The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 31 Jul 2011 04:21 AM PDT FOR the month of July, 2011: Non-fiction 1. A Doctor In The House: The Memoirs Of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad 2. Chicken Soup For The Soul: Think Positive – 101 Inspirational Stories About Counting Your Blessings And Having A Positive Attitude by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & Amy Newmark 3. Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going by Han Fook Kwang, et al 4. The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot 5. Speeches That Changed The World edited by Emma Beare 6. Heaven Is For Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story Of His Trip To Heaven And Back by Todd Burpo & Lynn Vincent 7. Once A Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice In The Dock (revised and updated edition) by Alan Shadrake 8. The Power by Rhonda Byrne 9. Quantum Leaps: 100 Scientists Who Changed The World by Jon Balchin 10. Brain Rules: 12 Principles For Surviving And Thriving At Work, Home, And School by John Medina Fiction 1. The Particular Sadness Of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender 2. The Confession by John Grisham 3. Fall Of Giants by Ken Follett 4. Transformers 3 (the official novel) by Peter David 5. Last Man In Tower by Aravind Adiga 6. The Heiress by Lynsay Sands 7. Just Like Heaven by Julia Quinn 8. Swimming Pool Sunday by Madeleine Wickham 9. Water For Elephants (film tie-in) by Sara Gruen 10. The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obréht ■ This month's list compiled by MPH Mid Valley Megamall, Kuala Lumpur; www.mphonline.com. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
| Posted: 31 Jul 2011 04:20 AM PDT Who knew a tale of beauty queens on an island could be so snarky and original? A PLANE full of teenage beauty queens crashes on a tropical island en route to the 41st Annual Miss Teen Dream Pageant. There are 14 survivors, including Miss Texas, the super-efficient and scarily perky Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins; Miss New Hampshire, razor-tongued Adina Greenberg; Miss California, super-assimilated Shanti Singh; and Miss Nebraska, secret wild-child Mary Lou Novak. The stress and hardship bring out the worst and the best in the girls. You don't look the way beauty queens do without being hard as nails (Miss Mississippi is initially gleeful about the lack of food on the island, immediately thinking in terms of weight loss rather than starvation), and one broken nail too many and even the most disciplined beauty bot might blow a fuse. Still, the girls eventually rise to the occasion, turning their beauty apparatus and pageant-wear into tools to help them survive. And as the girls dig latrines and spear fish together, they learn to trust one other and let their guard down. The demons each one privately wrestles with range from the usual teen problems with self-esteem and body image to sexuality, gender and race issues. While some of the girls come clean with their new friends, others are not yet ready to be honest with themselves, let alone the other girls. Shanti Singh finds denial the most comfortable stance to take and copes quite well with the nagging doubts she has, but Taylor's obsession with perfection tips her over the edge, turning her into a horrifying yet comic caricature of herself. It's obvious that Libba Bray had lots of fun writing Beauty Queens. All the dodgy things you've ever heard – about pageant contestants and the lengths they go to in order to look perfect – are in this book. I'm sure Bray will be accused by some (teen beauty queens and their parents? Pageant organisers?) of being inaccurate and unfair. Whether or not the tales of perpetual hunger, back-stabbing and obsessive parents are true, they make for a good story. I mean, it would be great if beauty queens were all thin, toned and stunning without constant dieting, exercising and beauty treatments, and it would be awesome if pageants were not a hot bed of jealousy and emotional abuse. However, natural, happy and well-adjusted are just not the stuff that bestsellers and reality telly are made of. Unlike the producers of reality TV shows, Bray's purpose is not to shock, scandalise or titillate but to criticise the public's voyeuristic partiality for shocking, scandalous and titillating content, and the willingness of TV stations to exploit man's prurient tastes. Beauty Queens is structured like a reality telly series, complete with product placement (Bipolar Bears, "a combination of vitamin and mood-levelling drug"; Discomfort Wear, innerwear "designed to eliminate rolls, ripples and muffin tops. In some cases known to eliminate circulation and breathing."), commercial breaks (cream hair-remover Lady 'StacheOff: "Because there's nothing wrong with you ... that can't be fixed.") and movie trailers (Wedding Day 3: Third Time's The Charm). Bray lets it rip writing this, and leaves little doubt about what she thinks about the way women's insecurities are conditioned and manipulated by the media. These "interludes" are the funniest, snarkiest parts of the book. While it's easy to predict the conclusion of Beauty Queens, the route Bray takes to get to the Teen Queens' final triumph is a hilarious, zany, surprising and original one. You wonder, though, if this really happened, would it end the way Bray wrote it? In the book, Mary Lou says: "Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one's watching them so they can be who they really are." What happens when they leave the island, though? In reality, how many of these beauty queens would have the strength to still be themselves once the whole world starts watching again? ■ Daphne Lee reads to wonder and wander, be amazed and amused, horrified and heartened and inspired and comforted. She wishes more people will try it, too. Send e-mails to the above address and check out her blog at daphne.blogs.com/books. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
| Posted: 31 Jul 2011 04:16 AM PDT THE death of her British husband in 2004 pulled Linda Tan Lingard up. "It made me think – how long do you delay doing what you want?" What she wants to do involves books, particularly children's books. However, it isn't new territory as she has been in the publishing industry for over a decade. "I devoured children's books as a kid, for their illustrations. Reading opens up a whole new world. What you get, you can't get elsewhere. If you start young, it stays with you," says Lingard (pic). In 2007, she left her job with a legal and text book publisher and set up a bookshop, Scallywags, at a condominium in Kuala Lumpur. "I had high hopes, but I didn't expect it to be so quiet." She also learnt that she wasn't keen to sit down for hours with children: "I didn't want it to be a day care." It was time to step out. Lingard headed for the Bologna Children's Book Fair in Italy, where she was overwhelmed by the number and variety of titles available. More importantly, it struck her that "our illustrators can compete with the foreigners". The First Book panel discussion at the fair – where panellists were asked to comment on the unpublished illustrations of artists – confirmed her observation. "When I saw some of the pictures, I realised I had seen better stuff from Malaysia." Lingard got permission from the Society of Children's Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), which had organised the panel discussion, to set up a Malaysian chapter. The chapter, registered last year and now 30-strong, aims to support and encourage local authors and illustrators by being part of an international organisation. She was then introduced to writer/artist Yusof Gajah, who mentors several Malaysian artists. They teamed up and formed the Yusof Gajah Lingard Literary Agency, to represent those who write, illustrate and publish books for children and young adults. "As agents we can do more than being just publishers." In the last three years, Lingard has brought out numerous children's books under her own imprints, One Red Flower Press, Oyez!Books and Picture Book Art. Naïve artist Jainal Amambing has one book published under each respective imprint – Longhouse Days, The Proud Butterfly And The Strange Tree, and The Wonderful Sparrow. Fellow Sabahan Awang Fadilah's Land Below The Wind was released under Picture Book Art early this year. "Jainal and Awang won Noma Concours awards for their illustrations for Longhouse Days and Land Below The Wind. I was surprised the books had never been published," Lingard says. Looking out for such gems and helping them see print is one of the agency's goals. Creating local content is another; it has approached four other illustrators in Sabah, namely Arthur Stephen Siowou, Melannie Clarice Mujip, Rosmaini Sunarjo and Azlan Dulikab, to come up with storyboards for manuscripts written by a KL writer. "We want to develop books and contribute to the quality aspect, not just quantity," says Lingard, who hopes to work closely with the National Book Council. She has proposed having First Look and First Write panels at the Kuala Lumpur Children's Book Fair in November, whereby publishers can view pre-submitted works, and writers and illustrators will feel excited about having a chance to be published. Marketing Malaysian titles abroad is another viable step. Similarly, importing books from the West, and buying translations rights. "Japan and South Korea first boosted their people's interest in books by bringing in quality books from abroad – and readers got to know about different cultures," Lingard says. Which brings her back to the ripple effects of reading. "If adults read to children from young, they bond quickly with books. When we bring in good books, we begin to expect good art, good layout and typefaces. We get used to (having) them," she adds. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
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