Banned: From Kinokuniya to Putrajaya

Raman of Silverfish contacted me yesterday to tell me that he had learned from a customer that Farish Noor's From Majapahit to Putrajaya had been "banned".

Since I was making my weekly (expensive!) pilgrimage to Kino anyway that afternoon, I decided to check out the status of the book, and discovered, yes, that the KDN (Home Ministry) officials had make their rounds and confiscated all the copies of the book, telling the bookshop that they were going to investigate it further and that in the meantime the store was not allowed to sell copies of the book.

Today I learned that this ban applies to all Farish's books which the store is not allowed to bring in until further notice (although there are still copies of the Malay translation of Di Balik Malaysia published by ZI Publications still on the shelves).

FULL STORY HERE.

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Big book fest

ON May 24, the country's biggest book fair will begin at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. For nine days, until June 1, there will be author appearances – including Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad! – and a gamut of book-related events, as well as a whole lot of books on sale at great prices, of course.

To get into Popular bookstore's BookFest@Malaysia 2008, you need to buy a BookFest catalogue (RM2 each) from any Popular or Harris bookstore outlet around the country.

Here's a brief list of what's happening when in the areas featuring English language books and events. For information on Chinese language-related events and for a complete listing, go to bookfestmalaysia. com. The Star is a media partner in BookFest@Malaysia 2008.

May 24: Appearances by best-selling authors like James “Mr Midnight” Lee; The Star's Food Safety columnist and author of You Are What You Eat, Chia Joo Suan; True S’pore Ghost Stories author Russell Lee; The Unmaking of Malaysia author Ahmad Mustapha Hassan; and a sharing session with popular feng shui master Joey Yap.

May 25: Mr Midnight and Russell Lee appear; hair salon maven Winnie Loo shares her success story; the popular Senze shares secrets of How to Use the Internet to Make Money; and Zainal Abidin Rahman shows how to Catch the Coaching Moment.

May 26: Teen author Lim May-Zhee makes an appearance; indie filmmaker and author of the highly entertaining Malaysian Politicians Say the Darndest Things Amir Muhammad appears; a session for all graduates would be Pass Your Job Interview Within 30 Minutes, surely; and celebrity interior designer Eric Leong makes his debut as an author with his book, Design Fast Forward.

May 27: Authors of What Would You Do, Sia Leng Suan and Ng Khoon Lay, will make an appearance; Kevin Zahri shares his Fitness 24/7; The Star's Mind Our English editor, Kee Thuan Chye, will talk about Common English Errors; and there’s the intriguingly entitled Blind Fold Reading.

May 28: Story-telling sessions and colouring contests for the kids; Sony puts up its Show Time; Dr Kong Voon Sin shares his Zest for Life; and author Zhang Su Li shares from her travel book, A Backpack & A Bit of Luck.

May 29: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad makes an appearance to sign his books; Jeff Keow, author of Think Out of the Block with SUDOKU, makes an appearance and there's a Sudoku fun time session; also, a session on how to make your children high achievers as well as story-telling sessions.

May 30: This is Healthy Living Day with exercise demonstrations as well as cooking demonstrations by celebrity authors/chefs like The Star's Cook's Nook columnist Amy Beh as well as Florence Tan and Su Chan (of Su Chan restaurant fame); Pauline Yong makes sure your money remains healthy too by sharing from her I Love Stocks; and for the children, there'll be a fun session with the mascot from Kuntum, The Star's children's magazine.

May 31: Manoj Kaimal shares from her yoga book, Celebration of Asanas; Dr Yeoh Phee Liang shares important info about Cataract & Refractive Surgery – all you want to and should know.

June 1: Detoxification the Way to Go says author Patricia Loh; popular authors Norzalina Nordin and Damya Hanna make appearances to sign books; Carol Yip shares from Charting Your Retirement Plan; and Jacinta Chan shows you How to Benefit From the Current Market Scenario Using Technical Analysis.

Source: The Star Online

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Publisher Comments:

In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America's "free market" policies have come to dominate the world- — through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq's civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country's vast oil reserves.... Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the "War on Terror" to Halliburton and Blackwater.... After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans's residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened.... These events are examples of "the shock doctrine": using the public's disorientation following massive collective shocks — wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters — to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don't succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets.

Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism — the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock — did not begin with September 11, 2001. The book traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today. New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, "shock and awe" warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.

The Shock Doctrine follows the application of these ideas though our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet's coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Amazon Planning E-Book Debacle

Amazon is apparently planning to release a $399 e-book reading device called Kindle on Monday. I'd have thought that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos would know better since he was around at the turn of the century, during the first e-book flop.

If the pictures posted on Engadget are remotely close to the final form of the device, I have to say that Kindle is a thing of unsurpassed ugliness. The iPhone it is not. And that's a problem: The iPhone is, in my opinion, the best e-reading device currently available. Kindle's failure to learn any lessons from the iPhone will be its doom.

Back in 1999, I spoke with IDC analyst Sean Kaldor for a PC Computing Magazine article on e-books. He said basically that no one was buying e-book reading devices.

"The fact that we don't see consumers adopting these devices en masse tells me that it's not just a device issue," he said. "It's a fundamental shift in consumer attitudes and actions that needs to happen."

Eight years later, that shift still hasn't happened.

Full story: http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/11/amazon_planning.html

Bigger book bonanza

IF you’re a book lover with groaning bookshelves at home, any store that sells books is a dangerous place to step into: because it’s so difficult to leave without buying an addition to those shelves.

Well, fellow book worms, it’s with trepidation I report that the Kinokuniya Bookstores in Suria KLCC has become even more dangerous than it used to be: it’s bigger! From about 2,000sq m, the store has expanded to more than 2,700sq m.

Full story: The Star Online

International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is the largest and most international prize of its kind. It involves libraries from all corners of the globe (including Malaysia National Library), and is open to books written in any language.

The Award, an initiative of Dublin City Council, Ireland, is a partnership between Dublin City Council, the Municipal Government of Dublin City, and IMPAC, a productivity improvement company which operates in over 50 countries.

The Award is administered by Dublin City Public Libraries.

Potter’s impact to the book world

Report says that book industry will miss Harry Potter. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling's series, goes on sale July 21. The series' impact can't be overstated: 325 million copies have sold worldwide. This is massive!

One bookseller says, “Everyone seems to be talking about life after Harry,” and world publishers agree that Harry will be missed.

"I don't know if we are ever going to see anything like Harry Potter again in children's or even adult books," says Paul Crichton of Simon & Schuster Children's Books. "Harry will be missed like there is no tomorrow. But publishers have to forge ahead and move on. What Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling have done is incredible. To lose something that strong is going to have an impact.

Can Malay publishers give the same impact to the Malaysia’s book industry as what Potter done to the world?

Buy books online or offline?

Dear readers, I published this story because it’s interesting to take note that in the age of Internet, booksellers, and booklovers especially, still like to buy books at physical bookstores. Really? Some says better buy online, some says not. Hey, you have a choice.

Read this report.

Book world prepares to network at expo

NEW YORK- This year's BookExpo America will be a story of networking, the old way and the new.

Starting Thursday, thousands of authors, publishers, booksellers and librarians will gather at the Jacob Javits Convention Center to discuss what's coming out and what's going on. They will catch up as they always have, face to face, at exhibitors' booths and in conference rooms, in restaurants, bars and hotels.

"It is a sort of tribal ritual for the industry that can only happen in person," says Jonathan Burnham, senior vice president and publisher of HarperCollins.

"It's a bit like what happens when you're buying a book. There are people who think you can do all your shopping online, but if you go to a bookstore, there's a physical experience of things you might not see. With the convention, it's also serendipitous, a meeting of 'X' with 'Y' and 'Z' that can't happen with the Internet."

But BookExpo will also be a demonstration of how "X" and "Y" can meet online, and then link to "Z." For the first time, MySpace.com will attend the convention, hosting a panel on networking and serving as a supporting BEA sponsor. The industry has increasingly turned to the Internet social site, which features reading groups, author postings and its own list of the most popular titles, ranked by the number of "blog links."

"I think MySpace and YouTube and all the blogs are really the coming thing now," says David Shanks, CEO of Penguin Group (USA), which has been using MySpace to promote "Requiem for an Assassin," a thriller by Barry Eisler.

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