Georgette
Catana Chetwynd's comics on being in love with your best friend is nothing short of wholesome and sweet and never fails to leave me in a good mood. Life with a long-term partner in its many little moments are captured in snapshots in ‘Snug'. Probably a great gift for someone you're having similar moments with.
This eARC of ‘Snug' is courtesy of NetGalley.
My introduction to Edward Gorey (1925-2000) came earlier this year, in the form of one of his work - ‘The Gashlycrumb Tinies'. Someone helpfully scanned and posted the entire thing online.[return][return]The story, each line illustrated, goes like this:[return][return]A is for Amy who fell down the stairs[return]B is for Basil assaulted by bears[return]C is for Clara who wasted away[return]D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh[return][return]Definately not your standard ABCs. Heck, younger children probably won't even get it. If they do, it might be in the form of a bad dream.[return][return]Amphigorey is a compilation of 15 books by writer and artist Edward Gorey, noted for his macabre illustrated books. Although born in Chicago, the Victorian and Edwardian setting of his stories often lead people to assume he was British.[return][return]He was fond of publishing under pseudonyms that are based on anagrams of his first and last name.[return][return]His first independant work - The Unstrung Harp - is included in this compilation. It features a Mr Earbass, a well-known novelist embarking on his new novel which is entitled “The Unstrung Harp”.[return][return]The story chronicles his agony of writing a novel, with his obsession and paranoia surfacing as characters from his novels appeared in his house and the stage of awfulness of his story hits. There really isn't any sense to it unless you can identify with that absurd state of mind that most of us won't admit to experiencing.[return][return]Some of the stories here come in the form or poetry or limericks. This is the case with The Listing Attic. One of the many snippets include this:[return][return]There was a young woman whose stammer[return]Was atrocious, and so was her grammar;[return]But when they are not improved[return]When her husband was moved[return]To knock out her teeth with a hammer.[return][return]One of the stories that is relatively kid-friendly is The Bug Book, which is about three groups of different-coloured bugs who had to work together to get rid of a menacing black bug.[return][return]Admitedly, there were a number of stories in this collection that didn't seem to go anywhere and left me with a great big “huh?”[return][return]Those of you who are fans of Tim Burton may want to look up Gorey, who inspired much of the famous director's style.[return]return
Vianne Rocher and her young daughter Anouk sweeps into the little French town of Lansquenet one day and opens a chocolate shop across the square from the local church.[return][return]It is Lent, and parishioners are breaking their vows faster at record speed. The priest Pere Reynaud, is livid. Vianne must be a witch, he decides, and vows to run her out of town before the Chocolate Festival she is planning for Easter.[return][return]He may not be getting very much support from the villagers however. Vianne wins them over in her own quiet, uncanny way. She seems to know exactly what ails them, and which of her chocolate confection will cure them. [return][return]With the opposing teams identified, it became a battle between church and chocolate. Is Vianne a witch? Can she read minds? Will Reynaud run her out of town?[return][return]Scattered liberally around the little village are a bunch of intriguing secondary characters whose lives are changed by Vianne the battered wife Jos
Ex Libris is a book about being a reader, an exploration that goes beyond books that were being read/reviewed and into the greater surroundings. If looking at someone's library tells you what kind of person they are, Ex Libris admits the reader into the Fadiman household, detailing ordeals such as combining libraries, and how the greatest romantic thing a husband can do is locate a used bookstore she'd never been to before, containing all her favourite types of reading material. This book is hugely relate-able as a reader.
The few times I encountered Manfried the Man on Facebook left me with a feeling of amusement mixed with the uncomfortable feeling of how I don't want to see naked men being owned by cats .... although the very idea was full of hilarious potential. Doubly so when the men (no women?) here says “hey” (rather than “meow”).
Manfried's owner Steve Catson has a job making comics and a girlfriend Henrietta Catface who runs the local man shelter. Things were looking rosy, until a fat cat arrives in the neighbourhood wanting to develop the area, including the land where the man shelter is. Henrietta refuses his offer to relocate. She and her friends enter their men into the Manflower Show, aiming for the prize money to buy the land so they won't be run out. Meanwhile, Manfried struggles with having to share his home with a new stray man named Garfield.
To be honest, the man antics (man-tics?) on the side were more interesting than the cat drama carrying the story forward. Maybe older people like me are prone to rolling our eyes when asked to choose between work and helping the friend/SO's cause; not the kind of thing I want to think about when I just want to LOL at a chubby man trying to one-up a younger competitor while hey-ying for attention.
Perhaps what this comic succeeds in doing is making me think about how we treat our animal companions and vice versa in a “Things that your cat does that would be creepy if you did it” way, or “things we do to cats that we won't do to people”.
ARC courtesy of NetGalley.
This is such a wonderful collection of stories and poetry on what's a dangerously tired subject - retelling of fairy tales. Many stories here seem to take place where the normal world casually overlaps the magical fairy tale world; characters travel between them, if not live in spaces where the workings of both worlds co-exist.
While the fairy tale inspirations are fairly obvious. Theodora Goss often approach it from a different perspective, and very often, it is about girls and women taking charge of their own story instead of waiting for rescue. Some of my favourites include Snow White Learns Witchcraft, Blanchefleur, Seven Shoes, The Other Thea, A Country Called Winter, and Conversations with the Sea Witch.
Not sure what's up with all the women marrying bears though.
ARC courtesy of NetGalley.
I cannot get over how gorgeous this graphic novel is! Author Tony Sandoval draws wispy images that are both beautiful and creepy, bringing forward fantasy gothic tale where our world overlaps with the other world. I'm not sure if anything was lost in translation; some of the plot points were lost on me until I reread and came to my own conclusions. Highly recommended. Giving it one of my rare five-stars.
ARC courtesy of NetGalley.
As someone who batch-requests ARCs, I rarely remember what the book is about should it arrive on my Netgalley shelf. So I got sucker-punched once I got past the pretty, dreamy imagery of the first few pages and into the reality of a woman trying to conceive numerous times, and maybe this was the start of a new journey for her and her wife.
Despite not relating on a personal level, Waves was unexpectedly emotional. We learn that the dreamy seascape was an escape from reality, we are taken on a ride as the young couple goes through stages of coping with another loss.
I love the artwork and the use of colour to express the character's stages of grief. I love that someone tackled this difficult topic based on their own experience, and that this centres around a lesbian couple.
ARC courtesy of NetGalley.
This book is an interesting new experience - almost like relearning how to read, and definitely learning what should be new norms. I enjoyed the main characters being transgender or nonbinary because this created scenarios where familiar fairy tale gender-related tropes gets turned on its head. I won't deny that the new pronouns tripped me up quite a bit because it's the unfamiliar words that jump off the page first. The guides at the beginning of each story were helpful in telling us what to expect. I really hope to see this kind of inclusion becoming more common. We all need this.
ARC courtesy of NetGalley.
Matilda is a precocious 4 year old, daughter of Mr & Mrs Wormwood. Her gormless parents are completely blind to the genius of their child, chosing to heckle her for not wanting to watch TV at dinner like the rest of them.
Matilda soon discovered books. In a short span of time and with the help of a motherly librarian, she went through all the classics. At some point, she solved a mathametical problem for her ungrateful father, who then accused her of so much untruths that she extracted her revenge in her own subtle ways.
Eventually, Matilda had to go to school. The headmistress is a Miss Trunchbull, who is every bit as awful as her name suggests. She has a distain for children in general, and Matilda became an immediate target. It didn't help when Miss Honey, Matilda's teacher, recommended that she be moved to a more advanced class.
The stress caused by Miss Trunchbull leads Matilda to discover a special power and she uses it to correct a wrong revealed to her by Miss Honey.
Consuming poetry has become a chore as of late. As a poet and organiser of a spoken word event, I cut my teeth on Button Poetry ??? Neil Hilborn???s OCD, to be exact. My entire spoken word community (Wordsmiths of Kuching) has him to thank for even existing.
While much of our own spoken word is inspired by the likes of Button Poetry and poets such as Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye, I was also wary about letting too much Americanism hijack the kind of voices you might find in Sarawak, Borneo.
???that???s not entirely true. I couldn???t care less where my fellow local poets find their voice as long as they use it to speak their truth. I was the one struggling about my own voice and identity.
Andrea Gibson writes a lot about identity, identifying as queer and genderqueer, something that is hard for to comprehend if you???re not in the same position. ???Lord of the Butterflies??? sheds some of light into Gibson???s life. I read from another article that writing poetry helps them learn about their gender identity, and it???s helped me to understand it a little bit more through their eyes.
“With my gender it was never that I came to the page knowing who I was and wrote it down, but I would write to unpack my gender and learn my gender.” - Poet Andrea Gibson Shares How They Learned About Their Gender Identity Through Writing ??? Seventeen, May 2, 2018
As poets, we do this more often than not ??? unpack the big issues and the little details in our work. A lot of single-poet collections are a window into their lives at the time of writing, something that must be both difficult and cathartic.
I can relate. Not to their experience as a person, but to the inevitability of deep self-examination and revelations that may be impossible to bring up in casual conversation. Some of these revelations are relatable to everyone. This for example:
Of all the violence I have known in my life
I have never known violence
like the violence I have spoken to myself,
and I have seen almost everyone round me
hold the same belt to their own back,
an ambush of every way we???ve decided we???re not enough,
then looking for someone outside of ourselves
to clean that treason up.
Boomerang Valentine ??? Andrea Gibson
And this delightful moment of cheese meets wit meets me cry-laughing:
When she???s down I want to give her my best
pick-up lines. What???s your sign?
My sign has historically been STOP
but since meeting you I???ve changed it
to MERGE.
Give Her ??? Andrea Gibson
This is the kind of word-fu I stayed around for when I found spoken word. I am constantly moved by those who can take their journey and turn it into an art form that tells the rest of us we are not alone. Yes, our pain comes in different shapes but the power of voice brings us together.
Most of the pieces in ???Lord of the Butterflies??? are also on Gibson???s album ???Hey Galaxy???, which can be found on Spotify.
ARC courtesy of NetGalley.
I fail to see how this book WON'T appeal to your average bookworm. Debbie Tung is spot-on with every observation about being a book lover ... from the hilarious things we use as a bookmark, to finding out what a book's title was as such. Her line cartoons are accented with monochrome washes, and I'm pretty sure I've seen them floating around before, so grabbing the review ARC was a no-brainer.
ARC courtesy of NetGalley.
Romance isn't one of my usual genres because it falls into the usual (albeit addictive) formulas that isn't mean to reflect real life. Okay, fine ... nobody reads romance because it reminds them of real life. I didn't read The Rose because it's supposed to resemble real life. I read it because the description sounded interesting and and the reviews were good.
And perhaps it's because I went in with little expectation that I was blown away by what a fantastic read this was.
Lia's parents throw her a graduation party. Because of her interest in Greek mythology, her father presents her with something called a Rose Kylix, a drinking vessel used in ceremonies dedicated to Eros in ancient Greece. Enters August Bowman, a wealthy art collector (Greek, of course) who has a fixation of acquiring the kylix and far more knowledge about it than anyone Lia knows. He offers to show her and off they went on a fantasy erotic escapade in mythological Greece.
At the same time, Lia had been running an escort service through university and her secret was about to be blown by someone from her past. He blackmailed her for an amount of money that she could only raise if she accepted August's offer to buy the Rose Kylix from her.
As part of the deal, she and August embarks on many, many sexy adventures with the help of the magical drinking vessel. Naturally he falls for her. Meanwhile, Lia has to come to grips with her blackmailer and their shared history.
The Rose is a next-generational follow-up to The Red (which is about how her parents met), which I had not read and am now dying to get my hands on. The Rose stands alone well, which is the better news.
Author Tiffany Reisz hits a lot of right notes with this book - engaging and endearing lead characters, great sex scenes, a device that makes your erotic fantasies come true. Escapism at its finest. The only part I rolled my eyes on was the part about Lia's past with her blackmailer, but I also keep forgetting that Lia is young enough not to be able to deal well with this scenario.
As for August Bowman, what leading man in a romance novel doesn't have a mysterious past? This takes the cake as far as any other mysterious pasts are concerned, but I was fully invested in the fantasy by the time the reveal came that I grinned rather than rolled my eyes.
A solid 5-star from me because I enjoyed it far more than I'm going to admit.
ARC courtesy of NetGalley.
I m sure most of us have seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by now. While I won t expound much on the book, I still recommend it over the movie. Why? The movie is wonderful for eye candy and candy in general, but the wonderful wit of the characters, especially Willy Wonka, is too easily missed in the glare of colours. [return][return]In a nutshell, boy (Charlie Bucket) from very poor family finds one of the five golden tickets that entitle the holder entry and a tour of Willy Wonka s Chocolate Factory. Wonka had a secret agenda for this sudden generosity. Charlie and four other children unwittingly went through trials and temptation. Only good-hearted Charlie passes his test and becomes Wonka s heir.[return][return]Wonka s personal history is never revealed in the book, and their next adventure begins immediately after they collect the Bucket family from their little wooden house at the end of Chocolate Factory.[return][return]Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator takes place after the Elevator leaves the Bucket residence and rockets back into the sky. As Wonka s eccentricities go, the Elevator must achieve a certain height so that it will punch a new entry hole in the roof of the Factory when they descend. Everyone else in the Elevator couldn t see the logic in that either.[return][return]Things go wrong and they end up in space. [return][return]At around the same time, Space Hotel “USA” is floating in space ready to take on its first batch of hotel crew. The Transport Capsule carrying them spots the Glass Elevator, also heading for the hotel. Mistakening them for terrorists, they notify Ground Control. Chaos ensues. The US President, a hapless chap by the name of Lanceleot R Gilligrass, gets involved. [return][return]Unknown to both Transport Capsule and Glass Elevator, the Hotel has already been taken over by a host of aliens called Knids. I won't tell you everything that happened but the Elevator crew does make it back to the Factory intact, and immediately falls into another adventure... all because of the Wonka-Vite.[return][return]The full adventures of Charlie and Willy Wonka continues in another book... which I do not have at this time.[return]return
Okay, I've had enough of this.
i've
had
enough
of
this.
enough
is
enough
is
enough
I'm not going to live long enough to read everything on my TBR list. Ergo, I neither have to soldier through this one and work myself into a frothing rage over what qualifies as (Goodreads) award-winning poetry these days. In fact, I'm gonna do myself a favour and avoid anything that Goodreads members pick as “award winning”.
did
not
finish
- i got other books waiting
Reading copy courtesy of NetGalley.
This book will always be special to me because it's the first book from NetGalley that I requested for and was approved, after many rejections. Having said that, this book was twisted and hard to put down. I loved it.
From the messed up scene of an escape, the FBI found themselves questioning a victim, the unflappable Maya, about where she and a disturbingly large number of tattooed girls escaped from. She told them about the Butterfly Garden and their role as “butterfies” for a man they only knew as The Gardener.
As Maya slowly unfolds the story, we learned about the Gardener's perfect fantasy world, where he “collected” beautiful young women in the prime of their beauty (16-21), tattooed different types of butterfly wings on their back, gave them a new name, and raped them whenever he wanted. On their 21st birthday, he kills them. What he does with their bodies after is deliciously fucked up. While the Gardener is portrayed as fatherly, he has no qualms about moving their deaths up if they disappoint him in any way.
The writing is an easy read and drags you along. The characters are compelling and well-developed. I enjoy the almost-cold and unflinching Maya, and the handful of Butterflies whom she interacted with in the garden, but I'm still rather staggered by the number of captives there. Her relationship with the Gardener is also fascinating.
Enjoyed this tremendously. One of my rare 5-stars.
Pilu of the Woods is simply adorable. Even if it's aimed at kids, can appreciate how this story was crafted to explore complex feelings of loss and loneliness, and how wanting to help someone in the same position can force us to confront our own “monsters”.
Willow has a fight with her older sister and runs off into the woods with her dog, where they discovers a tree spirit named Pilu crying under a tree for surprisingly similar reasons. As Willow convinced Pilu that she needs to go home, we gradually learn Willow's own sad history and origin of her monsters.
I also loved the nerdy forest facts Willow learned from her father, dispensed like a kid who finds willing ears for the first time but even then there was a limit to how much an audience could take. It came to a nice resolution for the overall theme.
Great artwork and colour palette!
ARC courtesy of NetGalley. #PiluOfTheWoods #NetGalley
I picked up Dance Upon the Air from my favourite bargain bin and found it full of corny stuff that I enjoy. That's the good news. The bad news is that it's a trilogy, and I have to track the other two down.[return][return]The Three Sisters Island Trilogy opens with a prologue of three witches Earth, Air and Fire - who used their power to create a sanctuary from prosecution during the Salem witch trials. They found refuge on the island, but each witch went on to enter relationships that ultimately led them to their deaths. Their descendants must break the curse or the island will sink back into the ocean.[return][return]Dance Upon the Air sees a timid Nell Channing arriving at island three centuries later. She is immediately “adopted” by Mia Devlin, the proprietor of Cafe Book. Mia hires her to cook at the cafe and helps her settle into a little cottage. Sheriff Zack Todd begins courting her. For the first time, Nell felt safe and secure, with friends and a life to call her own.[return][return]We gradually learn Nell s secret; she faked her own death to escape her abusive husband. When Evan Remington discovers that she is not dead after all, he bears down on her hard and fast, threatening everything she has come to love.[return][return]I found book two in a local bookstore. This didn't surprise me because our bookstores are good at stocking the orphan “middle” book(s). It also didn't surprise me that days of searching didn't turn up book three.[return][return]In Heaven and Earth, the focus switches to Ripley Todd, the quick-tempered deputy sheriff and Nell's sister-in-law.[return][return]While Nell freely embraced her powers and Mia never abandoned hers, Rip made a conscious decision to walk away. This happened many years ago when Mia had her heart shattered by Sam Logan, another name that gets a lot of mention.[return] [return]Rip s troubles began when paranormal researcher MacAllister Booke arrived; sniffing around at the island s purported paranormal activities. He is intrigued by Rip, and pursues her for both business and pleasure. She falls for him, but not without protesting as much as a maiden in a Victorian romance novel.[return][return]When danger looms, the eye-for-an-eye Rip has to be careful not to repeat what her ancestor did break the witch s vow not to harm others. [return] [return]My friend in KL called to let me know she found book three. I was content to wait for her to bring it home, but when I mentioned it to a fellow bookworm here, she said, “I have the whole set!”[return][return]Face The Fire is about Mia Devlin, so far the most intriguing of the three. We've already been through two books with her as an unflappable supporting character, so it was a little startling to discover her human side. [return][return]Like Rip, her story was set in motion with the arrival of a man Sam Logan, who walked out on her years ago and left her an inconsolable wreck. Mia had since pulled herself together and moved on, locking her heart away so she will never be hurt like that again. She still (obviously) holds a candle for Sam, and his return confused and frustrated her.[return][return]But Mia s personal battle with evil has arrived. To triumph and save her island, Mia must resolve her complicated relationship with Sam, who is also a witch himself and completes the elemental theme in the book with his own powers over Water. [return][return]Everyone has their own definition of “light reading” and mine is Nora Roberts. Her characters are interesting and good looking, the sex is hot and the series of situations they get caught in are mostly unbelievable. In short, things like this don't happen to real people, but that's why we read about it.[return][return]Like most Hollywood blockbusters, you don t have to get your brain involved, but anything that helps me de-stress by escaping reality for a while is considered time well spent.[return]return
A plus-size super heroine is pretty damn unusual and far more relatable when her citizen persona is awkward and invisible like most of us. I'm not thrilled to be left hanging with a partial galley but I suppose this means I have to look out for the actual thing now.
“Princess Izzy and the E Street Shuffle” is one of those random books that find its way into my hands at the bookstore, and I immediately know I must have it... even if I've never heard of it before. [return][return]Isabella Cordage is the daughter of a small-titled family in a small country called Bisbania, and therefore one of the few suitable playmate for Raphael, Prince of Gallager and heir to the throne. Over the years, they became close friends.[return][return]Since Raphael isn't likely able to marry for love, he married for companionship. Isabelle fit the bill. Much like one real life princess, she became instant tabloid fodder, overshadowing her husband.[return][return]Everything she wore fell under scrutiny (and occasionally became the latest fashion). Everything she did, no matter how little, was big news. A spill down the stairs earned her the nickname Dizzy Izzy.[return][return]Before her marriage into the royal family, Isabella attended Yale and picked up an amount of Americanism. She also picked up a crush on her car mechanic Geoffrey, a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen.[return][return]Geoffrey dispenses advice through Springsteen lyrics, which Isabella always manages to intreprete as an answer to her fashion woes. Shortly after marrying Raphael, Isabella engages Geoffrey into her service and brings him and his wife Mae to Bisbania.[return][return]Five years after marrying, a small plane carrying Geoffrey and Raphael crashes into the sea. Only one body was found. The story creeps along from a light-hearted royal chick lit into something vaguely sinister but nonetheless compelling.[return][return]Narrated from a the POV of a know-it-all observer, this novel reveals enough cliffhanger chapter endings to keep the pages turning. Was the plane crash really an accident or was it murder? Who is this observer and how does she know so much?[return][return]Beverley Bartlett keeps you on the edge of your seat until the last page of her debut. As for me, this impulsive buy is a keeper.[return]return
I've never heard of Craig Thompson or any of his work before. When a copy of the very thick and very heavy “Blankets” landed on my desk by way of two friends, I thought it was a trade paperback of some obscure novel... until I cracked it open.
“Blankets” is Thompson's second graphic novel - an ambitious venture, judging by the length of the tome. It is also the winner of three 2004 Harvey Awards for Best Artist, Best Graphic Album of Original Work and Best Cartoonist; and winner of two 2004 Eisner Awards for Best Graphic Album and Best Writer/Artist.
The graphic novel follows the life of Craig, starting from key moments in his young life into his teens and later, his early adulthood. His early years are shared with his younger brother Phil, as two young boys who had creative ways of irritating and playing with each other while surviving school, parents and life in Wisconsin.
As a child, Craig has always been alienated by his peers.
“Something about being rejected at church camp feels so much more awful than being rejected at school.” he mused in a scene where he gets carted off to what he called a week of pretense of sharing “Christ-centered” recreational activities with other Christian youths.
Craig meets Raina at one of these church camps after he's hit the teens and his relationship with Phil takes a complete backseat in the narrative. The attraction is immediate and mutual, growing deeper after they return to their respective homes. Letters are followed by packages containing “sweet high school nothings”.
He decides to go and spend two weeks at with Raina and her family in Michigan, without mentioning to his own fundamentalist mother that Raina's good Christian parents are getting a divorce. His timing is a little awkward for her parents but was a balm for Raina, who has to struggle to care for her adopted siblings and unwanted niece.
Raina gives Craig a hand-made quilt, patched together from patterns that reminded her of him. This blanket became an underlaying theme, fusing together patterns that appeared through out the book.
The third and most consistant of Craig's relationship is the one with God. One of the things that drew him and Raina together is that they shared the same delimma with this whole God thing - they've been raised Christians but found causes to doubt. This also made a few funny pages featuring Craig when Raina said to him, “Come to bed with me.”
“Blankets” is semi-autobiographical tale where nothing terribly dramatic or superhero-like happens, but it doesn't take away the fact that it's still a very interesting read. It's almost like watching a movie.
The beauty of the comic medium is that things that will require a few paragraphs of description can be relayed in two panels. Thompson puts this to full use. A picture paints a thousand words.
Where words are required, he doesn't fall short. There are lines that are so beautiful and so true that it'll bring tears to your eyes. As both the writer and the artist of “Blankets”, Thompson had the advantage of writing or drawing exactly what he wants.
If you enjoyed the movie “Saved!”, you might want to keep an eye out for this book. While “Blankets” has a more subtle approach and is less satirical than that movie, it tells the same story about people who only want to be human.
(Note: This graphic novel is for mature readers. Small children and big babies need not apply.)
(2006)
The novel is about Johnny Lim, textile merchant, petty crook and communist. His life is narrated in three parts by the people who knew him - his son Jasper, his wife Snow, and his best friend Peter Wormwood.
Jasper, who never knew his mother Snow, covered most of Johnny's life story with observations about his father and stories he's heard. He tells of how Johnny survived an assassination attempt on Merdeka Day 1957, elevating his status from mortal to god in the eyes of his community.
Snow found an unlikely match in the quiet textile merchant. She writes, in detail, about the events that unfold between herself, Johnny, Peter and Japanese professor Kunichika during a holiday to the Seven Maiden Islands. Snow eventually found herself torn between her loyalty to Johnny and her passion for Kunichika. She died giving birth to Jasper.
Peter's narrative is by far, the weakest, but it's where you draw the conclusion to the story. The man's already old and unfocused, so half the time you are not sure what he's going on about. But he brings his side (or Johnny's side) of the story to events already related by Jasper and Snow.
Taipei-born Tash Aw spent enough time in Malaysia get a feel of the country. He also spent enough time away to not feel the need to show off his English vocabulary, a deep hole that a few Malaysian novelists before him have fall into. What impresses me is the way he brought Malaya to life, claiming that he pretty much invented what he needed.
Yes, I'm a year behind in reading The Harmony Silk Factory, but I can explain. I passed it off as another piece of over-hyped pop culture and absolutely refused to spend RM35 on a book that none of my reading kaki would touch with a 10-foot pole for the same reason.
I finally got around to a borrowed copy, I found that I was wrong about this one. I'm so happy to be wrong that I'm willing to spend more than RM35 for a nice trade paperback edition of my own as soon as I get around to shopping from retail bookstores again.
(2006)