his website, and came up with this: "Do you believe in the power of the written word? Human beings have been reading in some form or another for the better part of the last five thousand years. Books are snapshots of our times, they're a window into the world we live in, and they represent a living record of humanity's journey through the ages. Books have the power to give meaning to our life and times, and they endure. Technology has shaped the written word, and it's ironic that while technology gave the power of reading to the masses, it also threatens the viability of an entire industry and the lives who those who eke out a meager living from the solitary pursuit of writing.

Recent years have seen the publishing industry (books, magazines, newspapers) face immense pressures. Independent book stores are closing, advances on royalties for debut authors are declining, publishers are going bankrupt, and at the heart of this is the fact that fewer people are reading."

I don't know about saving the publishing industry (I feel it needs to be saved more from itself by, first, giving it back to people who know and care about it), but it looks pretty cool. Check it out.

The Galleycat

Does anyone read book reviews anymore?

2011-02-07T14:57:00.000+08:00

I was a little surprised when I read this story by Anis Shivani in The Huffington Post recently, because I thought I was the only one who didn't. Yes, confession: I seldom read book reviews, and I haven't read one for a while. Why? Well, for one thing I'd rather judge a book by its cover (and its first page). Second, I receive good recommendations from friends. Third, I am sort of adventurous; I like to try out new stuff. And fourth, well-written reviews are a joy to read, but have become increasingly difficult to find.

Still, there are some people who come into Silverfish Books looking for titles, with cutouts of book reviews from the local dailies (many completely out of date).

Anis Shivani asked several American critics, "How can book reviewing be relevant to the new generation of readers?" Here are some responses (extracts only):

Jay Pirani, author: Today the newspapers print badly argued, often showy, and usually brief takes on a book. The quality of a reviewer's prose, and the quality of sympathy brought to the book itself, seems not to matter, to editors or readers.

Ron Charles, Washington Post: Get over it: They (the new generation) don't subscribe to newspapers, and they're not going to.

Steven G. Kellman, book critic: Accuracy and honesty remain urgent.

Kelly Cherry, author: The Internet is commodious but for that very reason tends to collapse into fiefdoms. How much do Internet reviews really affect readers' choices?

Read more

The Huffington Post

Silverfish: Book Bug Bargains are back

2011-01-04T17:51:00.002+08:00

We have acquired about a thousand books in 300 titles which we are selling at 20% to 75% off the publishers RRP. Many you will not find in other bookshops in Klang Valley. You know what warehouse and bargain-book sales are like: garbage dumps. One has to practically pick through trash to find some gems. But not at Silverfish Books because all titles are individually chosen. Click on the image to see the poster. You can also follow the link at the bottom of this post to view a list.

When Silverfish Books opened in Desa Sri Hartamas in 1999, life was simple: we were a bookshop with a selection of titles at friendly prices for the discerning reader that were not available in any other bookshop in KL at the time. (Only Skoob in Brickfields offered a similar range.) We were an independent bookshop, period. Then, things started getting complicated.

MPH Mid-valley opened a humungous store about nine months after we started business. With their deep pockets, they were able to order every title on every publisher’s list, whether they understood what they were buying or not. Other similar megastores mushroomed in every corner of KL and PJ, and every new mall in Klang Valley wanted one of their own. We had more mega bookstores here than in Singapore.

Our sales were seriously affected, but we survived the onslaught, though barely. We had a loyal group of customers who kept us afloat. We also decided to specialise in Malaysian titles. Publishing was a happy distraction, and another source of steady income.

But, the industry is changing again, as it was bound to. One can defy gravity only for so long. It started in UK with Borders going bust. (Borders sold their Australia/Singapore operations before that.) Waterstones is not very healthy either. In the US, Borders is heading towards its final chapters, and the closure of 676 bookstores owned by the chain looks imminent, and last time we heard Barnes and Noble is up for sale, too.

Can the Malaysian book industry remain unaffected by this turmoil? There already appears to be a trend towards smaller bookstores. How many of the ‘big boys’ will survive?

Now, we can go back to what we used to do: sell good books at good prices to readers who like good books.

List price

Figment.com

2011-01-04T17:48:00.002+08:00

It says on the homepage of Figment.com that: Figment is a community where you can share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors. Whatever you're into, from sonnets to mysteries, from sci-fi stories to cell phone novels, you can find it all here.

Jacob Lewis, who helped create the the website with Dana Goodyear of The New Yorker, sees it as a ‘sort of literary Facebook for the teenage set’. ‘We’ll be the social network for young-adult fiction,’ ” he says. “But, it became clear early on that people didn’t want a new Facebook.”

The New York Times report says that, the young people on the site weren’t much interested in “friending” one another. What they did want, he said, “was but to read, write and discover new content."

Interesting. You didn’t know that about teenagers, did you?

Figment.com is an experiment in online literature, a free platform for young people to read and write fiction, on their computers or their cellphones. Users are invited to write novels, short stories and poems, collaborate with other writers and give and receive feedback on works posted on the site.

Read more

New York Times

Fidgetal (or the revenge of the luddites).

2011-01-04T17:47:00.000+08:00

Fidgetal - modern technology whose primary purpose is to give people something to do with their fingers.

A BBC magazine report says: “Technology, and the hype that surrounds it, is changing the way we speak. But we don't have to turn into drones, all spouting the latest i-word. Chris Bowlby says it's time for the techno-bullied to fight back with their own subversive speak.”

So, we witness the birth of anti-technological words: Here is a sample:

Wikisqueak - sound emitted by diplomat who realises she's sent confidential telegram without proper encryption

Dreadsheet - spreadsheet containing very bad financial news

Mobile drone - lover of interminable tedious and public phone conversations

Powerpointless - universal feeling in room at end of hi-tech executive presentation of negligible value

Read all about it

BBC

Silverfish Writing Programme - new intake

2010-12-02T18:06:00.004+08:00

It has been quite some time since we last ran this programme. (We have been a little busy and we also wanted to rethink the individual modules.) To those who have been writing to us to inquire about our next intake (and there have been quite a few of you), please note that the next programme will begin on Saturday, 15th January 2011, at Silverfish Books in Jalan Telawi, Bangsar. The programme will be revamped to include different modules and exercises.

The proof of a writing programme (or any other) is in the results. The aim is to discover serious writers, not those looking for magic solutions or pills. Not everyone will be interested in getting published (a surprising many aren't) but most are interested in writing well, be it for pleasure, to entertain friends or even therapy -- fiction or non-fiction. Writing is hard work, but there is a method to the madness. We prefer not to call it a creative writing course for a reason; we do not believe that's what it’s all about. It is about telling stories in written form, about engaging your reader and about being relevant. There is absolutely no reason an author living in Malaysia cannot be world class, as Shih-Li Kow has proved.

Registration (with full payment) can be done either in person at Silverfish Books at 58-1, Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru, Kuala Lumpur, or online at our website. (There is a link on the home page, http://www.silverfishbooks.com.) Fees for the entire ten-week programme will be RM1000.00, but there will be 10% early-bird discount for those who register before the 1st of January 2011. Please bring a laptop if you have one, and you find it easier to write on one. Otherwise, simply bring a good pen.

Read more about the programme ...

Silverfish Writing Programme

Does publishing need the Silicon Valley way?

2010-12-02T18:00:00.001+08:00

Publishing used to be a simple straight forward affair: get your author, edit, proofread, do the layout, design the cover, choose your paper, send it off the the printer, and pray. But things have become complicated, so complicated that there doesn’t seem to be a publisher in the world who seems to know what’s going on. Ebooks, agency models, self publishing, POD, Google editions, dead-tree editions, e-readers, tablet computers, smart phones, etc., are all conspiring to make the world an unsafe place. And with so many of them being incompatible with one another, every one seems to have an opinion, including tech magazines.

In his story, Why book publishing needs the Silicon Valley way in Computer World, Mike Egan argues why, “Book publishing would thrive by working more like the technology industry .”

“The book publishing industry is in trouble. Book sales are declining, and the quality of books is in a precipitous freefall. The reason is that the industry is clinging to an obsolete business model. And the whole process of discovering new talent is broken beyond repair,” he says in the first paragraph.

Is the book industry in trouble? I guess it is, except for those still whistling in the dark. Book sales are declining. But are the quality of books in freefall? Although I wonder sometimes why some books get published, I am not sure I agree with that. The industry is clinging to an obsolete model. Agreed. And the whole process of finding new talent is certainly broken; and it’s about time publishers got rid of those agents and started doing their jobs.

It is a strange piece but he has some interesting points. “Browsing a bookstore is like picking through trash in a garbage dump looking for something of value. Meanwhile, entire generations of brilliant authors never get the investment necessary to enter the system.”

The first point is true. Entire generations of brilliant authors being ignored? True, publishers often make appalling decisions but Egan has, obviously, never been a publisher: reading through manuscripts is not much different from browsing a bookstore, and far more painful. There are very few gems in there.

Computer World

Social reading

2010-12-02T17:53:00.000+08:00

Martyn Daniels asks in his blog Brave New World, So What Is Social Reading? “... (social reading) is somewhat of a challenge to understand and some would suggest nonsensical because of the multiple interpretations that can be applied.”

When I was much younger, reading was, indeed, a social activity, as much as music was. We didn’t read aloud to one another, but we shared books (just as we shared records.) “This is very good,” was all the recommendation that was required. The challenge was to find new books, new authors, and new genres, before your friends. Now that I run a bookshop, reading remains a social activity: we recommend books to our customers, and they suggest books to us.

I Googled the term and got 208,000 hits, though not all relevant. This story caught my eye: “Goodreads has opened its API that will give partners free access to the book lovers' social network and the book reviews, meta data, and literary discussions ... Developers using the API can pull Goodreads ratings for over 2 million different titles and reviews for over 500,000 titles. Goodreads has more than 4 million members and more than 110 million books cataloged. While other online stores may offer customer book reviews, Goodreads members are (not surprisingly) active with their review contributions,” said the ReadWrite Hack.

Digital Book World said, “Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, according to the latest Nielsen research, and the most conservative estimates predict eBooks will represent at least 10% of book sales by the end of the year,” which does raise questions about the average American’s time management (or boredom), and the rather optimistic (or wishful) ebook sales forecast. (After 10 years, digital music downloads account for only 10%).

As Enhanced Ebook University website says, “Books are social. It’s rare to meet someone who reads and doesn’t care to tell anyone what he’s read.”

Since we are such suckers for buzz words, expect to hear the term more often.

Goodreads
Brave New World
Digital Book World
Enhanced Ebook University

Is Amazon stock a bubble?

2010-11-02T15:09:00.002+08:00

When the dot.com bubbles burst in March 2000, it did feel as if Amazon got a get-out-of-jail-free card. Why is this company such a darling? How does it make money by giving aways its profits in massive discounts? Is the Kindle on its way to becoming the world’s most famous shelf-ware? How long can it go on defying gravity? And, the answer to that question seems, “Forever.”

It appears as if no one was willing to say, “The Emperor has no clothes.” Andy M Zaky, a contributor to Fortune, writes: ‘The online retailer's shares are valued at more than three times Apple's and more than two times Google's. And there's no reason why.’

He continues: ‘Whenever a stock can potentially drop 50% and still be considered overvalued, that's when you know the stock is a bubble. Amazon (AMZN) far surpassed bubble territory ages ago but investors still continue to plunge billions of dollars into the company. If the stock were to crash to $80 a share today from $164, it would still be trading at a significantly richer valuation than Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL) or even Research in Motion (RIMM).”

Zaky doesn’t think it makes any sense, considering that both Amazon’s top (growth) and bottom line (profits) have underperformed compared to Apple, Google and RIM. ‘A company can always reduce costs and improve margins to move more of its revenue to the bottom line, but the hard part is actually producing, marketing and selling a product that people want to buy,’ he says. In other words, business is still about business.

‘When RIM was trading at $150 a share, sophisticated investors knew the stock was a bubble. This case is no different. There is no matter of 'if' in this analysis. It's a matter of 'when.' Amazon will lose 50% of its value over the coming years. At $150-$160 a share, investors are flirting with financial suicide,’ he concludes.

Read the whole story

Fortune

Bouqinistes of Seine-side sell cheap tourist trinkets

2010-11-02T15:08:00.002+08:00

We all know how the French protect their independent booksellers and treat them like vintage wine. In Paris, Seine-side booksellers, known as bouqinistes, have existed in the city for 300 years and are a tourist attraction for book lovers from all over the world. They are famous for selling everything, from ancient editions of books to secondhand contemporary novels, engravings and prints, magazines, collector’s stamps and antique postcards. The city hall gives them their lots for free and they are exempted from paying taxes, in return for which they have to follow certain rules: they must sell books in three out of the four boxes in their area. The city hall says they have a duty to preserve a cultural heritage.

So, imagine the horror of the authorities when they discovered these shops selling cheap tourist souvenirs (surreptitiously) to augment their income. The problem is that they are located in tourist areas and most of the tourists don’t read French, and plastic Eiffel Towers sell better than used books.

Twenty odd booksellers waged war with established bookseller, in 1620 to be allowed to sell their books under the bridge. It was during the French Revolution that these became a permanent feature. Napoleon 1 allowed these bouqinistes to spread out from Quai Voltaire to the Pont Saint-Michel, but they were not to sell anything “immoral.” Napoleon III allowed them to install boxes filled with books on the parapets of the quays on the Left Bank, and city hall handed out permits each year.

Today, there are 216 bouquinistes along the Seine selling 400,000 books, and the city hall warned 40 of them to stop selling tourist trinkets. The city currently has 100 applications for 22 lots remaining; obviously there is still a demand for selling books by the Seine -- with or without plastic Eiffel Towers.

Read full report

Publishing Perspectives

Do you really own the ebook you just bought?

2010-09-22T17:19:00.002+08:00

A Wired.com report says that a recent appeals court decision in the US suggests that “software makers can use shrink-wrap and click-wrap licenses to forbid the transfer or resale of their wares.” What that implies is that just because you bought it, it does not mean you own it.

How does this apply on a book? When you buy a physical book (that is, the dead tree variety), you own it, right? You can resell it as a second-hand copy, or a collector’s item (if it is rare or a first edition), put it in a library where people can borrow it, or even sell it at ‘remaindered’ bookshop. For one thing, a certain amount of physical deterioration is taken for granted, and collectors are known to spend an enormous amount of money to acquire rare books.

But in the case of ebooks, who owns it? Can one resell it? College students who can ill afford the price of new text books thrive on the used book trade. Often it does not matter if it is not the current edition. Will they be allowed to borrow them from libraries?

Says Greg Beck, the defense attorney in the case who represented an eBay seller sued by Autodesk, “The other ramification, there is no reason a similar license could not be put into the cover of a book. It wouldn’t be difficult for everybody to implement this.”

Not surprisingly, the American Library Association argued against it saying, “It feared that the software industry’s licensing practices could be adopted by other copyright owners, including book publishers, record labels and movie studios.”
Scary, isn’t it?

Wired.com

The most unwanted authors

2010-09-22T17:18:00.000+08:00

A report in the Telegraph says that “givers donated more Dan Brown books to Oxfam than any other author”. Copies of The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons topped the list of unwanted books that were given away to the charity. (Of course, it is entirely possible that sometimes people do give away their favourite books as well.)

(The story is also interesting in that it has links to several websites with heading like: Dan Brown: 50 factual errors, Dan Brown’s 20 worst sentences, and others.)

The top ten are:

1.Dan Brown
2.Ian Rankin
3.Patricia Cornwell
4.Alexander McCall Smith
5.John Grisham
6.Danielle Steel
7.JK Rowling
8.Jeremy Clarkson
9.Maeve Binchy
10.Bill Bryson (New

The report says that, “The survey gathers information from the charity's network of 686 shops ... Oxfam is Europe's biggest high street retailer of second-hand books and the third-biggest bookseller in the UK ... The charity sells £1.6 million of books a month, enough to pay for 64,000 goats or 800,000 bags of seeds, or provide safe water for 1.7 million people.”

There is no mention if Oxfam will be accepting ebook donations.

The Telegraph

Opening an indie bookshop

2010-09-02T14:15:00.000+08:00

Ever since Silverfish opened its doors, I have had dozens of people walk in and say how they too have always wished they could open a bookshop and goyang kaki. (One customer even said we had stolen her name -- to which another said that “Termite Books” was still availalble.) Some ask for advice, and I give them the best advice I got from Thor of Skoob Books: don’t expect to make much money.

But if there are some of you who are still thinking of opening a bookshop, you could do worse than read this story by Robert Gray in Shelf-awareness of his interview with: ‘Donna Paz Kaufman and Mark Kaufman--of Paz & Associates: The Bookstore Training & Consulting Group--who facilitate a workshop retreat, Opening a Bookstore: The Business Essentials, and partner with the American Booksellers Association to provide training for people interested in entering retail bookselling.’

Gray quotes the Kaufman: "Our goal ... is to reach prospective store owners early in the decision-making process, so that they're on the right track from the moment they open their doors rather than having to dig themselves out of a hole."

“"Before the advent of the 'information age,' we suspect that many booksellers opened stores with a Field of Dreams attitude--if you build it, they will come. With a great deal at stake, our trainees realize how much they don't know; they see the number of indie bookstores that have gone out of business and want to know why ...”

Shelf-awareness

The Wankh award

2010-09-02T12:43:00.003+08:00

Yes, you are right. It is what you think it is, but it is not named after what you think.

The Guardian is inviting nominations. The story says: ‘The Wankh awards shall be named in honour of that classic of science-fiction, Jack Vance's Servants of the Wankh. The 1969 novel, the second in Vance's Tschai quartet, has had to battle a barrage of titters over the past half-century, thanks to its title. In Vance's world, the Wankh are one of four warring races who inhabit a distant planet. In the Britain of saucy postcards, Carry On movies and Benny Hill, they are a cause for such hilarity that later editions were edited to change the titular alien race to "Wannek".’

The award is for the smuttiest title and works of fiction. Some examples are given for this Guardian award: Drummer Dick's Discharge and Shag: The Story of a Dog. Fanny Hill and Moby Dick are considered obvious, so look for something creative. It does not say if they will be giving out a prize every year. Anyway, follow the link below and see if I have missed it.

The Guardian

The Kama Sutra audio book

2010-08-16T18:11:00.002+08:00

Word has it that the Kama Sutra has one basic flaw: it is impossible to try the variation suggested while reading the book at the same time. Now a British publisher has solved the problem by releasing an audiobook of the famous 1600-year-old Indian sex manual. No more turning pages as you get on with the 64 ways of making love. The audio book cost GBP 8.99 per download.

The book was first translated into English in 1883 by Richard Burton, and has been enhanced in many forms by creative publishers since. In 2003 it was published as a pop-up book, and, in 2006, as an "idiot's guide" -- the former being infinitely more interesting.

One presumes the download will be available internationally. Perhaps, in the spirit of good citizenship, and to avoid nasty accidents, the publishers should package it with an idiots guide to British pronunciations and accents. You know what the Brits mean by "ass".

The Guardian

What motivates a book buyer

2010-08-16T18:09:00.001+08:00

Arielle Ford writes in the Huffington Post of how she asked her online friends how they chose their next book. This is what she found out:

1   I am in a few book clubs
2   I always buy my favorite authors' books the day they come out
3   I read newspaper book reviews
4   My friends recommend books
5   I just go to the bookstore and see what jumps out at me
6   I go by recommendations from magazines, emails and newsletters
7   I am attracted to them by their title, and story summaries, and eye appealing artwork
8   I am a back cover kind of gal! If it reads well, I buy it
9   At my local bookstore, I read the shelf talkers (written by the staff) on which books they enjoyed and why
10   I'm influenced by cross-promotion campaigns, like Amazon's, where they keep track of book reviews I write and leave on their site, and so I get emails promoting new books coming out in that genre.

Huffington Post

So many books ...

2010-08-16T18:03:00.000+08:00

129 million books

As of Sunday, 1 August 2010, Google says there are 129,864,880 books in the world. Boy, is that mind blowing, not to mention humbling. Talk about too little time.

In the story, Books of the world, stand up and be counted!, software engineer, Leonid Taycher, says, ‘Well, it all depends on what exactly you mean by a “book.” We’re not going to count what library scientists call “works,” those elusive "distinct intellectual or artistic creations.” It makes sense to consider all editions of “Hamlet” separately, as we would like to distinguish between -- and scan -- books containing, for example, different forewords and commentaries.”

So how did Google come up with the number? They considered ISBN’s to be an unreliable guide. For one, ISBNs only came into existence in the 60s (even I have several books without those) and were widely adopted only a decade later, and that, too, in the Western world. Many books not meant for commercial distribution, and from other parts of the world, do not bother with it. The story says, ‘... they have been used in nonstandard ways. They have sometimes been assigned to multiple books: we’ve seen anywhere from two to 1,500 books assigned the same ISBN. They are also often assigned to things other than books.’

Collecting data

Anyway, to get to the point, Google collected data from over 150 sources like libraries, WorldCat, national union catalogs and commercial providers, to obtain over one billion raw unique data, analysed it for duplication and arrived at a number around 600 million.

Then using further analysis of redundancies and duplication -- sometimes the same book had more than one publisher, or were published under several titles, or even libraries holding multiple copies of the same book, all with unique records -- The number was whittled down to 210 million.

Then, the story continues, ‘We still have to exclude non-books such as microforms (8 million), audio recordings (4.5 million), videos (2 million), maps (another 2 million), t-shirts with ISBNs (about one thousand), turkey probes (1, added to a library catalog as an April Fools joke), and other items for which we receive catalog entries.’ So counting only products between two covers, Google arrived at 146 million.

Then removing duplicates found as a result of numbering the same publication differently (like series and government documents) the final number arrived at (as of Sunday, 1 August) was 129, 864, 880 and counting! So now we can plan our reading.

Google blogspot

Author does not want copyright back

2010-08-02T16:24:00.002+08:00

Alan Moore the writer of celebrated graphic novel (aka comics), Watchmen, does not want his copyright back, according to a report in Wired.com. The story says: “Visionary writer Alan Moore claims that … DC Comics made him an astounding offer that only he could refuse.”

“They offered me the rights to Watchmen back, if I would agree to some dopey prequels and sequels,” the comics legend told Wired.com.

“So I just told them that if they said that 10 years ago, when I asked them for that, then yeah it might have worked,” he said. “But these days I don’t want Watchmen back. Certainly, I don’t want it back under those kinds of terms.”

The Watchman has been regarded as ‘the most groundbreaking graphic novels in history’ and with some ‘unimpressive, and often terrible, movies’. Moore has even ‘demanded removal of his name from any film adaptations of his comics, and even refused royalties’ said the report.

“I don’t even have a copy of Watchmen in the house anymore,” he said. “The comics world has lots of unpleasant connections, when I think back over it, many of them to do with Watchmen.”

Wired.com

Magazines bypass dead-tree editions

2010-08-02T16:23:00.002+08:00

A Wired.com report says that, fuelled by the iPad, several magazines are going directly into digital.

“While some publishers eye the Apple iPad hopefully as way of migrating the print experience into a rich, multimedia domain as never before, others are already leaping over paper entirely to reach new readers with original digital publications.” says the report.

In one of the latest developments, Virgin (owned by Richard Branson) has announced plans to launch its first consumer magazine on the Apple tablet without a companion print (Kindle or web) edition. Called the Maverick magazine it include actual articles rather than promotions, Virgin says. Maverick will launch in the beginning of October

“By Branson’s logic, the publishers of print magazines cannot price their digital versions low enough, because they don’t want to compete with their higher-priced print editions,” whereas he can price his very low because he does not have the overheads of a print edition. The selling price for the Maverick has not been announced yet.

Wired.com

Waterstone's for sale?

2010-07-17T18:16:00.002+08:00

A story in the Daily Mail says that Simon Fox, chief executive of retailer HMV, has indicated that he would consider selling the Waterstone's book chain, though he said its disappearance would be 'tragic', in an interview with Financial Mail following the company's results. Waterstone's barely made a profit in the year up to April.

He said, "Clearly making less than £3 million profit on sales of over £500 million is not a good place to be. But I'm optimistic that the new strategy will continue to bear fruit." However, he admitted that he would consider anything that could "enhance shareholder value". Adding, "If anyone came along with a large bag of money for any part of the business, we would take that very seriously. But that is not the case."

The HMV group, with Waterstone, is the last major book retailer in the UK (after it acquired Dillons and Ottakar's) with other rivals such as Borders and Books Etc having collapsed. Waterstone's has struggled to compete with online rivals like Amazon.

No announcements about selling groceries, though.

Daily Mail

Amazon now sells groceries

2010-07-17T18:14:00.002+08:00

A MacWorld report says, “Amazon.com has launched a grocery delivery service in the U.K., following the recent kickoff of a similar service in Germany.”

Is this a sign of the times, or what? Last year there was a report of Borders selling children’s “educational” toys. Guess, if Tesco can sell books, why can’t Amazon sell salt and sugar? After all, they are both considered FMCGs -- fast moving consumer goods -- by the industry. Their competitors in UK are Tesco, Sainsburys and Waitrose that have overnight delivery services.

Amazon is reported to have 22,000 products in their grocery store, ranging from cleaning products to fresh fruit to beer and pet food. Customers have two options for delivery. For an annual fee of GBP49.00, customers can subscribe to Amazon's Prime membership, where an unlimited number of items can be delivered free.

Another option is Free Super Saver delivery, which takes between three to five days after items are dispatched, according to Amazon.co.uk's website. Delivery time can be more if customers decide to consolidate their items into one shipment.

For fresh items, third party vendors offering those items on the site's Marketplace will be responsible for shipping. For one example, a two-pound bag of cooked king prawns from vendor The Fish Society will be delivered by courier within a day after the purchaser arranges a delivery time. The cost of delivery is listed as GBP5.21. A four-pack Banana King Granny Smith apples, which retails for GBP1.39 had a shipping cost of GBP 7.50.

Amazon has run a grocery service in the U.S. since July 2006

MacWorld

History of chocolate

2010-07-17T18:00:00.003+08:00

This is not quite literary news, but what the heck.

Chocolate, a Mexican drink, is generally considered to be introduced to Europe in 1550, with July 7 declared Chocolate Day, the day the new world conquered the old. Cacao cultivation in Mexico, Central and South America dates back to at least 1250 BC according to archaeologists. The Mayans grew cacao trees in their backyards and brewed ceremonial drinks with it. In the fifth century, Aztecs drank xocoatl (bitter water) flavored with vanilla and chili pepper. (So the new fangled chili flavoured ones, one buys in Europe these days is nothing new!) The bean also served as legal currency in Aztec society. For example, one could buy a turkey for 100 cacao beans.

Then in 1504, Christopher Columbus (may have) brought cacao beans to Spain during his fourth and final voyage to the Americas. Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conquistador who subdued Mexico (with guns, germs and steel), wrote in 1519 that chocolate is “the divine drink which builds up resistance and fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink permits a man to walk for a whole day without food.” (Surely, many will agree with that.) He brought the cacao beans and chocolate-brewing apparatus back to Spain when he returned in 1528.

Hot chocolate became very popular with the French royalty after Marie Therese married Louis XIV in 1660. Courtiers at the Palace of Versailles, regarded the drink as an aphrodisiac. London’s first chocolate house opened in 1657. British confectioners figured out how to add sugar and cocoa butter to create a paste that could be packaged as “eating chocolate.”

The rest is history.

Wired.com

This book video is awesome

2010-06-30T21:14:00.003+08:00

This has to be the best video to promote reading I have seen. Commissioned by the New Zealand Book Council (a not-for-profit organization that serves to promote more reading, foster a love of books and promote New Zealand authors) and produced by Anderson M Studio, this two-minute animation has won two Film Craft Lions awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

This is not computer generated work. It uses paper cutting -- cutouts and pop-ups -- and stop-motion animation. It is superb. Just watch it. The video is called Going West by New Zealand author Maurice Gee.

The New Zealand Book Ccoincils’s mission statement reads: “Bringing books and people together. Like no other human activity, reading opens up our imagination. It enables us to understand those around us. It allows us to project the future and reach back into the past. Readingcan entertain, challenge and educate. We believe that reading can transform people’s lives.”

Doing a darn good job, I must say. Congratulations.

Publishing Perspectives

Stephen Hawking’s new book

2010-06-30T21:04:00.003+08:00

When Stephen Hawkings’ first book on popular science, A Brief History of Time, was published on 1988, I remember I acquired it by mail order from the Good Book Guide. No apologies given, I am a nerd and I love mathematics and physics. (Call me names if you want). It was an idiot’s guide to stuff like black holes, the Big Bang and light cones. Still, it was for very clever idiots who already had some grounding on some of the theory. It reportedly sold nine million copies, though it is questionable if all those who bought it read the book from cover to cover. It also made it to several best seller lists. Nice way to impress chicks, though. (I think it was after that that science books became popular, including Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything.)

A new book by Hawking (coauthored by Leonard Mlodinow), The Grand Design, is scheduled for release in September by Bantam Dell, and is reported to be on the "the ultimate mysteries of the universe." I will probably preorder it. The authors say, 'we are very close to understanding not just of the workings of our universe, but of its very beginnings’ as they work their way toward the unified theory, the one theory that explains it all, the holy grail of all science.

As for the battle between religion and science, Hawkings had this to say in an interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer in June of this year, "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."

Media Bistro

Independent bookshops celebrate

2010-06-17T15:25:00.002+08:00

Mega bookstores are reeling in the economic downturn, but independents are celebrating with increased sales and more outlets. A Morning Star Online report says, “Around 100 new outlets have opened in the past two years, with the sector reporting a one percent rise in sales even though consumer spending on books is down.” Yesss!

A quote: Meryl Halls from the Bookseller Association said: "Successful independent booksellers are bucking the trends on the high street by offering their local communities the sort of service that sets these shops apart and making their position in their local village, town, city or suburb integral to that community.”

UK has 1200 independent bookstores, but they are “Holding their own,” says a Guardian report on the Independent Booksellers Week

Interesting things are happening in the Klang Valley, too. I've heard of two new independents opening for business -- Bookalicious at The Summit in USJ and another called the Book Warehouse in Subang Jaya. Both appear to be set up to give Book Xcess a run for the money. I have only been to the former. The shop is quite pleasantly laid out (without hundreds of copies of the same title on several shelves) selling a mixture of remainders and current titles. Their focus, currently, appears to be on bestsellers and children’s, with some books in Chinese. I am sure more independents will be opening soon. The remainder business is easy to get into and does not require much book knowledge, although if one has some it will be a boost, but with major publishers re-looking at their business models, this might not last very long.

(Book publishers and distributors appear to be the only major business people who are intent on slitting their own throats. Ten years ago, books not sold would be pulped so as not to ‘spoil’ the market. Now, they kill their own golden goose by ‘remaindering’, selling them cheaply to third parties, who then flood the market with them, destroying it.)

I heard a rumour recently that Borders (Malaysia) is up for sale. Any truth in that?

Morning Star
The Guardian

Foyles’ new bookshop

2010-06-17T15:24:00.002+08:00

I don’t believe there is another bookshop in the world with customers like those of Foyles. A Mecca for book lovers from all over the world, the 107 year old bookstore on Charing Cross Road is Europe’s largest, with over 200,000 titles over five floors.

I still remember my first visit -- pilgrimage? -- in the early eighties (after having listened to its glories for decades). I remember this humungous bookstore (by the standard of those days) with rows and rows of dusty shelves packed to the ceiling with books. How will they find anything here, I thought? Still, I asked, “Do you have a copy of The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross by John ...” “Yep,” the salesperson said before I could finish, and disappeared behind the wooden shelves, for a moment, and re-emerged with the book I wanted. I was impressed. (Foyles underwent a full refurbishment following the death of Christina Foyle in 1999. This was completed in 2004, and re-established it as London’s leading bookshop.)

Foyles is currently celebrating record sales figures. The company, which is still owned independently by the Foyle family, opened its first branch in 2005 at the Royal Festival Hall. Selfridges followed in 2007 and 2008 with the opening of two stores at St Pancras International and Westfield White City. It is now looking for a new site.

Foyles claim to employ more than 80 expert booksellers ‘who will be happy to offer any help or advice ...’

This is London.

David Davidar quits Penguin Canada

2010-06-17T15:23:00.002+08:00

The book world is abuzz with the news of David Davidar quitting Penguin Canada. This former poster boy of Indian publishing -- he founded and developed Penguin India from a basement office in South Delhi to the top of the country’s publishing in English -- plans to returned to India to focus on his writing, the Times of India says. The author of bestselling novels The House of Blue Mangoes ( that I tossed aside after reading 50 pages) and The Solitude of Emperors (which I did not bother to read) was appointed president of Penguin Canada in 2004.

News emerging from Canada, however, gives the story a slightly different spin. Publisher’s Weekly says of the ‘surprise resignation’: “... the company issued a statement Friday afternoon announcing that Penguin’s former rights and contracts director Lisa Rundle charged Davidar with sexual harassment in an action yesterday. The statement added that Davidar was asked to leave the company last month, and while it had been unclear just when Davidar’s resignation, announced Tuesday, would become effective, Penguin said he will have no further involvement with the company.”

Rundle has also file ‘wrongful termination’ charges against Penguin, claiming damages of $423,000.

However, more sordid details emerge from The Globe and Mail.

Ms. Rundle claimed that she was fired for complaining about Mr. Davidar’s “harassing and vexatious behaviour.”

Mr. Davidar said he intends to fight the charges ‘vigorously’.

Last year, he (Davidar) is said to have written (emails) that he “could do very little except think of [Ms. Rundle],” that she was “utterly gorgeous,” “a vision in pink sipping a champagne cocktail,” and that she should not be “stubborn” or “fight” him.

(According to the claim), Mr. Davidar appeared at Ms. Rundle’s hotel room door (in Frankfurt), “wearing excessive cologne, with buttons on his shirt undone down his waist.”

Ms. Rundle claims she climbed on a windowsill to avoid her boss and again asked him to leave. “He forcibly pulled her off the ledge and grabbed her by the wrists, forcing his tongue into her mouth,” says a source.

Wahhh!

The Globe and the Mail

Publisher’s Weekly

Times of India

The future of magazines

2010-06-02T11:08:00.000+08:00

Is the Wired Magazine’s iPad Edition the way forward for magazines? Editor-in-Chief, Chris Anderson says that it is ironic “that Wired, a magazine founded to chronicle the digital revolution, has traditionally come ... each month on the smooshed atoms of dead trees” and that it “is not lost on us”. Until now, that is. He adds, “We have always made our stories accessible online at Wired.com, but as successful as the site is, it is not a magazine ... The tablet is our opportunity to make the Wired we always dreamed of.”

While acknowledging the 'wow' factor, many comments on the site balk at the USD4.99 price per issue. But that did not stop the download of 24,000 copies in the first 24 hours, or 17 copies a minute. (The Business Insider had initially estimated that 2500-3000 copies of the e-magazine would be sold.) Wired sells over 87,000 copies at newsstands and 632,000 by subscription. (Incidentally, Apple has announced that 2 million iPads were sold in less than 60 day since the launch.) No subscription model for the digital version has been announced yet.

According to Wired.com, some of the innovative features include:

1. Every page in the issue is individually designed for optimal viewing on the iPad screen in both portrait or landscape orientation.

2. Content organized in vertical stacks rather than magazine-like spreads.

3. Animated 360° images show readers every side of Iron Man and let them explore the history of Mars landings.

4. Unique slide shows take readers through multiple views using touch for image progression.

5. Four editorial videos including an exclusive clip from Toy Story 3. All video is embedded into the app allowing for automatic load, display in HD and access without a connection.

6. Music to enhance storytelling, including an exclusive listen inside Trent Reznor’s recording studio.

7. Enhanced advertising. Nine advertisers have taken advantage of premium sponsorships in Wired’s June digital edition, allowing them to incorporate interactivity and enhancements including 360º images, slide shows and videos.

Wired.com

Kindle fails college test

2010-06-02T10:55:00.002+08:00

Rik Myslewski writes in The Register that, “According to a report by The Seattle Times, the USD489, 18.9 ounce (0.54kg) Kindle DX, with its 9.7-inch monochrome e-ink display, is getting bad grades from college students.”

The survey found that: “80 per cent of MBA students at the University of Viginia said they wouldn't recommend the Kindle DX as a study aid — but 90 per cent enjoyed using it to read for pleasure.”

Amazon distributed Kindle DXs to students at a number of US colleges, and found that the way students use textbooks, traditional hard-copy is more usable because it is easier to thumb through, search, and scribble on it than on an ebook. (Typically, college students will have several books open at the same time when working on a paper, something the Kindle would be woefully inadequate to handle.)

According to he Seattle Times, some students “liked the Kindle DX's long battery life and portability, along with the fact that putting a book on it doesn't require the death of a tree. However, they weren't jazzed by the inability to scribble notes onto or easily highlight snippets, nor did they appreciate the lack of color in an ebook's charts and graphics.”

So, how will the iPad fare on campuses then? Methinks, while research is not what it will be used for, it opens up a whole new possibility in textbooks. Imagine a fully interactive medical or engineering book application. It is mind blowing, though it might take a while to get there. Or, not.

One thing is clear. Future publishing lawsuits will be less about copyrights and more about patents.

The Register

Intellectual thieves

2010-06-02T10:47:00.004+08:00

Anna Goodal says in The Independent, “Shoplifting in bookshops is on the rise – and you'd be surprised at how literary the thieves' tastes are.” And a book that's popular with the thieves: Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

The report says that most bookshops have to write off thousands every year to account for theft. It does look like book thieves have good taste, and one would imagine they would actually read the book and display it on their shelves after that to impress friends -- not so much what they have stolen, but what they have read.

The most stolen books in New York are Bukowski, Kerouac and Burroughs, which could lead to profiling: anyone who still dresses like a 60s hippy might get frisked at the door. The book most lost in London’s larger stores is the A-Z. Thoroughly understandable, that. It is the first thing one needs on landing in the city, and if one doesn’t have money, one steals it. This is closely followed by trade paperbacks.

“In general, though, it is the smaller, "curated" (hah, that’s a nice word) bookshops where you find the more discerning thieves.” the story says. That is, independents. Top books stolen in a bookshop in Hackney are Penguin and Wordsworth classics. A shop in Brick Lane has lost A-Zs and Dostoyevsky.

All this is, of course, completely understandable. A non-reader wouldn’t know what to look for in the first place besides the ‘latest in thing’, which -- even if he nicks it -- will end up in a bin somewhere. But a discerning thief, a reader, is something else. He knows what he wants, and will do everything he can to get it. They are like art thieves.

Remember the scholar book thief of Bodleian Library? (http://silverfishnews.blogspot.com/2009/01/book-thief.html)

The Independent

Humans are cavemen

2010-05-15T17:19:00.001+08:00

Women have always said it. Now it is confirmed, only that we are all Neanderthals, including women. After four years of work, the Neanderthal genome has been sequenced, though not quite completely, but sufficient for scientists to compare it with those of homo sapiens, us.

Apparently, according to these early studies, human and Neanderthal genome is almost identical at the protein level, our building blocks, and most people can trace some of their DNA to Neanderthals.

“The Neanderthals are not totally extinct. In some of us they live on a little bit,” says Svante Paabo, evolutionary geneticist at the Max Planck Institute. Cool. And that includes women, too.

A working sequence was assembled from the DNA in the bones of three 38,000-year-old Neanderthal women, found in Croatia’s Vindija Cave. The sequence now covers about 60 per cent of the entire genome. Although incomplete, researchers were able to compare the Neanderthal genome to the human at 14,000 protein-coding gene segments that are different between humans and chimpanzees. Researchers have linked these proteins to changes in humans’ cognitive development, physiology and metabolism.

Researchers also compared the Neanderthal genome to genomes of five people from China, France, Papua New Guinea, southern Africa and western Africa. Among non-Africans, between one and four per cent of all DNA came from Neanderthals. Many studies have suggested a Neanderthal-human inbreeding.

Paabo gave comfort to people of African descent disappointed that they lack Neanderthal ancestry by saying that they probably had contributions from other archaic humans.

Wired.com

Macmillan faces World Bank ban

2010-05-15T17:17:00.000+08:00

We thought this only happened in Malaysia; book publishers sewing up the school text-book market. It is said to be the ‘rice bowl’ of the politically connected, the road to riches. That’s where the market is. Many don’t even have to try to get their books adopted by schools and libraries. The public does not even get to see them, because conventional marketing is too much trouble, and sales unpredictable.

British publisher, Macmillan is facing a six-year ban from taking up any educatioal book contracts financed by the World Bank in Sudan after the publisher admitted to “bribery payments” to secure a deal. Dumb. First of all, never admit. Lie. Lie like hell, even under oath. Second of all, call them “kow-thim” payments. Obviously, the Brits can learn a thing or two about corruption from Malaysians.

The Multi-Donor Trust Fund is run by the World Bank on behalf of international donors for development projects in the African region. Macmillan said it is "deeply shocked" at the discovery, another sign of an amateur, and that it will not tolerate improper behaviour as a company. Right.

The ban has already been reduced from eight years because of the speed with which Macmillan admitted the "corrupt payments", and further reduction could be offered for “cooperation” in getting to the bottom of the affair -- whether that involves a scapegoat is unclear.

Truth is, one would be shocked if there are no bribery payments involved, no?

BBC

Author rejects Hollywood

2010-05-15T17:15:00.000+08:00

First it was Jonathan Franzen rejecting Oprah, now Victoria Hislop has rejected a USD300,000.00 Hollywood offer to make a movie out of her debut novel, The Island. What ? An epidemic of integrity?

News has it that she has preferred to sell her book, about a leper colony off Crete, to a Greek television network for much less money. Apparently, she was worried how Hollywood would handle the movie. Surely a few singing teapots are harmless, even if they are stupid. How about a high-speed car chase while the British woman traces her ancestry through the island of Spinalonga.

Anyway, the Greek company, Mega, will produce a 26-part series with 300 local actors, probably following her book closely.

The Independent quotes Hislop: "I was simply not happy with the approaches from America. I was worried what might happen to my story and my characters ... I feel much happier ... knowing that the Greeks, who took the book to their hearts, will care about making the series and keep loyally to the plot."

Now, her book will sell, and she will be taken seriously.

The Independent

Random House’s New Approach in Asia

2010-05-01T16:22:00.001+08:00

Random House chairman, Markus Dohle, has named the managing director of Random House Australia, Margie Seale, to explore business opportunities in Southeast and Northern Asia on behalf of Random House worldwide.

Seale takes on these new responsibilities in addition to her existing ones. This is a new effort by Random House to publish in the region after it ended its Japanese joint venture (which started in 2003) in September 2009, and in February divested its four-year ownership of Random House Korea that was established two years earlier.

A statement from Random House says, "we continue to believe in the great publishing and business-development potential in the Asian market for Random House, and Margie is perfectly placed to identify and to advise us about opportunities there for us."

Random House, Inc. is the world's largest English-language general trade book publisher. It has been owned since 1998 by the large German media corporation Bertelsmann. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films, and is currently developing a division responsible for creating story content for media including video games, social networks on the web, mobile platforms, in print and on film.
Interesting to see what they find in Malaysia.

Publisher’s Weekly

Reading as an aphrodisiac

2010-05-01T16:20:00.001+08:00

A Daily Mail report says ‘there now a novel way to woo your lover: Read to them in bed’.

Apparently, one can ‘forget the scented candles and silky lingerie. A bedtime story is the perfect aphrodisiac’.

And then it gets even more bizarre. ‘Seven in ten men regularly read to their wives and girlfriends to help them relax before going to sleep, a study found.” On which planet did they carry out that survey?

‘And two in three women say they are more affectionate to a partner who reads aloud in bed.’ So Sufian was right all along: books are great chick magnets. However, one suspects Borges and Cortazar are not what one should be reading to a lover in bed (though they should look great on your table in the mamak shop, wrapped in plastic, of course -- curry stains are so unsexy.).

The study found that the best books in bed for men are Romances (makes sparks fly). Women prefer Romantic classics, travel guides and restaurant reviews (huh?). 81% of Scottish men ‘use the power of words to improve their relationships’, but ‘only 64% in the South-West of England do’.

The survey of 1,000 people was carried out by coffee brand Carte Noire. Maybe Perpustakaan Malaysia (the National Library) would like to carry out a similar survey in Malaysia.

The Daily Mail

US$300,000 library book fine for George Washington

2010-05-01T16:19:00.001+08:00

A report in the BBC says that the New York Society Library, the oldest library in the city, has uncovered a “surprising book thief”: George Washington. “The first president of the United States of America borrowed two books from the New York Society Library in 1789 but failed to return them” the report says, or let us say that he is 220 years late.

The library says they will not pursue the fine. Hmmm.

Legend has it that George Washington never told a lie. Obviously, no one asked him about library books. The first president apparently borrowed the two books from the library -- at the time the only library in the city -- on the 5th of October 1789. The two tomes -- Law of Nations, a dissertation on international relations, and a volume of debate transcripts from Britain's House of Commons -- now appear to have vanished.

BBC News

The most stolen library books

2010-04-17T16:15:00.000+08:00

The Scotsman says that "JACQUELINE Wilson has overtaken Harry Potter author JK Rowling as the writer whose books are most stolen from Scotland's libraries." JK Rowling only comes in at No.6, just step one ahead of Edid Blyton. A rather steep fall in just one year. A total of 129,450 books have disappeared from the shelves.

The report sys that "Thieves have instead been taking work by the likes of children's author Wilson, American thriller writer James Patterson and romance novelist Nora Roberts."

MOST STOLEN LIST INCLUDES:

1. Jacqueline Wilson
2. SQA school books
3. James Patterson
4. Francesca Simon
5. Nora Roberts
6. JK Rowling
7. Enid Blyton
8. Julia Donaldson
9. Matt Groening
10. Jodi Picoult
11. Stephen King
12. Stephenie Meyer
13. Irvine Welsh
14. Ian Rankin
15.Roald Dahl

The Scotsman

Neuri lit crit

2010-04-17T15:57:00.000+08:00

Or, scanning brains to determine why we like to read.

A Guardian report says: "'Neuro lit crit' is the study of how great writing affects the hard wiring inside our heads. But can we decode the artistic impulse?"

"It is the cutting edge of literary studies, a rapidly expanding field that is blending scientific processes with the study of literature and other forms of fiction. Some have dubbed it "the science of reading" and it is shaking up the one of the most esoteric and sometimes impenetrable corners of academia. Forget structuralism or even post-structuralist deconstructionism. "Neuro lit crit" is where it's at."

Or, as the colonel said to the caterpillar: "Hurrmph."

According to the story, 12 students in New England, belonging to a group called the Yale-Haskins Teagle Collegium, headed by Yale literature professor Michael Holquist will, later this year, be given a series of specially designed texts to read. They will then be loaded into a hospital MRI machine and have their brains scanned and mapped to determine their neurological responses.

But do neurological responses of the brain of people who read Marcel Proust, Henry James or Virginia Woolf differ from those who read only newspapers or Harry Potter books? Is there a Darwinian dimension to literature? Did evolution influence literature or did literature influence evolution? "It is hard to interpret fiction without an evolutionary view," says Professor Jonathan Gottschall of Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania.

The Yale-Haskins Teagle Collegium certainly thinks so. Professor Richard Wise, a neuroscientist at Imperial College London says,"Reading is a very hard-wired thing in our brains. There are brain cells that respond to reading and we can study them."

The Guardian

Treasure Island -- the sequel

2010-04-05T13:27:00.000+08:00

When I was a child one of my 'favouritest' books was Treasure Island. Perhaps it was that book more than almost any other that convinced me how enjoyable reading could be. As much as I liked Huck Finn, it was all that swashbuckling, drama, danger, hidden treasures and pirates that had my adrenalin flowing. Oh yes, and Long John Silver who is the pirate we have come to compare all other pirates with since. (Come to think of it, the Pirates of the Caribbean series were so lame in comparison -- almost like candy floss.)

News now has it that a "... sequel to the adventure story Treasure Island is being written by the former Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion." Sorry about this, but I am really not excited. Why would Andrew Motion even think of writing a sequel to a masterpiece? Maybe they are paying him a lot of money, but does he really need the bread that much, even if it is one of his favourite books and that he wants to create a tale "packed with its own adventure, excitement and pathos"?

Maybe, just maybe, there are some things that should be just left alone.

Robert Louis Stevenson originally wrote his tale of pirates for his stepson in 1883.

BBC news

Pop-up books go 3-D

2010-04-05T13:23:00.000+08:00

A Reuters report says that the pop-up book is so passe. Excuse me? Apparently, South Korean scientists have developed 3-D technology for books that makes characters literally leap off the page. What? Is it on a screen? Does one have to view it through 3-D glasses? Goodness, what is happening to the world?

I have always loved good pop-up books. Even pop-up greeting cards. Maybe it is the engineer in me, but the sheer imagination behind some of these pop-ups boggles the mind. Are we going to lose all that for some 3-D computer simulation? I haven't felt so sad for a long time, not even at the possible demise of the physical book (which, of course, is not going to happen).

But 3-D animation is different. It will kill the art of pop-ups, just like the electronic calculator killed the slide-rule. (How many people know what a slide-rule is? What if you are told that the Empire State Building was designed entirely using one of those? Maybe, even the pyramids were designed with them.)

The repost says: "At South Korea's Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, researchers used 3-D technology to animate two children's books of Korean folk tales, complete with writhing dragons and heroes bounding over mountains."

Frankly, one cannot understand why they bother. With the release of the iPad, even that will become passe very soon. So, let us enjoy the paper pop-ups for a while more, please.

Reuters

Yet another reading campaign

2010-03-17T11:29:00.000+08:00

A report in the Malaysian Insider says that the Malaysian Information Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim does not want youths to be too absorbed with computers, but to read books too. He advised people not to be overly obsessed with computers to the extent that they no longer read books.

(Without saying why) the minister is reported to have said it was dangerous if the people were too absorbed with computers because it could affect the learning process especially among the younger generation who are the country's hope of making Malaysia a developed nation by 2020. Could it be possible that the reason people are spending lot of time on the computer is, in fact, to read stuff that they think is banned by the government?

“The fascination with computers should be balanced by the fascination for books so that we do not become slaves to computers and neglect reading... this is dangerous to learning,” he told reporters at a media conference after launching the 1 Malaysia Reading Programme organised by the National Library. (No, that was not me tittering!)

The minister also said (without giving details of a survey, if ever there was one) that the reading habit among Malaysians had improved, with people reading an average of eight to 12 books a year compared to only two books four years ago. (I am still not tittering!)

Describing obsession with computers as a major hindrance in inculcating the reading habit, Rais said there was a need for continuous programmes to inculcate the culture of reading among the public.

Then the minister said the ministry would invite the country’s icons like former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and astronaut Datuk Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor Sheikh Mustapha in its campaign to promote the reading habit. (Sorry, at this point I had to laugh out loud.)

By the way minister, will we be able to read anything we want, or will it be only those that are approved by the book police?

The Malaysian Insider

Man Asian Literary Prize Restructured

2010-03-17T11:25:00.000+08:00

The 2010 Man Asian Literary Prize is to be restructured. According to the website, "From this year the Man Asian Literary Prize will be for a novel written by a citizen of an Asian country and first published in English in 2010. Translations into English of works originally in another language are also eligible, provided they are first published in English in 2010."

Now, this is not a restructure as much as a complete about-turn. The original idea appeared to be about discovering new authors and new novels. And it appears (not surprisingly, some would say) to have failed. Unfortunately, all good and noble ideas will have to be ultimately sacrificed at the altar of Mammon. First problem: readers want to read prize-winning novels now, not in a year's time when they are eventually published. Second problem: publishers may not want to publish a novel in a year's time only to see it flop. Besides (sigh), they are -- even if they don't read at all -- the 'gatekeepers' -- currently, at any rate -- of literature.

More interesting will be the list of countries that will be considered Asian or, rather, those that will not. Will Mongolia be considered one? How about those 'troublesome' states in the Middle East, the region we refer to as West Asia? How about Australia and New Zealand, those wannabes? Life is so-oo difficult, isn't it?

The prize money for the winning novelist will be increased to US$30,000, more than double the present amount of UD$10,000, but the translator's prize remains the same at US$5,000 (thus setting up an institutionalised bias towards Anglophone writing). Entries will be by publishers who may enter up to two eligible books that are published in 2010.

The website says detailed rules for eligibility will be released soon.

Man Asian Literary Prize

Writing Schorlarship Offer

2010-03-17T10:49:00.000+08:00

The Department of English at City University of Hong Kong is pleased to announce a one-year full Tuition Scholarship, to be awarded to a 2010 candidate for our new, international, low-residency Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing. The winner will be the applicant who submits the sample of creative writing that demonstrates the greatest potential for success as a professional literary author. Applicants in any genre are eligible, as long as they meet the acceptance criteria for this postgraduate degree. There is no restriction as to country of residence, age or nationality.

At City University, we seek to develop Asia's future writers, and this scholarship is offered to attract the most talented writers to our programme. This summer, we begin our first class of writers for the MFA in Creative Writing specialising in Asian Writing in English, the first programme in the world to offer this specialty. Based in the English department, the innovative 45-credit, two-year programme will accept a limited number of students in creative non-fiction, fiction and poetry. The degree is benchmarked to international standards for the MFA. The Hong Kong native author Xu Xi assisted in its development and joined the Department as their first Writer-in-Residence on March 1.

"We anticipate the majority of applicants to be from Asia," Xu says, "but many writers in the West, both of Asian and non-Asian ethnicity, are increasingly drawn to Asia, especially China. They're not always best served by MFA programmes in the West where there's little focus on either a contemporary or historical Asian perspective or Asian literature." The faculty will all be writers who 'know Asia, live Asia, read Asia, write Asia' as the programme's advertising says. The top criterion for admission will be the quality of creative work.

This initiative is part of an overall strategy to develop the creative curriculum at the university. Professor Kingsley Bolton, Head of English at City University says, "Our English Department is a very young one, but probably one of the most dynamic and innovative departments of its kind in Asia. In the next few years, we are aiming to make the English Department here a leading centre for creative writing, drama, and cultural studies, not only for Hong Kong but also for the whole of the Asian region." The MFA is generally considered a professional degree, qualifying students to work in professions where good writing skills are required, as well as providing the groundwork for an international writing and publishing career.

The low-residency graduate degree model is relatively new in Asia. A long-established pedagogical model in the U.S., such programmes are especially suited for the creative arts. In particular, this programme is ideal for working professionals who cannot afford to spend two years as full-time graduate students in a traditional writing programme. Structured for individualised learning, students work via distance learning with writing mentors on a one-on-one basis during the semesters, and attend brief 'residencies' at the university two to three times a year. The low faculty-to-student ratio allows for intensive feedback on the student's work and approximates the professional editor-writer relationship.

The first residency is scheduled for summer 2010. The internationally renowned novelist Timothy Mo will be Visiting Writer and the faculty writers for the 2010 class features an international cast from Hong Kong, India, the U.K, Canada and the U.S., with connections and roots in China, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and elsewhere. The writers include Tina Chang, Marilyn Chin, Luis Francia, Robin Hemley, Justin Hill, Sharmistha Mohanty, James Scudamore, Ravi Shankar, Jess Row and Madeleine Thien. For applications, please visit http://www.english.cityu.edu.hk/MFA. For further information, please email mfawriting@cityu.edu.hk or call Xu Xi at ++852.3442.8732.

March 11, 2010

Boys read as much as girls

2010-03-01T18:45:00.000+08:00

Richard Garner writes in the Independent that while a recent study of the reading habits of 100,000 children by the University of Dundee shows that boys read as much as girls, they choose books that are far less challenging and easier to understand, and this gets worse as they grow older. And, girls keep scoring higher on reading tests.

In the 13 to 16 age group, the favourite girl's book is Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer, the vampire romance series that has sold 85 million copies worldwide. The boys' favourite is The Dark Never Hides by Peter Lancett, one from the Dark Man series, illustrated fantasy novels aimed at reluctant teens and young adults struggling to read. The study also notes that both sexes choose easier books to read once they reach the age of 11 and move to a secondary school.

But Professor Keith Topping, head of the study, also reports, "As with adult reading, kids will not always read to the limit of their ability ... Even high-achieving readers do not challenge themselves enough as they grow older."

By the way, a similar survey two years ago found that boys opted for harder-to-read books than girls.

The Independent

Silverfish International Editions

2010-03-01T18:44:00.001+08:00

Some might have noticed the pdf and html information sheets posted on the Silverfish Books website for Farish A Noor's Qur'an and Cricket and Shih-Li Kow's Ripples and other stories. These are the first two books Silverfish has decided to market to the US, UK and the Eurozone. Qur'an and Cricket is currently available on Amazon (US and UK). Barnes and Noble, and The Book Depository (US and UK). (We have not checked other online bookstores yet but if one Googles Qur'an and Cricket one will get an idea of how widely it is available.)

We have just uploaded Ripples and it should be available soon. We have noticed that Amazon is pretty efficient when it comes to listing; they have the book on their site within two or three days. Barnes and Noble reacts in about a week, while The Book Depository takes much longer (and they still don't have the cover image on).

We are planning to select about ten Silverfish titles for upload in the course of the year. Our titles are currently being used in more than twenty universities around the world, with no promotion on our part, purely by word of mouth. By making our books available through the retail giants and other distributors and wholesalers, we want to make it more affordable for colleges and universities in the US and UK to use these titles. Our biggest problem before this was shipping cost.

Titles we upload may be ordered (in the US) through Ingrams, Amazon.com, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, NACSCORP and Espresso Book Machine, (in the UK) through Amazon.co.uk, Bertrams, Blackwell, The Book Depository, Coutts, Gardners, Mallory International, Paperback Bookshop, Argosy Ireland, Eden Interactive Ltd., Aphrohead, I.B.S - STL U.K, Libreria Ledi, and Eleftheroudakis

Silverfish Books

Dante's Inferno: The videogame

2010-02-17T15:22:00.000+08:00

We literary types are a snooty lot. We wonder, sometimes, which planet video-gamers are from, or if they even can be classified as intelligent life form. Of course, since we have no time for these 'childish games' we have little idea how sophisticated they can get, and even if we do, we would still question, condescendingly, their contribution towards the advancement of the human race and civilization.

Okay. While no Nobel prizes are about to be awarded for this genre anytime soon, this headline in Wired.com caught my attention: Dante's Inferno proves it: Classic literature is a videogame gold mine. Really?

The story says that Electronic Arts has made a videogame of Dante Alighieri’s epic adventure through the circles of hell, to be played on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Now, the development team is looking at other classic literary works for inspiration. Wow! I may become a gamer yet.

From the video commercial, it does look awesome. But what do I know? I am most definitely not a gamer, and this could very well be one of those 'been there, done that' type as far as videogames go. The Wired review more or less says that. Gus Mustrapa calls this hack-and-slash action game 'derivative'. Apparently, it 'pilfers' every nuance from God of War, a game by Sony. Still, Mastrapa calls it a 'ballsy take on literature ...' with "phallic imagery that ... is about as blue as you'll ever see in a videogame that isn't rated Adults Only."

Mastrapa adds, 'The game's best moment is when it goes big. The reveal of Dis, the massive city of the dead, is striking: Just before Dante batters down the doors and starts trashing the place, the camera pulls back to reveal the citadel's smouldering walls. Dante, atop a giant demon, is dwarfed by this metropolis of the damned. Hell feels like a big, big place brimming with unfortunate souls.

"The Old Testament morality of Dante's Inferno got into my head after hours of sin and punishment. By the time I made it to the final circle, where traitors, liars and politicians suffer, I made a mental note to do my best to be nice to others. After centuries, fire and brimstone
still do the trick."

I, so, want to play this game!

Oddest book title award, again

2010-02-17T15:12:00.000+08:00

Apparently, they received a record number of submissions for this year's The Bookseller's annual Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title. The shortlist will be announced on February 19 (later this week). This will be followed by a public vote to determine the winner. 90 submissions came in this year.

Among the titles in contention this year are: Advances in Potato Chemistry and Technology, Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich, An Intellectual History of Cannibalism, The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin, Dental Management of Sleep Disorders and Mickey Mouse, Hitler and Nazi Germany.

Scientific and academic titles will always sound weird to everyone else. Personally, I think they should not be allowed to participate, but I admit they can sound funny, like the following: The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Curbside Consultation in Cornea and External Disease, Food Digestion and Thermal Preference of Toad, and Map-based Comparative Genomics in Legumes.

Then there are these: The Origin of Faeces, Peek-a-poo: What's in Your Diaper?, Venus Does Adonis While Apollo Shags a Tree, Father Christmas Needs a Wee, and Is the Rectum a Grave?.

You can read the whole list and pick your own favourites from The Bookseller website.

The Bookseller

Amazon removes Macmillan titles

2010-01-31T20:51:00.000+08:00

Brad Stone and Motoko Rich report in the New York Times

Looks like this is the first casualty following the announcement of the iPad by Apple Computers: Amazon.com has withdrawn all Macmillan titles from its online bookstore in what looks like the beginnings of a long drawn out book war. This is a war that has been waiting to be declared for a long time, ever since the release of the Kindle a year ago and the subsequent pricing of Amazon's 'hardback' e-books at USD9.99. Publishers have been strongly objecting to this pricing by Amazon for a long time (although the online bookshop actually makes a loss on each sale and not the publishers) on grounds that such pricing devalues books. (Macmillan titles can still, however, be purchased from third-party sellers.)

Macmillan's imprints include Farrar, Straus & Giroux, St. Martins Press and Henry Holt. Books withdrawn include A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich.

Macmillan are one of the publishers that have signed with Apple, as part of its new iBookstore on the iPad tablet. Apple will allow publishers to set their own prices for e-books, which is expected to be between USD12.99 and USD14.99 for most fiction and general non-fiction titles. The discount structure is also believed to be better, with Apple offering 70% to the publishers against 50% by Amazon.

It will be interesting to see how this one develops.

Latest: Amazon concedes this round with the following statement (though they have yet to restore the buy buttons):

"We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles ... We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books."

Exactly. All publishers have monopolies over their titles. That's why books are not like other commodities and they cannot be sold supermarket style. That's why a book is not a shoe.

New York Times

Dictionary banned in US schools

2010-01-31T20:45:00.000+08:00

Alison Flood writes in The Guardian that the Merriam Webster's 10th edition dictionary has been banned from classrooms in Menifee Union school district in southern California schools after a parent complained about a child reading the definition for 'oral sex' which it described as
"oral stimulation of the genitals". Aiyoh! Trauma habis!

It was considered too "sexually graphic" and "just not age appropriate" for 4th Grade students (who were between 9 and 10 years old). Consider the case of a parent who went into a Kuala Lumpur bookstore and saw -- horrors of horrors -- a whole row of books by Salman Rushdie, lodged a complaint and got it all removed by the management. How dare they corrupt the innocent minds of his children with ... with ...er ... actually I have no idea with what.

Some parents have praised the move, but others have raised concerns. "It is not such a bad thing for a kid to have the wherewithal to go and look up a word he may have even heard on the playground." But, "You have to draw the line somewhere. What are they going to do next, pull encyclopaedias because they list parts of the human anatomy like the penis and vagina?"

This is not the first book to be banned in schools in the US. Song of Solomon by Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison, was suspended last year from (and then reinstated to) the a Michigan school after complaints of graphic sex and violence, as have titles by Khaled Hosseini and Philip Pullman.

Making poetry pay

2010-01-31T20:24:00.000+08:00

Mark Garcia-Prats writes in Publishing Perpectives of PoetrySpeaks.com, a site that features poetry blogs, weekly highlighted poets, and a fully searchable archive of poems in both text and audio format. There is also a poetry bookstore, a forum and videos of poetry performances. In other words: poetry heaven. The websites' motto is "experience, discover, share".

The website was launched in November of 2009 by Sourcebooks, Chicago-based publisher. Says Sourcebooks CEO, "We wanted a site that helps connect poetry readers, potential poetry reader, and poets. And we wanted to begin developing a new business model for poetry." It took five years and USD250,000 (so far) to set up the site.

The vision behind creating the website is to allow readers more direct contact with their favourite poet and to participate in the same poetry community as their heroes. PoetrySpeaks.com hopes to create a large, active audience of poetry lovers who are willing to download individual poems in text and audio forms for USD 0.99 each, and buy poetry merchandise like books, e-books, DVDs, and CDS, and tickets for poetry performances.

From the website: "Poetry does not, in its essential nature, belong to literature. It comes before literature, when the place of books was occupied by voice and memory. It is meant not so much to be read as to be heard. And the artifice -- the rhyme, the rhythm, the language working to the limits of its capacity -- is what makes poetry stick in the mind like music. At the same time, a skilled interpreter can make a well-worn poem as fresh as if it had never been read before."

Be warned: not for the faint-hearted.

Publishing Perpectives

Dan Brown is not the most pirated ebook of 2009

2010-01-15T15:29:00.000+08:00

If you expected Dan Brown, James Patterson, JK Rowlings, or other airport bestsellers to be at the top of the list of most pirated ebooks, think again. The winner for the award of the most pirated ebook in 2009 was ... drum roll please ... Kama Sutra-aa. Yes! Originally compiled in Sanskrit by Vatsyayana in the second century of the Common Era, this ancient manual of practical advice on sex is still the one to beat. Eat my dust, Playboy. (We are assuming that not all the copies were downloaded in India.)

Interestingly, number two on the list was Adobe Photoshop Secrets and (you have to read this) Chris Matyszczyk reports in CNet News: "My own feeling, from deep beneath my T-shirt, is that the Kama Sutra and Adobe Photoshop Secrets have largely been downloaded by the same people for entirely related purposes." Obviously. What else does he use Photoshop for? Work? The original version did not have any pictures -- they just did it -- but the new ones are all illustrated with mostly fake pictures! Get it right: we are 21st century people, we don't have enough imagination, we need pictures to get us going, you know, visuals.

Number 3 on the most pirated book list was The Complete Idiot's Guide to Amazing Sex. --we are sick, man! -- before the list moves on to nerd territory. Number 4 was The Lost Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci and Solar House--A Guide for the Solar Designer came it Number 5.

Then just when you think that we should start getting worried, sanity returns, and there was at Number 6, Before Pornography--Erotic Writing In Early Modern England . We were back in form! At Number 7 was Twilight -- boring -- before we got back to more titilating stuff at Number 8: How To Get Anyone To Say YES--The Science Of Influence; Number 9: Nude Photography--The Art And The Craft (yeah, right), and finally, for those with no lives at Number 10: Fix It--How To Do All Those Little Repair Jobs Around The Home.

We are such a bunch of sick shits!

Cnet News

Middlemen in trouble

2010-01-15T15:25:00.000+08:00

The middleman has been the most reviled of species, and also the most indispensable -- they have a way of making themselves so. In the publishing industry, these are called literary agents. It seems as if we cannot live without them because a publisher will not deal with anyone without an agent. But they will not answer your emails or your phone calls, they won't even bother to tell you if they don't like your manuscript or (God forbid) read it. They will make you scrape and grovel, and spit you out like a sucked orange once you are no longer the flavour of the week. They are the self appointed Gods of the publishing world. Generally, they are inclined to treat you like the scum accumulated in your kitchen drainpipe.

But now they say they are in trouble. Should we care? According to a story in the Bookseller: "Literary agents have seen their profits tumble, with the recession, dwindling advances and publishers' focus on celebrity cited as contributing factors."

Yes, but how do middlemen lose money? It is one thing it you make less money or don't make money because there is no business, but how do you lose it? Publishers put up the capital for the printing, the (sometimes absurd) advances and have to pay for warehousing, shipping, and deal with returns. There is real risk here if a book doesn't sell. What risks do literary agents face?

There was a time when the publisher made all publishing decisions including talent scouting. Now they leave most of the latter to the "professionals", the literary agents, the self appointed arbiters of "good taste". Some are of the opinion that the industry will be better off without them. There are no literary agents in Malaysia, so we do all the work ourselves (as do the other publishers). Perhaps, we could use editors who provide good editing and critiquing services (paid for by authors) to make manuscripts publishable.

The Bookseller

Pulp fiction

2010-01-01T10:18:00.000+08:00

Dalya Alberge writes in The Daily Mail about How 77million books a year are turned into pulp fiction.

She says: "Publishers are quietly disposing of around 77million unsold books a year." And this is only in the UK. These unsold books returned by the bookshops "are being shredded, pulped or sold on market stalls at a fraction of their original price." (That would include BookXcess, I guess.)

Some interesting numbers:

Bookshops returned 61 million books to publishers in the UK, with another 16 million coming from overseas retailers.

Out of 86,000 new titles published in the UK in 2009, 59,000 sold an average of 18 copies (not sure how they get that number), less than the average of 41 copies for POD books.

Cherie Blair who received a GBP 1 million advance for her autobiography, has sold only 23,412 hardbacks and 10,240 paperbacks since 2008. (Wonder if they used the photo above for publicity.)

Electronic books outsold physical books for the first time on Amazon on Christmas Day.

Julian Barnes's Nothing To Be Frightened Of, published in March 2008 has sold only 8,849 copies. (His earlier book Arthur and George sold 500,000 copies.) Martin Amis's The Second Plane sold 4,493 paperbacks from January, and Will Self’s Butt sold 8,200 from May.

And other observations:

The whole industry is a lottery, with publishers risking large sums, always hoping for a bestseller.

Dan Franklin, publisher of Jonathan Cape, says the system is 'raving mad'.

The Daily Mail

Kafka manuscripts

2010-01-01T09:58:00.000+08:00

Many people know this story. When Kafka died in 1924, he made one last request to his friend Max Brod: "... everything I leave behind me [is] to be burned unread." But Brod did exactly the opposite. (Of course, according to reports, he agonised over it. We don't know if that is really is the truth, but it sounds more romantic that way.)

Brod devoted the rest of his life to preserving and "editing" his friend's work. He then fled the Nazis (again by catching "the last train" from Prague in 1939 -- I see a movie in it), with a suitcase of Kafka papers, including The Trial, and ended up in Tel Aviv. Kafka was a Czech Jew who wrote in German. (Even today, many claim Kafka as their own. Several years ago, the Austrian Ambassador came to Silverfish Books looking for books by Austrian writers. I told him that I didn't have many but that he was welcomed to look. Soon, he deposited some books on the counter, telling me that they were all Austrian. In the lot was Kafka. I said I thought Kafka was Czech. He assured me otherwise. I told the Czech Ambassador and his wife this the next time we met. They were both livid, and I could not disagree with them, and I don't know the outcome of the diplomatic exchanges that subsequently ensued. BTW, Wikipedia lists Kafka as a Czech, an Austrian and a German writer.)

Apart from the papers in Brod's suitcase, Kafka's legacy was also with his nieces, especially Marianna Steiner who arranged for the transfer of almost all his papers (including The Castle and Metamorphosis) to Oxford from 1961 to 2001, in a display of "rare nobility and generosity of spirit' of the Kafka family, holocaust survivors. Many Kafka scholars visit Oxford in order to study the large collection of Kafka manuscripts housed in the Bodleian Library. The author's handwriting is described as 'spidery, intense and completely legible, with barely a line blotted" by Robert Crum in his Guardian blog, accepting an invitation to inspect Bodleain's Kafka collection.

Robert Crum adds: 'One of the most moving manuscripts is Das Urteil (The Judgment), a story of some 30 pages written ... in a single sitting from 10 o'clock at night to six in the morning. Dated 23 September 1912, it is followed by a diary note expressing Kafka's joy at "the only way to write, only with such coherence, with such a complete opening out of the body and the soul".'

The Guardian Blog

It's a topsy-turvy book world

2009-12-16T14:28:00.000+08:00

Borders UK is under administration; rumours have it that Borders US have not paid their distributors for two months; Barnes and Noble is losing money, so is Waterstones in UK; and publishers are terrified of returns if any more of the big boys go bust. Then there is another story (currently denied) that Amazon wants to set up a brick-and-mortar shop!

In another story French President Nicolas Sarkozy says that he would not let his country's literary heritage be taken away by a "friendly" large American company, namely Google, and is looking to create its own national digital organisation. The project is expected to be financed by a national loan.

In yet another development, five of the biggest publishers of newspapers and magazines in the US (Time Inc., News Corp., Conde Nast, Hearst Corp., and Meredith Corp., whose magazines include Time, Cosmopolitan and Better Homes and Gardens) have announced a plan to challenge Amazon's Kindle with their own digital solution that would display in colour, and work on a variety of devices. Things get even more complicated with the announcement that Simon & Schuster is delaying its e-book editions of about 35 leading titles, taking a stand against the cut-rate US$9.99 pricing of e-books imposed by Amazon. A second publisher, the Hachette Book Group, said it has similar plans.

And then there is this potential 800 pound gorilla in the room (still in vapour form, but which no one dares to ignore), Apple's alleged Kindle-crusher, rumoured to be set for a spring of 2010 release -- okay, start the drum roll now -- the-e MacTablet ... or-rr the TabletMac ... or (is it) the iPad? Well, whatever. Apparently, Apple has been talking to several media companies about their phantom device (which has also been touted as a full-fledged computer, a gaming machine and a portable DVD player), which many think will redefine the rules of the game. Anyway, quite a few fingernails are being chewed in anticipation; there is much nervousness in the industry.

WSJ Online

Chicago Tribune

The Register

Cnet

Neruda, the shell collector

2009-12-16T14:26:00.000+08:00

Anita Brooks writes in The Independent about Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) who was a career diplomat, a member of the Communist party and was made a Nobel literary laureate in 1971. (The Chilean writer and politician was born Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto; Neruda was his pen name that he assumed as a teenager, partly to hide his poetry from his father who wanted his son to have a proper occupation. He took his pen name from Czech writer and poet Jan Neruda.)

Neruda wrote erotic love poems, surrealist poems, historical epics, and political manifestos. While he was not doing any of these, the author was a passionate collector of shells, which he acquired from markets and beaches around the world. He collected over 9000 shells (one from Mao Zedong) in a period of 20 years. 400 of these are now (for the first time) on exhibition in Madrid at the Instituto de Cervantes. (He donated his collection to the University of Chile in 1954.)

"The best thing I have collected in my life are my shells," the poet once wrote. "They gave me the pleasure of their prodigious structure, the lunar purity of their mysterious porcelain."

The Independent

Borders UK under administration

2009-11-30T14:21:00.000+08:00

Going, going, gone. The drama has been unfolding for months, and finally it has been confirmed: Borders UK has gone belly-up; even that, not without more drama though. After acquiring it in a management buyout four month ago, Valco Capital has been trying to hawk Borders, to the extent of advertising its sale. But when deals with WH Smith and HMV didn't come through, administration remained the only option.

Borders is the first major chain to go under in UK after Woolworths, and the first bookshop chain. With 45 stores at prime locations on high streets and as anchor tenants in malls closing down, besides leaving plenty of empty retail space like Woolworths, there is a real fear of the domino effect with several publishers, wholesalers and distributors in UK being put under immense pressure. (Malaysia will not be exempt either: imagine only a tiny portion of the books from 45 mega-stores, being remaindered and sold off cheap at the next big warehouse sale in Klang Valley, and the resulting strain on the local industry.) The first store of Borders UK was opened in 1998 and now the chain has been shuttered, after being directly or indirectly responsible for the demise of hundreds of independents over the last decade. (The French must really be having a good laugh -- no remaindered sales there and, remember, they treat their independents like wine!)

Still, Mr Robert Clark, the senior partner at Retail Knowledge Bank, "...firmly believes that if a bookseller has knowledgeable staff and tailors its services to the local community ... there is still a place in Britain's high streets for physical booksellers." Even chains.

BTW, according to the BBC website, the 45 stores under Borders have started closing down sales.

The Independent

Salman Rushdie to write sequel to 'Haroun and the Sea of Stories'

2009-11-30T14:14:00.001+08:00

According to TheBookseller.com, Salman Rushdie is writing a sequel to his 1990s children's book Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Luka and the Fire of Life is expected to be published by Jonathan Cape in late 2010, according to the website.

Salman Rushdie wrote Haroun and the Sea of Stories in 1990 for his oldest son Zafar. It was Rushdie's first book afer The Satanic Verses, the first book after Ayatollah Khomeini called for his execution. The book tells the story of a 12-year-old boy who goes on a quest to help his father recover his lost gift of storytelling. It is probably the most readable of Rushdie's books, for those who find his other works a little intimidating.

Rushdie is writing Luka and the Fire of Life for his youngest son, Milan, who was born in 1999. Luka is the younger brother of Haroun, who must also help his ailing father in a quest to find the fire of life.

I remember the time when Silverfish first opened in Desa Seri Hartamas. Walking into the Times warehouse (they were distributing Penguin books then), I saw a stack of hardbound Harouns with full colour illustrations priced at RM56.00. I asked them what they were doing there, and they told me that nobody wanted them. Shocked, I told them that I'd take the lot (although they refused to give me a better discount). I knew my customers would love the book and I sold them all out in a month. Then I ordered 60 more, which too sold out. I couldn't even save a copy for myself. (I later bought a copy from India.)

It was a beautiful book. Let's hope some brain-dead pen-pusher does not decide to ban it.

The Bookseller.com

In France, indie bookshops are like fine wine

2009-11-16T15:13:00.000+08:00

Olivia Snaije writes in Publishing Perspectives. France will soon be a warding labels to indie bookshops in the country, like it does for wine. The former culture minister Christine Albanel launched the Librairie Independante de Reference (Recommended Independent Bookshop) label in 2007. As of September 2009, 406 of France's 3,000 independent bookstores have qualified for the designation -- denoting high quality.

Olivia Snaije reports: "In order to qualify for the LIR label, which is valid for three years, bookshops must fulfill six conditions, among which are that the bookshop play an important cultural role in the community, organizing readings and cultural events; that it have employees who contribute to the quality of the service and that the bookstore's owner be responsible for buying stock; that the store maintain a large selection of books -- typically at least 6,000 titles, the majority of which have been in print for a year or more."

"Bookshops that win LIR designation receive tax breaks from the government and special subsidies administered by the Centre National du Livre (CNL), including interest-free loans for store improvements and money to support readings and events. Some 500,000 euros are designated for the LIR-related projects, while the government estimates the tax breaks offered will exceed 3 million euros in value."

In 1981 the Lang law, which was initially criticised for obstructing free competition, established fixed book prices in France. It limited discounts to 5%. Now, 28 years later, it is considered a success, and a boost to the industry. Today, France has a network of 3,500 independent bookshops and some 6,000 publishers.

Talk of taking culture seriously.

Publishing Perspectives

An agent for agents

2009-11-16T15:08:00.000+08:00

From Publishers Weekly: First there were writers and publishers, then there were agents inbetween the writers and the publishers; now there is an agent inbetween the writer and the agent!

WEbook was launched 18 months ago as a site for writers. It has now added a new service, AgentInbox, that links authors and agents. With a link on the WEbook home page. According to their site, they will pre-screen submissions from authors before sending them on to appropriate agents. "AgentInbox will focus in particular on query letters while also ensuring the manuscripts adhere to basic editorial standards and readiness," says Ardy Khazaei, president of WEbook.

Publishers Weekly says, "WEbook's team of in-house and freelance publishing professionals will review pitch letters, make sure that the letters match the actual manuscript and that the manuscript is properly formatted, but the company will not make any recommendations about the quality of the content."

"We think we've created a fast and easy way for agents to manage the slush pile," says Khazaei.

The report says that, to date, about eight literary agencies have signed on and, in the short term AgentInbox is free to authors. But there could be a fee in future. There will be no charge to agents and WEbook will take no cut of any future deals.

Somehow it doesn't quite add up, does it? Maybe, I am too cynical.

WEbook

So who says reading is dead?

2009-11-16T15:07:00.000+08:00

For the whole of the first year, from August 2008 to August 2009, games were the number one category of downloads on the iPhone every month according to analytics firm, Flurry. But in September, games apps were overtaken by book apps for the first time. And, in the last four months, book apps have exceeded the popularity of games apps. In October one in five apps produced for the iPhone have been books.

Flurry predicts that Apple could take over the market from the Amazon Kindle, as more and more book publishers continue to produce books for the AppStore, even though the iPhone display is two inch smaller than the Kindle's. It could be even more worrying for Amazon if rumours of the Apple tablet turn out to be true.

Flurry's research, entitled the Pulse Report, also found that iPhone 'addicts' utilised their apps more than three times a day and in excess of 100 times a month,over ten times more than the average. Flurry's sample size was over 2,500 applications and 40 million consumers. The survey looked at usage patterns across Apple (iPhone and iPod Touch), Blackberry, JavaME and Google Android.

Flurry

Second Great Library of Alexandria

2009-10-29T17:06:00.000+08:00

The Royal Library of Alexandria, Egypt, was the largest and the most famous of the libraries of the ancient world. It flourished under the Ptolemaic dynasty and functioned as a major centre of scholarship for many centuries after Rome's conquest of Egypt.

Built at the beginning of the third century BCE, the library was conceived and opened during the reign of Ptolemy I (or his son Ptolemy II). Plutarch (CE 46–120) wrote that during his visit to Alexandria in 48 BCE, Julius Caesar accidentally burned the library down. According to Plutarch's account, this fire spread to the docks and then to the library. But the library remained a major centre of learning until the sacking of Alexandria in 642 by the Arab army led by Amr ibn al 'Aas.

Now, The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is officially open in an attempt to recreate the Royal Library of Alexandria. The library sits facing the Mediterranean Sea, not far from the site of the original one. Besides the library itself, which has shelf space for roughly 8 million books, there are three museums (Antiquities, Manuscripts and the History of Science), a planetarium, a conference centre, gallery space for art exhibitions, and a number of academic research centres.

The project was initially conceived in 1974 by scholars at Alexandria University. The Egyptian government and UNESCO jumped at it. A Norwegian architectural firm won the commission to design the complex. The project cost US$220 million to complete, with most of the funding coming from the Arab world.

The original Royal Library of Alexandria was envisaged by Ptolemy I as a gathering place for the world’s great scientists, scholars and thinkers. Like the modern complex, theRoyal Library of Alexandria housed not only a library (containing an estimated 700,000 scrolls), but science laboratories and research facilities as well.

Wired.com

Tweeting to shape future of publishing

2009-10-29T17:04:00.000+08:00

If you always wanted to know about the publishing industry but were afraid to ask, there is a lively conversation taking place on Twitter about where the publishing industry is headed. The tweets are about how the industry should cope with the downturn, the price wars, the rising digital media, publishers struggling to figure out pricing, digital rights issues and how to market digital content.

Maria Schneider who covers writing, publishing and social media has compiled a list of 15 Twitter users she turns to for news and insight about how old school publishing is meeting the digital future. You may simply follow the tweets, or participate in the discussions about the industry. Below is a sample.

@R_Nash is Richard Nash, an Indie publisher, formerly of Soft Skull Press who is launching an innovative new social publishing startup called Cursor. Nash consistently offers a contrarian point-of-view and doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to challenging traditional publishing.

@NathanBransford is Nathan Bransford,a Literary agent with Curtis Brown. He writes a popular blog and tackles tough subjects such as: "Will writers of the future even need publishers?" Bransford may be the most popular literary agent on Twitter for his straight-up personable advice about where book publishing is headed.

Get the full list from Mashable.

Mashable

Complete works of Shakespeare on your iPhone

2009-10-15T17:07:00.001+08:00

Philip Michaels from Macworld.com reports that Readdle.com, in association with PlayShakespeare.com is providing the text for all plays, sonnets, and poems of the bard as a free download for the iPhone and the iPod touch. Also thrown in are Edward III and Sir Thomas More, two plays no one can definitively state that Shakespeare wrote, and the poem, To the Queen (ditto). Readdle's Shakespeare is all of 28.8MB; tons of disk space left for music and videos.

But Michaels says that "thumbing through Much Ado About Nothing or Richard III on a 3.5-inch screen involves a few sacrifices" and advises that the plays read best in landscape mode. But, given the limited screen real estate on the iPhone, there appear to be quibbles about lines running into one another, abbreviated names, lack of notes and reference guides.

As can be expected, the search functions are reported to be excellent. So there you go. Whether you want to impress chicks, or you are curious about the origins of a particular phrase, Readdle's Shakespeare is for you. What's more, it is free.

MacWorld.com

iPod MBAs

2009-10-15T16:21:00.001+08:00

How I wish they had it forty years ago. Even now I have nightmares about getting up at 7.00 in the morning for the first lecture at 8.00am every day, head still heavy with sleep. But I will have to settle for simply being envious of the spoiled youth of today.

In a story called Turn on your iPod and learn, Matthew Symonds of the Independent writes, "If you ask a college student about the current favourites on their iPod, you might expect to hear of artists such as Lady Gaga, British Sea Power, or maybe even Michael Jackson for the newly nostalgic. Ask the same question on the campus of the Warwick Business School and you might be surprised when students remove their earphones to tell you that they are catching up on macroeconomics and analysis of the credit crisis, or that they are reviewing the latest thinking on creative management."

Disgusting. They don't even have to attend lectures!

Warwick, Stanford, MIT, Oxford and University College London are among those providing mobile learning with educational audio and video files, or podcasts, so students can study at their own pace, wherever and whenever they want. The courses and research material are provided by the universities professors and can be downloaded from the iTunes University, a free education area within the Apple iTunes.

You want to know what is worse? "... new research suggests that university students who learn by downloading a podcast lecture achieve significantly higher exam results than those who attend the lecture in person ..." and the results are even better for those who listen to the podcasts more than once. And you can still listen to your favourite U2 album when you are bored, and one will be wiser, or care.

The Independent

The book is dead, long live the book

2009-09-30T18:25:00.001+08:00

For several years now, the tech world has been predicting the eventual death of the book, what with the Google digitising campaign, the Kindle, the Sony reader and even the iPhone. Now, all of a sudden, Wired.com and Cnet.com are both heralding a new age of the book! Over the last seven years, Google has scanned millions of tomes from leading libraries around the world, and turned them into searchable documents available on the internet. Now, Google Book Search, in partnership with On Demand Books -- the makers of Espresso Book Machines -- are expected to announce a project in early October that will allow readers to buy paper copies of those, individually printed by bookstores around the world. The catch, the Espresso Machines cost USD100,000.00 a pop. (But I am not unduly worried, others will get into the business and soon we will see cheap book Machines from China.)

Still, this is good news. Google has scanned some 2 million books that are currently in public domain, and they will now be made available almost immediately from some 90 bookshops around the world that have these machines, so smelling paper and turning pages will last for a while longer. The books are expected to cost USD8.00 each. Not bad. Now, Penguin will have to re-examine their absurd pricing of some of their classics. (Of course, they will have to come up with better cover designs, but that should be in the pipeline.)

What this can do, if it does take off, is completely change the book retail industry, and give Amazon.com something to worry about. Imagine hundreds of bookstores around the world with access to millions of titles, which they can print, bind and deliver within minutes. This is, of course, currently, mostly about the long tail of books. But that can change. Many authors will not even mind letting Google handle the distribution of even their new books using this technology if it breaks the Amazon hegemony (and their absurd discount demands).

Yes, I love it. This is a revolution in book distribution and retail.

The other issue that needs to be addressed now is copyright. Copyright in the US now extends to the life of an author plus 70 years for newly created works -- but copyright laws vary from country to country. Life plus seventy years: now how absurd is that? It guarantees the death of most books. Few books in copyright have enough demand to warrant a reprint. (No publisher is going to publish 1000 copies when there is a demand for only fifty.) Yet they will have an undeniable cultural and historical value, and need to be read by people who matter.

Nick Harkaway writes in the Guardian Blog: "We lose stories every day because they drift out of use and into the vast limbo of in-copyright, out-of-print books whose ownership is unclear. At the same time, existing copyright law is woefully unable to get to grips with digital copying and display, and with the international quality of the internet ..."

and

"... we need, for example, a system where copyright must be re-registered every ten years to retain exclusivity, possibly with a safety net allowing someone who slips up to regain copyright."

I see where he is coming from, but not necessarily agree with his methods. Firstly, we have to add to the first category important books by living authors that, maybe, only researchers and specialists will want. The Print on Demand project by Google could address that if there is a path for authors to participate directly. As for the 10-year renewal system, it is cumbersome and does not address the absurd issues like the recent blocking of The Catcher in the Rye "sequel" by JD Salinger. Once a book is published it enters the public consciousness. It becomes part of the culture and, in many cases, a relevant version of history. The current copyright laws only address the commercial aspects. But, I agree, we need a new system.

In the meantime, Wired.com has it that President Obama has appointed scholar, Victoria A. Espinel, as USA's first copyright czar. Good luck.

Free to Read (by The Dram Project and SIS)

2009-09-30T18:07:00.001+08:00

Twenty-sixth September saw the start of Banned Books Week in the the US. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Here in Malaysia, more than 1500 books have been banned between 1971 and 2009. In terms of children's literature, these include books in the Spongebob Squarepants series, Dora’s Fiesta Adventure ActivePoint Book, Poems & Prayers for Children and Read-Aloud Children’s Classics.

The Dram Projects believes in the freedom to read. We also believe in the right to make informed choices when selecting reading material.

TDP will be participating in the Right to Read Festival, presented by Sisters in Islam and The Centre for Independent Journalism.

Artist/photographer Wei Meng Foo and Daphne Lee (of TDP) will conduct Free2READ, a workshop that introduces children (9-12) to their rights as readers; celebrates the joy and thrill of discovering the different worlds and experiences that lie between the covers of books; and examines the problems and challenges children might encounter in their reading journeys.

The workshop participants will be encouraged to discuss and debate the concept of book-banning; invited to question book-banning and challenging policies; and explore their own feelings and thoughts regarding the practice of restricting children's reading material.

This will be followed by a bookcover art session with artist/photographer Wei Meng Foo. During this session participants will be invited to exercise their imaginations and creatiivity to produce book covers that celebrate their rights as readers.

Date: 10th October, 2009. Time: 10am-1pm. Venue: The Annexe, Central Market, Kuala Lumpur. Admission: Free.

Registration: Call Nazreen at 03-7785 6121

"Middle way" in literature

2009-09-16T16:14:00.001+08:00

Report from Phayul.com: The Kalon Tripa, Prof Samdhong Rinpoche, the Prime Minister of Tibetan exile government, speaking as the chief guest at a literary conference recently organised by the Tibetan PEN in Dharamsala, advised Tibetan writers, poets and editors to adopt a middle way in their writing practices. Huh? That's a new one. Don't we have enough 'middle road' in literature, what with all the self-censorship, selling out and commercial interests? I, for one, would be grateful for a little less 'air bandung', and a little more truth. Or, was he talking about a balance between tradition and creativity in literature. Still does not make sense. Anyway, that's what happens when you get a politician to speak at a literary conference.

Anyway, for the record, several writers, poets, editors and readers met at this annual affair by Tibetan PEN. The main topic of debate was the usual one: can writings in non-Tibetan languages be considered Tibetan? To many of us, we have debated that one to death already in this country. But, many others argue that the issue is still very much alive. According to the sole Tibetan writer in English at the conference, Tenzin Tsundue, "if a writer is Tibetan and if the content is also Tibetan then it must be considered as Tibetan literature ..."

(Picture: Tibetan writer Woeser)

Phayul.com

Did the plot ever really die?

2009-09-16T16:12:00.001+08:00

Reading Lev Grossman's story Good Books Don't Have to Be Hard in the Wall Street Journal, one will be entitles to be afraid. Be very afraid. The plot is coming back to the novel! Of course, many will go ... er ... did it ever die ... when? According to Grossman it was with Ulysses and Lady Chatterley's Lover, amongst other's. (So that's why they wanted to ban the books, they couldn't understand them!)

He writes: "A good story is a dirty secret that we all share. It's what makes guilty pleasures so pleasurable, but it's also what makes them so guilty. A juicy tale reeks of crass commercialism and cheap thrills. We crave such entertainments, but we despise them. Plot makes perverts of us all."

Really?! Hmm. I have to confess, I have always liked some plot in my novels, but not at the expense of good writing and good characters. I guess there was a time when I would plough through a hard book because it was supposed to be good. Strangely, this appears to be an affectation of 20th century Anglophone literature. The Europeans and the South Americans appear to have gotten over it after Kafka, that is, and seem to know how to combine good story-telling with good writing. (They are really not mutually exclusive, you know.)

Lev Grossman says, "All of this is changing. The revolution is under way. The novel is getting entertaining again. Writers like Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Donna Tartt, Kelly Link, Audrey Niffenegger, Richard Price, Kate Atkinson, Neil Gaiman, and Susanna Clarke, to name just a few, are busily grafting the sophisticated, intensely aware literary language of Modernism onto the sturdy narrative roots of genre fiction ..." Or, you could read Carlos Ruis Zafon, Saramago, Arturo Perez-Reverte, or any of the South Americans -- they still have the plot.

Wall Street Journal