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Posted: 07 Aug 2011 12:06 AM PDT

FOR week ending July 31, 2011:

Non-Fiction

1. A Doctor In The House: The Memoirs Of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad

2. Heaven Is For Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story Of His Trip To Heaven And Back by Todd Burpo & Lynn Vincent

3. Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going by Han Fook Kwang, et al

4. A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jaycee Dugard

5. Once A Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice In The Dock by Alan Shadrake

6. The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

7. At Home: A Short History Of Private Life by Bill Bryson

8. Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

9. Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink

10. How To Think Like Einstein: Simple Ways To Break The Rules And Discover Your Hidden Genius by Scott Thorpe

Fiction

1. A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin

2. Just Like Heaven by Julia Quinn

3. Fall Of Giants by Ken Follett

4. A Game Of Thrones: A Song Of Ice And Fire: Book One (movie tie-in) by George R.R. Martin

5. The Confession by John Grisham

6. The Particular Sadness Of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

7. One Day (movie tie-in) by David Nicholls

8. Luka And The Fire Of Life by Salman Rushdie

9. Swimming Pool Sunday by Madeleine Wickham

10. The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

Weekly list compiled by MPH Mid Valley Megamall, Kuala Lumpur; www.mphonline.com.

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An unusual connection

Posted: 07 Aug 2011 12:05 AM PDT

A collection by writers with dyslexia aims to show that the ailment makes one different, not 'less'.

FORGOTTEN Letters is an anthology of poems, letters and essays by popular and critically acclaimed dyslexic writers. It is collected and produced by RASP Books (r-a-s-p.co.uk), an independent publishing initiative that specialises in promoting and publishing dyslexic writers and aims "to (re)discover and promote writers who write differently", "raise awareness of dyslexia" and explore dyslexia as a difference, not as a problem.

In a recent interview conducted via Gtalk, anthology editor Naomi Folb said: "I think that people assume you have a really hard time and that you find everything very difficult, whereas I don't see dyslexia in this way. For me it is just a way of thinking."

Folb, 32, herself dyslexic, is currently based in Århus, Denmark, where she is a PhD student, researching dyslexia.

"For my degree, I have interviewed writers and journalists, and also mathematicians and engineers because I want to know how dyslexia is 'used' in different professions and how dyslexics perceive dyslexia, in different contexts," she said, adding that she notices that what dyslexics have in common is the ability to "generate ideas quickly" and "not follow conventions".

Folb said the work that will be published in Forgotten Letters reflects the way dyslexics communicate ideas and emotions through words. "It is the book I always wished I could have had. It was the book that didn't exist and because of that, I didn't know I was not 'less'."

RASP has enlisted the help of international funding platform IndieGoGo to raise money needed to produce thebook. The campaign developed for Forgotten Letters was launched about a month ago with the goal of raising US$7,000 (RM 20,590). As this article was being written about two weeks ago, Just US$795 (RM2,338) had been raised.

Folb is not worried about not reaching the goal. "If people who have promised to give do it, we will be fine," she said. However, the book will be published regardless.

"If we do not raise the money we will make fewer books, which is a shame, because it is amazing – even if I say so myself! I would like to make 1,000 books but I would also like each book to be beautifully made. The design is really important.

"I feel that dyslexics are normally designed things which are patronising and childish. There is a lot of 'kiddie' stuff and people forget that there are dyslexic adults who don't want cartoon lions on their books.

"A child dyslexic will become an adult dyslexic. This book is for the dyslexic adult."

Forgotten Letters grew out of Folb's desire to "make dyslexic books". She said: "I'd been doing this in different ways on small publications for different events. So then I thought that I wanted to create a 'proper' book – one with an ISBN, and is printed rather than photocopied, or made with tracing paper, or run off an office printer.

"I started asking people for poems and using the Internet, and also contacted a friend who runs an event for dyslexic playwrights. She asked her poets who are dyslexic and I decided to contact published authors, who have dyslexia, to find out if they would be interested. That is how it started really."

Authors who have contributed to the anthology include award-winning poet and novelist Benjamin Zephaniah; Billy Childish, co-founder of the Stuckism Art Movement; children's writer and illustrator Sally Gardner; National Book Award winner Andrew Solomon; and Philip Schultz, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

Folb said that it was an amazing experience connecting with these writers.

"These are people whose stories you read and whose sentiments stay with you and become part of your philosophy, part of the fabric of your world.

"When I got to tell these writers why I wanted their work and when they said it meant something to them to participate in a project that raised awareness about dyslexia, it brought me back to the meaning of the project – it's about connecting with people."

If you wish to support the Forgotten Letters project, visit indiegogo.com/Forgotten-Letters.

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The write therapy

Posted: 07 Aug 2011 12:02 AM PDT

Mo Hayder's spine-tingling crime novels help her to resolve her own fears.

BRITISH thriller writer Mo Hayder says her gruesome and gory tales help her deal with the darkness in her own mind.

"I don't know what other writers are like, but I'm very unsettled in my head," the 50-year-old says over the telephone from her home in the west of England. "My books are a way of metabolising my fears."

Her warm and confiding tones belie her reputation as the queen of savage crime fiction. Her first novel, Birdman (2000), opened with grim multiple murders that led to comparisons with Thomas Harris' thriller about a sociopathic cannibal, Silence Of The Lambs.

Birdman hit British bestseller lists, a precedent followed by all seven succeeding novels. Her body of work has been applauded by reviewers from The New York Times to France's Le Point weekly news magazine, who hail both her literary polish and spine-chilling plots.

Last month Hayder was named winner of the 2011 CWA Dagger in the Library, at the CWA Awards ceremony during the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, northern England. The prize is £1,500 (RM7,500), plus £300 (RM1,500) to a participating library's readers' group.

The judges praised her "twisting, hard-hitting crime novels (that have) a haunting emotional pull on the reader", adding that "damaged detective Jack Caffery and police diver Flea Marley are one of the best pairings in current crime writing."

But Hayder says that none of her books, including the eighth and latest serial killer-fest, Hanging Hill, are as horrifying as the true tales she hears from her friends in London's murder squad. Her matter-of-fact statement is hard to believe, given that each new story outdoes the last in inventive violence. At least, it is never gratuitous.

Last year's Gone was a gut-wrenching tale of child abduction, preying on the author's own deepest fear – she has a nine-year-old daughter – while Hanging Hill (Bantam), on its way to British bookstores, is about sexual predators targeting teenage girls and has a villain guaranteed to make readers whimper.

Hayder's own life has had plenty of drama, too – mostly, she confesses, driven by a Freudian "mortido" or death instinct. At 15, she left school, exchanging life at English crime writer Ruth Rendell's Essex alma mater Loughton County High for the thrill of working in seedy London pubs.

Part of this was rebellion against the restrictions imposed by her scientist father and teacher mother.

"We weren't allowed to read crime novels in our house, they weren't literature," she recalls. "My parents tried very hard to shelter me. I felt very cut off from society. We had no TV. You feel like an alien."

She travelled to exotic lands such as Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, and also the United States, where the family had lived for some time in her childhood.

"I did everything. I worked as a hostess in a club in Tokyo, I worked in a bar, picked up jobs on film sets in Los Angeles. I did anything that would keep me moving around."

She easily admits to "years of psychiatric problems" which manifest in manic relocation.

"I'm a professional nomad. I'm 50 this year and I've moved house 32 times. I've just never been able to settle down."

Among the places she has been most comfortable in is Japan, where she spent two years at the height of the bubble economy. As a bar hostess in 1989, she recalls commanding a high salary as the only Caucasian in the outfit and being treated to dazzling displays of wealth such as "gold leaf on cakes, gold leaf on sake".

Her customers were perfect gentlemen, she adds. "People think it was very shocking, but it was very tame. Nothing sexual, it was all very, very proper, just Japanese men and women relaxing after work."

For the past 16 years, she has lived in Britain, though in various homes, and now her child keeps her grounded.

Describing herself as "a typical English mum", she politely declines to speak more about her family and partner. In fact, the interview begins just after she has managed a crisis at her daughter's sleepover party – one guest had fallen ill.

She credits her time in Asia for helping her "own" her dark side and inspiring her to write on her return to England. It was almost therapeutic, she says. "There's a constant questioning in my head and that's one of the reasons I dig inside."

Hayder first tried her hand at literary fiction and failed.

"Every time I tried to write something literary, someone ended up getting murdered," she recalls with a laugh. "Happily, crime fiction in the United Kingdom coincides with literary fiction – how many different novels can you write under this genre?"

Knowing little about police procedure and determined to get her facts right, she approached the London Metropolitan Police Service, keen to speak with the murder squad.

"I was very polite and very English and wrote them a letter. At first, they were very suspicious of me and didn't think I could handle what they were going to talk about. Now I've built up a very good network of contacts. There's pretty much nothing I can't ask."

Thanks to this insider track, she has been taken up in police helicopters, where she became airsick. She has flirted with death while quarry-diving for research.

Through her contacts, she learnt that her one-time neighbour in London was responsible for a brutal crime spree 25 years ago – he preyed on older victims, breaking into their homes to rob and viciously assault them.

Eight crime novels have not inured her to revelations like this. "I haven't lost my ability to be scared or that capacity to be repelled or shocked by what happens in real life," she says. "I'm quite glad of that." – The Straits Times/Asia News Network

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Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Ahad, 7 Ogos 2011

The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf

The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf

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