The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 17 Nov 2012 11:12 PM PST IF I want to take a book from the towering bookshelf in my living room, I simply step onto the wooden bench that seats my children at the dining table. To look for a book while I am up there, I sit on the edge of the table. The longer I sit, the more comfortable I become. In no time, I am glued to the table top, reminiscing over the memorable times I have had reading some of these books, and aching for more time to read those that I have not got to yet. So every now and then, when I have time to steal from work or my children, I will sneak up there on the bench in an attempt to start a book not yet read, or restart a book that had been forsaken. Franz Kafka's The Trial always tempts. The protagonist Josef K. is said to have been accused and arrested within the very first sentence of the book – but I have yet to find out why. Yesterday morning, when the rain poured down and prevented me from stepping out, I sat in my spot, reading quietly, completely unperturbed by the violent pattering on the window panes. These moments, I call them an indulgence. They slow and calm me down. Still, I have not managed to find out why Josef K. is imprisoned, though I have been more than dazzled by Kafka's descriptive language. So I made plans: The next day when I had no work and no appointments and as soon as my kids had been sent off to school, I would make a cup of tea and sit at the edge of the table again to thumb through those yellowish pages and plough through the densely spaced lines just to find out the reasons. The rain threatened to pour down again that morning, but gave way to the half-emerging sun that sparked rainbows on the window panes. When my mood is lightened, my emotions are stirred; just as when the body is fully rested, the restless urges ensue. Hence, I put down The Trial and went for Robert D. Kaplan's The Ends Of The Earth, a book that had previously taken me to the frontiers of anarchy before I became too tired to finish the journey. I vaguely remember stopping at Iran, the epitome of anarchism, and I now want to trudge into Central Asia where China and Russia rule. The book has been on my bookshelf for more than a decade. I am, as you now know, a disorganised reader, greedy and disloyal like a socialite scurrying from one party to another. But the bench and table somewhat tame me. On that day when the sun tried in vain to stir, I finished my journey with Kaplan. The clock struck 1pm, and my stomach rumbled. Tiptoeing across the hallway like a content little girl thoroughly pleased by treats, I headed to my study in search of Kaplan's new book that I lugged back to Sydney from Kuala Lumpur last month. It was there on a makeshift side table next to the daybed. The Revenge Of Geography was a book I wanted to read and review. Yet, not a page has been turned. Well, if the bench suits me then I must go back there. My sandwich followed, and as I placed it on the table and nearly tripped, a book in the bottom row got kicked out of its place. Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin winked and the woman on the cover glared right at me. NO! Don't be tempted, I heard Kaplan's scream, which seemed to echo across the continents in between the borders of which he juxtaposes ongoing conflicts and the impending fate of nations. Geography, not just politics, has been the predominant factor in determining the fate of nations, from pharaonic Egypt to last year's Arab Spring. That premise was enough to lure me and to justify placing (not kicking!) The Blind Assassin back in its spot on the shelf. I turned the page. I was enthralled and stuck in my spot despite the calling of a fully-emerged sun. The window next to my bowed bookshelf, my one and only, warms the books and provides them stimulation as cars zoom by and people walk past. Nobody knows that behind that window lies a bookshelf that requires a dinner table and a wooden bench to catch its owner's attention so that she will focus on the lovely old books she has forsaken of late. She is a socialite who socialises, so many visitors are in and out of her house every day. They, too, hardly pay attention to the bookshelf, for maybe they think this socialite is pretending to be learned by housing a book collection (that is neither huge nor small). This socialite hardly talks about books with her adult friends, but with children ... ah, for them she buys books generously. She is a witch attempting to bewitch children and turn them into bookworms. Abby Wong always borrows books from the libraries for children who come into her house every Saturday to listen to her storytelling. And she always gets fined for returning the books late or misplacing them.... |
| Posted: 17 Nov 2012 11:05 PM PST FOR the week ending Nov 11, 2012: Non-fiction 1. Unstoppable: The Incredible Power Of Faith In Action by Nick Vujicic 2. Justin Bieber: Just Getting Started by Justin Bieber 3. Dare To Dream: Life As One Direction by One Direction 4. Heaven Is For Real by Todd Burpo & Lynn Vincent 5. 9 Habits Of Happiness by David Leonhardt 6. Steven Gerrard: My Liverpool Story by Steven Gerrard 7. Guinness World Records 2013 by Guinness World Records Ltd 8. No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account Of The Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden by Mark Owen & Kevin Maurer 9. A World Without Islam by Graham E. Fuller 10. Another Forgotten Child by Cathy Glass Fiction 1. Fifty Shades Of Grey by E.L. James 2. The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling 3. The Charm Bracelet by Melissa Hill 4. The Sins Of The Father by Jeffrey Archer 5. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien 6. Life Of Pi by Yann Martel 7. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 8. The Racketeer by John Grisham 9. The Twelve by Justin Cronin 10. Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda Weekly list compiled by MPH Mid Valley Megamall, Kuala Lumpur; www.mphonline.com. |
| Posted: 17 Nov 2012 07:18 PM PST MICHAEL Cunningham was born in 1952 in Cincinnati, Ohio, in what he calls a typical suburban family with a working father and a housewife mother. He has a younger sister. He grew up in Pasadena, Los Angeles County, in the state of California, did his bachelor's in English literature at Stanford University and his master of fine arts in creative writing at the University of Iowa. His early stories were published in the 1980s in established literary journals such as the Atlantic Monthly and Paris Review. He received the University of Iowa's Michener Fellowship from the University of Iowa in 1982, and a US National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1988. His first book, Golden States, was published in 1984 by Crown Publishers but critical success only came six years later with A Home At The End Of The World, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1993 and five years later published The Hours, a homage to Virginia Woolf's 1925 classic tale of one ordinary day through different eyes, Mrs Dalloway. The Hours won Cunningham the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and Pen/Faulkner Award for fiction. It was made into an Academy Award-winning 2002 movie of the same name, starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore. In 2004, Cunningham was asked to adapt A Home At The End Of The World for film and the movie starring Colin Farrell was directed by Michael Mayer. His most recent book is By Nightfall, written two years ago and inspired by Death In Venice, Thomas Mann's tale of an ageing roue. Cunningham is a senior lecturer at Yale University. Recently single, with no children, he lives in New York, his home of over 30 years, and is 150 pages into a new novel. – The Straits Times, Singapore/Asia News Network Related Story: |
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