Pearson & Penguin Warehouse Sale 2009

Ah. Nothing like a book warehouse sale to make you feel happy and sad at the same time. Happy that you have new, cheap books in your hands and sad (rather, devastated) that your bank balance has been severely dented as a result. Details:

Preview sales: 1st October 2009
Date: 2nd – 11th October 2009
Time: 10am – 7pm
Venue: Pearson Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Lot 2 Jalan 215, Off Jalan Templer 46050 Petaling Jaya.

This time the warehouse sale has lots and lots of paperbacks! If you’re a lover of mystery books and popular titles such as The Kite Runner, The Wolf Totem, Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks, and other best sellers you’ll be in for a good time. Especially since most of the books are priced between RM10 and RM15.

Lots of Clive Cussler books for some reason. And being a Jeff Abbott fan I was glad to find a number of his bestselling thriller mysteries for RM10 each. The fantasy books are scattered everywhere, but was glad to complete some of my fantasy collections that were left hanging without the final volume. (Don’t you hate that most fantasy books come in Vol.1,2,3s?) Saw mostly Terry Brooks, Tad Williams stuff. Saw a Dragonlance Omnibus and a smattering of Neil Gaimans.

The non-fiction selection isn’t as extensive as before, which was fortunate for my wallet.

All in all a super, super warehouse sale. Though, probably, not as awe-tastic as the Big Bad Wolf  sale, which I woefully did not get to attend as I was in the United States.

Book loot from Amcorp Mall

Amcorp Mall is starting to become really dangerous for poor little me.

It’s filled with stores that book lovers like me would find hard to resist … like those stores which sell imported magazines at around RM9 each, rent-a-book nook My Book Place and BookXcess.

Was happy as a bee in a bonnet for obtaining Whitley Strieber’s 2012 (for research purposes – I worry about its UFO premise though), Into the Darkness (about 7/7 tube bombings in London), Jon Katz’s A Dog Year and Steven Erikson’s hard-to-find-but-I’m-not-sure-whether-I’ll-like-it Gardens of the Moon – all for RM17.90 each.

My Book Place has a decent collection of books from many genres, and I was happy to find some books of the “literary” persuasion – because a lot of times I’m extremely reluctant to spend RM50 on books that I may end up hating (I more often than not find them tedious). There are quite a number of unique books there that you can’t find in the stores.

I borrowed The Book Thief (because Death was the narrator) and The Scandal of the Season because it reminded me of the Scarlet Pimpernel!

I do share the owner of My Book Place’s sentiments that “foreign” literary fiction seem to have more spark, and I realised that I find literary novels from other countries besides Western ones more fascinating because you discover so much more about another country, its peoples and culture in the process.

My only problem after this sojourn to Amcorp is where I’m going to find the time to read all these books!

A Reader’s Manifesto: literary darlings actually suck at writing

I was at a bookshop one day, and a friend and I spotted a table piled with stacks of award-winning books.

My friend, who worked in a bookstore, leaned close to me and whispered, as if she was about to say something really naughty: “I think they’re really boring.”

Oh vey, yes. You don’t get much argument from me about this.

I’ve long held the suspicion that a lot (not all) of  “literary” books are rather … crap. Of course, you don’t say this out loud in the company of the cultural/literary intelligensia, who not only dig these books but breathe it, quoting passages like how evangelists quote passages from the Bible.

Okay, I jest. But there’s always been this “understanding” that literary books are “better”, “finer” and of a higher standard than “genre” fiction, and if you don’t “get” literary fiction, that means you’re not intelligent or “deep” enough to appreciate them. This silly belief always gets on my nerves.

First: who created this silly divide between “literary” and “genre” fiction anyway? Why can’t we just call them fiction? Why are some type of books – science fiction and fantasy being one – given so little respect? Why are some books elevated to stratospheric levels despite being unreadable and dull?

Second: If readers can’t understand nor get through your book, doesn’t that mean that you’ve failed as a storyteller? Why then sniff at them, your audience, and say that they’re just too stupid to appreciate it? This, by the way was what Toni Morisson did when Oprah remarked that she had a tough time understanding a lot of what Morisson wrote.

Morrison’s reply was: “That, my dear, is called reading.”

BR Myers (who I will talk about very soon) begs to differ: “Sorry, my dear Toni, but it’s actually called bad writing,” he says in his 2001 essay, A Reader’s Manifesto.

If you’ve suffered through bad novels disguised as prize-winning literature, this is a very comforting and validating essay to read. (He expanded his essay into a book too.)

Myers says that the American literary fiction scene is dominated by “sentence cults” who are more enamoured with stylistically “unique” sentences (to him – horrible sentences) than a good story.

Here are some tough words from Myers:

Everything written in self-conscious, writerly prose, on the other hand, is now considered to be “literary fiction”—not necessarily good literary fiction, mind you, but always worthier of respectful attention than even the best-written thriller or romance. It is these works that receive full-page critiques, often one in the Sunday book-review section and another in the same newspaper during the week. It is these works, and these works only, that make the annual short lists of award committees. The “literary” writer need not be an intellectual one.

Many critically acclaimed novels today are no more than mediocre “genre” stories told in a conformist amalgam of approved “literary” styles.

This is what the cultural elite wants us to believe: if our writers don’t make sense, or bore us to tears, that can only mean that we aren’t worthy of them.

The literary fiction scene is suffering from a case of “Emperor’s New Clothes”, with the emperor being the overrated literary darlings of the day, the reviewers and publishers the syncophantic courtiers and people like BR Myers the little kid who dared to tell it as it is: The Emperor has no clothes!

Sad to say, the “disease” that Myers talks of is also here in Malaysia. (In an interview with the Atlantic, he says that this is actually an international phenomenon.)

I’ve picked up short story compilations like MPH’s Urban Odysseys, and to put it very bluntly, I found most of the stories in it abysmally boring. One managed to seriously offend me in its first sentence. I also picked up Shih-Li Kow’s Ripples, and found that although the short stories were beautifully crafted they left me empty and unsatisfied. We’re told that these are the best of the best, but why am I not convinced?

Judging from my rant, I won’t blame you if you: a) want to throw a shoe at me for my philistine ways b) think I don’t know what I’m talking about b) think that I’ve not read literary fiction in my life.

The truth is I have a very eclectic reading palette: I read what some may consider “serious” fiction authors (Su Tong, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Orwell, Katherine Mansfield, Guy de Maupassant and Rudyard Kipling are among my favourite authors), and I also read “genre” fiction – crime (Michael Connelly wins!), fantasy (cheers to Robin Hobb) and science fiction (Marion Zimmer Bradley!). Non-fiction forms a large part of my library as well (I seem to gravitate towards books about food shortages, economic turmoil and ecological disasters). I also read the entire works of Shakespeare by the time I graduated university, thanks to my fantastic literature lecturer.

The point of the list is that I think, as a reader, I can be a pretty good judge on what’s a good story. And sadly, a lot of literary fiction bore me to tears.

The point is: If you think a book is bad, it’s probably because it really sucks.

Writing for a living: Fun or a chore?

Guardian had a fun post in March: Writing for a living: a joy or a chore?

Surprisingly, some novelists do not enjoy writing, which I find incredibly odd:

I get great pleasure from writing, but not always, or even usually. – Hari Kunzru

Writing novels is no fun; nor is, generally speaking, reading novels. Reading people writing about novels is not always fun, either, because relatively little of this kind of writing is any good. – Amit Chauduri

When I was young, I thought that the fun part of writing would be the “creative” bit, making stuff up and inventing things. The older I’ve got, the less fun this has become. I dread it. – Geoff Dyer

I was a little miffed that only novelists were included in the “writing for a living” list. I mean, aren’t professional writers on that list too?

Here’s my take on that question:

I adore writing, but there are times when I just don’t want to write anything. Unfortunately, when you write for a living, you are not given that choice, and at times you resent it – the act of writing.

I write and edit about 5,000 words each week. I wish I could say I sing “la la la” while I do this, but most of the time I feel like ripping off clumps of my hair as I bend over in agony over a badly constructed sentence – mine and another writer’s.

So, after a hard day’s work, which usually involves 8 hours of intense concentration on the act of polishing and creating sentences, my brain switches off and says: “No more words! I want TV!”

But I get a special thrill when I write anything non-work related. When I write about characters I made up (or borrowed), my heart races with excitement and I forget that the clock is ticking. I have writing retreats where I lock myself away in a magnificent hotel room and tap away furiously on my keyboard for hours on end, emerging only to feed myself or indulge in some shopping.

I don’t understand this drive of mine to create worlds through words; I don’t understand where my characters come from as they seem to speak from another world, and all I’m doing is taking down what they’re saying. I feel like an otherworldly observer, like some kind of god who determine their fates. (Often, it’s not a happy one.)

Why are some of us writers? Why do some of us need to write?  Now that’s a mystery only God can answer.

Science and Maths in English scrapped. Now what?

Stupid, short sighted, fucked up, what can I say. (Pardon my French.) But not for the reasons you may think.

The whole project was doomed to begin with because the government did not have the manpower to pull off PPSMI (Teaching Science and Maths in English).

A friend of mine was teaching her son mathematics one day. She noticed that he kept using the word “push” in place of “minus”, so she admonished him and said, “No, it’s 4 minus 1, dear.”

Her son shook his head and insisted, to her horror: “No, mummy. It is 4 push 1. Teacher said so.”

Push is, after all, the direct translation of “tolak” after all.

You see,  if PPSMI was implemented properly, with the right workforce in place, our kids would have benefited from it all. Unfortunately, what we’re seeing now are the urban kids – many of whom benefit from fluent, English-speaking teachers – getting better  while the rural students suffer from badly taught English science and math classes.

The government, however, could’ve done something else besides scrapping the entire thing. They could’ve instead aggressively recruited or trained a new batch of English-speaking teachers. Get retirees and expats to work in schools. Heck, if you want import sajalah.  But no. They decide to throw in the towel and retreat back into the shell whence they  came from. Six years of effort down the drain. Taxpayers’ money wasted. AGAIN.

Apparently they’ll be introducing English literature classes in school. A good idea, but how will it be executed? Will we get half-past six teachers  explaining Dickens to students in Engrish?

So, what can you do to improve your kids’ standard of English despite the stupid system in place?

Well, I studied Science and Maths in Bahasa Malaysia, but I still speak and write  in good English. If you’re worried about your kids’ proficiency in English perhaps you can copy what my parents did:

1. Encourage your child to read English books. If he wants to read comics, let him  – let him discover how fun it is to read English books. My dad really nurtured the reading bug in us.

2. Converse in English at home. My mum told me that before marrying my dad, she spoke mostly Hokkien. However, my dad insisted on speaking with us in English more often and she followed suit.

3. Let him mingle with kids his age who speak English.

Unfortunately … I just don’t know what we can do for the rural folks who probably have limited access to materials (books) and native English speakers. I fear for their future the most.

It’s a pity that some political animals have convinced some people that learning in English is akin to betraying their roots. If this people want to hide in their little rabbit holes and not come out to face the world, they shouldn’t drag others in with them.

 

3gqunaxhdy

MPH-Alliance short story writing competition results out next week

The MPH-Alliance Short Story writing competition results are going to be out next week. Six entries have been selected out of a pool of 1000. A thousand, people!

When I read Eric Forbes’ announcement on his blog, my heart started beating really, really fast. I could practically hear its thudding in my ears. My eyes widened, my hands went cold … because I sent in my story to this thing and D-Day has come.

It was the first time I’ve ever sent in a story – fiction, that is – for a competition. I’m a bit of a coward. No, scratch that. I AM a coward. I rather not join a competition, because that meant that I won’t have the chance to fail!

But my best friend encouraged me to do it, and spurred by her recent determination to work on her creative writing side (she has signed for a creative writing masters in Scotland), I joined.

We worked feverishly to complete our stories. I had more time than she did – it was a mad working month for her  – but I still found myself, a day before the due date, rewriting the short story entirely from scratch.

I really felt like quitting then. I wailed to myself: “Argh, it’s not good enough! Quit now! Why the hell am I working so hard on something I know I’ll probably not win??” But something spurred me on.
“You always back out from joining these things, don’t you dare back out now!” said a very determined voice in my heart.

And I did it. Oh wow, I did it – I literally hand delivered that thing. And when it left my hands, I was so glad because I broke that barrier of indecision and pussy footing. It was a psychological triumph.

Personally, I felt that I should have worked on the story more and I cringed when imagined what the editors must think. I think it’ll be an absolute miracle that it’s even considered for the longlist! But my friend told me: Hey, just pat yourself on the back that you have at least done it!

It’s strange. As a proffessional writer, I know what it’s like to be published. But writing non-fiction is a totally different thing from writing fiction. When you’re writing non-fiction, your emotions are mostly divorced from your writing – in fact, sometimes the article calls for it. But when you’re writing fiction, your soul literally bleeds out into your pen (or keyboard), and what you put out for there for the judges to evaluate is a part of your soul.

Frankly, it’s an absolutely terrifying experience.

How do writers feel about bad reviews?

Fresh from the Alice Hoffman fracas, I thought it’s time to read how writers really feel when their works are criticised. And I thought we should start with Chris Bohjalian’s amusing In which the author obsesses over potshots by amateur critics on Amazon.com:

But there are few worlds as barbed as the digital one, and people say savage things about my work online that they wouldn’t dare say in person. Such are the privileges of anonymity and distance.

When I interview authors, I often ask this question: How do you react to bad reviews?

Some believe that they shouldn’t read reviews of their books; they believe that for their work to stay pure and entirely their vision, they shouldn’t be influenced by the desire to bow down to the demands of others. Others are drawn to reviews – good or bad – like flies to a corpse.

I ocassionally review books – when time (sorely in short supply these days) permits me – and in my early reviewing years I can be quite harsh when I reviewed a book.

Once upon a time, I wrote a particularly biting review of one of Patricia Cornwell’s books. A few days after it was published, I visited my regular rent-a-bookstore  and the first thing the owner said to me was, “Oh Liz, you gave that Patricia Cornwell book such a bad review,” she said sadly.

“Oh, really? Yes, I thought it was a poor book.”

“Well, I can’t rent it out now! Every time I suggest that book, the customer would say: ‘Eeyer! That book? I read in the newspaper that it’s really, really bad!”

I thought it was amusing; she didn’t think it was. But it was then that I realised how powerful reviews can be … not that one should revise one’s opinion of a book because of market forces, but with such power in your hands I guess you should use it responsibly. And I imagined being the author of the book reading my words … and I winced.

So over the years I try to remember the human being behind the book when I write my reviews – good or bad. I picture them sitting in front of me as I tell them what I think – in the most ladylike manner possible . Don’t say things that you won’t say in real life, as they say.

Putting your creative work out there for the world to read and possibly criticise to shreds is a vulnerable thing to do. And the least I can do is appreciate and respect their courage for doing so.

Alice Hoffman gets angry … on Tweeter

Recently I remarked that some Malaysian authors and publishers couldn’t take criticisms. Apparently this trait is a global one.

After all, Anne Rice let off steam at reviewers in Amazon.com (my earlier post: Anne Rice strikes back at nasty reviewers), so why not Alice Hoffman … on Tweeter?

Got the news from Sharon Bakar’s blog that Hoffman was none-too-pleased with one not-so-positive review of her latest book, The Story Sisters.

She wrote over several tweets:

“Roberta Silman in the Boston Globe is a moron. How do some people get to review books? And give the plot away.”

“Now any idiot can be a critic. Writers used to review writers. My second novel was reviewed by Ann Tyler. So who is Roberta Silman?”

“No wonder there is no book section in the Globe anymore — they don’t care about their readers, why should we care about them”

Ooh, entertaining. But rather than stop there she actually released the email and phone number of the said reviewer to her fans … and my Gen-X opinion: WTF?

Expressing your opinion (no matter how ungenerous) is one thing, but to leak out the personal contact details of a reviewer … er, hello, they call it stalking in some circles. Not cool man, not cool.

Hoffman received mostly boos from the Twitteratti. Hoffman has since disabled her Tweeter account and wrote a “sort of” apology but the what’s on the Internet is eternal, sadly, and Hoffman may be remembered by some as being one of the most immature authors around. Which probably may not be true. (I mean, don’t you have days when you behave like a two-year-old?)

But the lesson remains. It’s the Internet age, folks. Think twice before you tweet in anger. Especially if you’re famous.

Robin Hobb to writers: Don’t blog!

Robin Hobb is my favourite fantasy writer. Not many fantasy authors can create such well-rounded characters and engage the readers with exciting plots. And because of that, I googled to find her blog, hoping to catch a glimpse of the author behind my favourite books.

Instead, I discovered that she hated blogs, calling them “anti-fiction”, and that she believed authors who blog have “fallen to the dark side.

Her rant surprised and disappointed me at first. I didn’t like her condescending tone at all ( am I a less dedicated author if I blog?) and thought that it was ironic that by writing that rant, she was essentially blogging.

But after reading her rant more thoroughly and without my “I blog therefore I am” blinders on, I realised that she has a point. I particularly agree with what she said about blogging getting in the way of writing your manuscript:

Daily you will rise and go to your keyboard. You will blog. And you will read what people write in response to your blog. And you will write responses to what they have written. And then you will visit the blogs of those who have responded to you. And you will write pleasant and cheery comments there. And then you will go back to your own blog, to see if anyone has responded to your responses. And then you will go back to the blogs of others, to see if anyone has responded to your responses to them.

And the clock will suddenly say midnight. And you will look at your manuscript in consternation. How can it be that there are no new pages, not even a paragraph? Where has the time vanished? Why are your hands so weary?

I can attest that my hands are weary at the end of the day – too weary to write my manuscript. As a professional writer who writes for bread and butter, I spend hours writing something that is not my Great Malaysian Novel. And while I enjoy my work, I find it almost impossible to write anything creatively at the end of my working day because I’m all written out.

So yes, to an extend, if you spend hours blogging, it does get in the way of your manuscript.

If you have totally no control over yourself.

If you tell yourself “I will only blog for half an hour a day” and keep to it, then blogging is doable. If you know your priorities – to get that manuscript done by so and so date – and achieve them through proper time management, then blogging is okay.

But to write off blogs entirely just because there’s a possibility of it robbing you of time with your manuscript is short sighted. Blogs are fantastic ways to interact with your readers (if you’re already an established or published author) or introduce yourself to readers (if you’re trying to make it).

I’ve been blogging for five over years now, and the friends I’ve met from around the world – some whom I’ve met personally – are simply precious. Why close that door?

I blog because I cannot not write. I do not limit my writing to my manuscript; I do not consider one medium of writing better than another. Because writing is who I am, and blogging is just another aspect of my self.

Other views:

1. Robin Hobb is not entirely wrong
2. Robin Hobb’s attack on author blogging
3. Robin Hobb on the evil’s of blogging for writers

My not-so-secret desire for an MA in Creative Writing

Sharon Bakar recently directed her readers’ attention to an article in New Yorker which asks “Should Creative Writing Be Taught?”

I have the same question, though I want to add: Should universities charge the prices they do for creative writing courses?

(PS: George Perkins thinks that New Yorker has a “strange take” on creative writing programmes. The comments that follow his post are intriguing.)

My best pal will be reading an MA in Creative Writing at Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland. It’s a very unique programme in the sense that it recognises and encourages you to write genre fiction; it’s also very industry-focused and has practical units that you can use for bread and butter work like subediting or more. I  would have totally followed her if not for the very hefty price tag of 10,000 pounds (about RM60k) + another 6000 pounds for living expenses.

If you want to be downright practical about it, the “return on investment” for MA Creative Writing courses are next to nil, I would say. This course cannot guarantee that your book will be published, let alone ensure that you will turn out into a bestselling author.

Many have asked whether pursuing an MA in Creative Writing is a waste of time, and I stumbled across an article (Character Building) in Guardian by Juliet Sutcliffe, who talks about her time studying creative writing at the premiere Creative Writing School in England, University of East Anglia. She seems to have mixed feelings about her experience and concludes:

When I started at UEA I thought I would wholeheartedly recommend such an MA to anyone. Despite claims that all writing graduates are taught to churn out work in the same (ie the tutor’s) style, nobody teaches much of anything at UEA. That’s not a bad thing. But the MA is not an easy option. The sceptical journalist had it wrong: these courses are more likely to stop people writing than to foster wild fantasies about living off royalties.

Yes, I do have a secret desire to pursue an MA in Creative Writing. But I told myself that if I am to do so, it would not be at the expense of my entire savings account. I am only 20 years away from retirement after all. (Oh, don’t scoff … it takes time to build your finances

If I was a British resident, who doesn’t have to pay the sky-high prices international students have to, I would so go for an CW degree. But because a CW degree would cost me, a poor Malaysian, the price of a small flat, I have to rethink my goal. Or at least find a cheaper way to do so.

Any suggestions?

3gqunaxhdy