Three things

Firstly, you might have noticed the little logo below all the posts. This is a little script that will allow you to share any article that interests you with your own community with just two clicks (if you are logged in to your account.) This should save you some cutting and pasting. I have not figured out the script for other social networks, but then is the most popular.

Secondly, if you visited had our online bookshop lately, you might have noticed that we accept. At the moment this facility is only for International buyers who are a little squeamish about revealing their credit card details to a Malaysian (ie 'unknown') payment gateway (though we have had many international buyers in the past). All transactions for users will be in USD. We are not offering this option to Malaysian buyers because does not have the option for transactions in MYR yet. Maybe in future.

Thirdly, we have discovered Arch Collections that produces souvenir item made of wood. They have their own range of cheesy items and designs (we have decided not to stock the KL Twin Towers designs and all that sort) but we have discovered that they also have a range of reasonably priced, pretty neat looking bookmarks and other stationery gift items. With Christmas and the year end just around the corner, we thought that these might make some nice office gifts. Do come and check them out.

Milan Kundera -- a spy?

Alison Flood writes in The Guardian saying, "Prestigious writers issue statement defending Milan Kundera against charges of betraying dissident."And we thought we had left James Bonds of the world to the silver screens for good.

Eleven authors -- Nadine Gordimer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Orhan Pamuk, Philip Roth, Salman Rushie, JM Coetzee, Jean Daniel, Carlos Fuentes, Juan Goytisolo, Pierre Mertens and Jorge Semprun -- have issued a statement denouncing this "orchestrated campaign of calumny" saying that the honour of one of the greatest living novelists has been tarnished on dubious grounds, to say the least".

Wow, talk about illustrious company.

A Czech magazine, Respekt, alleged last month that Kundera had informed police about the whereabouts of Miroslav Dvoracek, who was then spying for the US, in 1950. Dvoracek spent 14 years in jail.

Kundera, 79, who is known to be a critic of communism, has categorically denied the accusations and issued a stout denial. He is quoted: "I am totally astonished by something that I did not expect, about which I knew nothing only yesterday, and that did not happen. I did not know the man at all."

The Guardian

Judging the book by the cover

Another interesting Guardian report: "... following the lead of a Canadian website, bookninja.com, we asked you to redesign classic books for a dumbed-down era ..." Here is the shortlist. See if you agree with the winner, a cover design for A Tale of Two Cities by Norman Smith. I don't find it very exciting. It looks like one of those travel guides

My favourite is the Illiad by Homer, that is by Homer Simpson. Okay, call me philistine, but that book will sell in truckloads just for the cover, never mind if people don't read it. Pride and prejudice has a flag of the US on the cover. I didn't think that was very inspired. Too predictable. People are not buying George Bush books anymore. The Tom Sawyer cover says, "Please don't Auntie," and "An orphan's story that will both shock and inspire." I can hear the bookshop browser going, "Waaah! Sure go incest and sodomy, one!" The design is sufficiently prurient but not colourful enough.

Then The Lord of the Rings looks like a cookbook. There are 21 cover designs in all. Take a look at all of them at the website below. You will find more books by Charles Dickens, Graham Green, Ernest Hemingway, William Golding and many more. James Joyce's The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man -- "a coming-of-age prose-poem" -- cover will not look out of place in the bodice-splitting romance section.

See them all.

The Guardian

For the chic intellectual

In the past, I have written about people buying books to impress friends and look intelligent, and also about someone who uses books as a chick-magnet. They do cost a little less than a BMWs and you don't have to leave it in the parking lot when meeting friends at the coffee house.

A Vogue report, Designer Novels, says, "... luxury leather goods designer Bill Amberg has teamed up with Penguin Books to makeover a series of six favourite Penguin Classics including Brideshead Revisited, The Great Gatsby and Breakfast at Tiffany's."

The books will be produced in soft leather and pliable bindings, more like paperbacks than hardbacks, and promises to be 'stylish and chic'. Each book will retail for GBP 50.00 (RM 350.00) to give you that intelligent-cool-rich look (reading it is optional) to distinguish you from those who buy the normal-price books at a fraction of the cost and who merely look intelligent and cool, but not rich.

While you are at it you can also shop at the Bill Amberg's (online and brick-and-mortar) for luxury leather notebooks for GBP 60.00 to GBP 80.00 (RM 420.00 to RM 560.00), pen not included.

Eat dirt, Moleskine.

Vogue

The Sarkozy voodoo doll

A Reuters report says, "French President Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to sue a publishing company unless it withdraws a Sarkozy doll that comes with a "voodoo manual" instructing readers to plant pins in it ..." The publisher has released 20,000 dolls and copies of the manual.

The doll, nicknamed Kozy, is said to be emblazoned with Sarkozy's most famous quotes, including "Get lost you pathetic arsehole" -- his words to a bystander who refused to shake his hand at a farm show.

According to the report, Sarkozy's lawyer, Thierry Herzog, wrote to publishers K&B in a letter published by newspaper Le Monde, "Nicolas Sarkozy has instructed me to remind you that, whatever his status and fame, he has exclusive and absolute rights over his own image ... "

Yes, that's about right. Sarkozy has every right to his image. He has every right to be an arsehole if he wants to, including calling someone else a 'pathetic arsehole' for not shaking his hand.

Readers are encouraged to plant pins in the quotes.

Reuters