The Places You Will Go

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I've told Martin that if he sees me playing The Sims 2 tonight he should smack me. I went to bed at five this morning, playing the game! This has to stop.

Well, at least I've managed to post two mini reviews. And I wrote my column in record time yesterday. Things are looking up!

I'm starting my recommendations for books to give as Xmas gifts this Sunday.  Kicking off with The Dark is Rising Sequence (comprising Over Sea, Under Stone, The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King and Silver on the Tree) by Susan Cooper. Readers can get the Puffin edition at 20% off the retail price, if you snip out the column and present it at the Kinokuniya Books counter at KLCC Suria. This offer ends, while stocks last, on 18 December, 2004.

This edition has, I think, a very tacky cover (left), all embossed title and flashy graphics. My omnibus Penguin one has lovely cover illustrations by Michael Heslop. You can check out Heslop's cover art for the individual Puffin editions here. In fact, you should check out this website called The Lost Land. It's devoted to Susan Cooper and  is quite cool. It even has pictures of  the parts of Wales that are featured in The Grey King and Silver on the Tree.

Back to Christmas, I'm still waiting for local book distributors to send me anything they think will make good gifts. I'm beginning to despair. The Pansing rep just informed me that they've been bought over by F&N and in the process of moving to new premises which they will share with Times Publishing Limited! This means that they won't be sending anything out to the press for a while. I guess, having just moved myself, I should understand ....

One book that I want to read, that's distributed by Pansing, is Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell  by Susanna Clarke. I'm supposed to get a copy in the next week or so, but I have no intention of writing a review so I'll have to wait until Mike the Man (Eye on Everything) does that before I can get my paws on it.

Has anyone out there read it? Am I in for a treat or otherwise?

Anyway, is there a book that you think makes a good perfect Christmas gift? Is there one that you've given or been given in the past that's been a huge hit? Let me know.

Mini Review: How Santa Really Works

Title: How Santa Really Works

Author: Alan Snow

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Where You Bought This Book: It’s a review copy.

Main Characters: Santa and his elves. 

What It’s All About: Have you ever wondered how Santa runs his “business”? This book reveals where Father Christmas lives, how he gets all our presents to us in time, how he knows what we want and if we’ve been good, plus lots, lots more. Like, training for elves and how they’re assigned to the different departments within Santa’s Workshop (eg. Reindeer Welfare, Customer Support and Weather). Myths are busted too. For example, Santa isn’t really fat – how would he fit down a chimney then?!! He’s actually quite skinny and very fit, but he has an emergency inflatable suit that he can activate if he is accidentally seen: it inflates with helium to aid a speedy exit up chimneys!

What I like About It: I love the busy illustrations. There’s loads happening on every page and the details are brilliant, including the conversations going on between the elves. I also like the way the elves are shaped – a bit like fat-bottomed teapots with spindly arms and legs.

If You Like The Sound of this Book, You Should Also Check Out These Titles:

1. How Dogs Really Work

2. The Truth about Cats

3. Stink Stoppers

4. The Monster Book of ABC Sounds

All four are also by Alan Snow.

Name of Reviewer: Daphne Lee

Mini Review: Malaysian Children's Favourite Stories

Title: Malaysian Children's Favourite Stories

Author: Kay Lyons

Illustrator: Martin Loh

Publisher: Tuttle (Distributed by Periplus/Berkeley Books)

Where You Bought This Book: It’s a review copy.

What It’s All About:
To quote the jacket (and the blurb in Amazon.com): “Retold for an international audience, the beautifully illustrated legends in this book will give children in other countries an insight into both the traditional culture and the environment of Malaysia. The country's rich tropical scenery provides the perfect backdrop for these tales, many of which incorporate the indigenous plant and animal life into their story lines.Though the book is aimed at children in the five to twelve year age group, readers young and old will find much to love within its pages.”

What I like About It:
It’s cool that someone is preserving Asian folktales.

What I Dislike About It:
1. No Malaysians were involved in the writing/illustrating of this book. I wonder why. Surely there are Malaysian authors who would have liked to contribute.

2. Loh’s artwork is really, really ugly. It’s the worst of all the books in this Favourite Stories series. How convenient to say that he specialises in “naive art”!

3. For every copy sold to bookstores in Malaysia, the publisher is giving ... RM1 (!!!!) to charity. I just think they can afford to give more (the retail price is RM45), but maybe that's naive of me.

If You Like The Sound of this Book, You Should Also Check Out These Titles:
The other books in the series feature folktales from Japan, China and Tibet, the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore.

Name of Reviewer: Daphne Lee

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

Dylan Thomas wrote this when he was just 19. I see it as a celebration of life and how, in abstract, it is everlasting and supreme despite the decay and destruction experienced by man. 


And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

Dylan Thomas

I'm Now Reading ...

Actually, I'm reading nothing.

I'm just not in the mood for books, which is not at all normal for me. Maybe I need to go to a bookstore and be inspired, but I really shouldn't be buying any new books. I've barely gone near our bookcases and I've just looked at the review copies the paper's been sent and not seen anything I want to read.

What's happening? Am I all "read out"?

I think it may be partly due to spending too much time playing The Sims 2. Instead of staying up nights reading, I'm now staying up nights building virtual houses. Or maybe I've just read too many bad books over the last few months and need a break.

I hope things will be different after the weekend.

Picture Book of the Month: The Great Ball Play

November 2004

The Great Ball Play

By Joanna Troughton

Publisher: Happy Cat Publisher

This book retells an Native American Indian legend of a game of lacrosse between the animals and the birds. I guess it's the story of how the bat was accepted as an animal despite its wings! This is how it goes: There are two team: animals and birds. No one wants the bat. The animals are supposed to have teeth and the birds wings. The animals say to Bat, "We don't want you. You have wings." The birds say to Bat: "We don't want you, you have teeth." Bat is sad, but then the animals take pity on him and allow him to join them as a reserve player. The game starts and the birds start scoring goals thanks to their ability to fly about and swoop down on the ball when their opponents least expect it. When one of the animals gets injured, Bat is asked to take its place, and he proves to be a star player! In fact, he wins the match for the Animals! My favourite part of the book is the expressions on the faces of the birds and animals whenever they are particularly happy or upset. The tortoise referees are especially expressive when they tell players off for being rough on the pitch. Troughton is well-known for her re-telling of folk tales. She is a Kate Greenaway medalist.

Up and Running

Yes, I'm working again! Or rather, my "new post" page is once again launching fully, without a hitch. Gosh, it's good to be back :-)

So, what's been happening. Actually, not a whole lot. I've been playing with my new p.c. and The Sims 2 game. I was very addicted to The Sims (10-hr sessions, anyone?), but I have been able to keep each Sims 2 session down to two hours max. Anyway, I won't bore anyone by talking about that.

In the books department, well, frankly, for some reason or other, I have not been doing much reading. I found Middlemarch and have been enjoying a page or two every day, but not much more than that, I'm afraid. In fact, I had to cancel this week's Tots to Teens because I had nothing to write about. This is partly due to the fact that the book distributors have not been sending me review copies as regularly as usual. However, Hodder Headline contacted me and that's good news.

Next week, I'm writing about Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising Sequence. Kinokuniya, Kuala Lumpur has ordered copies and there will be the usual 20% discount if you snip out Tots to Teens and present it at the cashier.

The books will also be the first of this year's Xmas recommendations. Have not decided on what else to push, apart from this cute picture book, by Allan Snow, called How Santa Really Works. And I'd also like to recommend The Gruffalo's Child and What Makes Me Me. We'll see.

Actually, Christmas aside, I'd appreciate some suggestions for reading. Bear in mind that I am not in the mood for anything profound. I want something rather jolly. And no chick lit or fantasy or sci fi, please.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Here's another poem by John Keats. In brief, it's about a knight who meets a mysterious fairy woman (the title's "beautiful woman without mercy") and is never quite the same again. You can read more about it here.

Speaking of Keats, I've framed a large version of the above picture of him and it's going up on the wall of my bedroom. At the bottom it says "I think I shall be among the English poets after my death." I got it in Rome at the Keats-Shelley Memorial House (at the top of the Spanish Steps, see below - it's the pink building), which is where Keats lived his last days.

I also went to look at Keats's grave (below, left) in the Protestant cemetary in Rome. The graveyard is beautiful, quiet and peaceful, except when we visited because Elesh, who was about 26 months old at the time, spent the time chasing stray cats that live there!

La Belle Dame Sans Merci
                          I

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

                          II

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.

                          III

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

                          IV

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful - a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

                          V

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

                          VI

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery's song.

                          VII
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said -
'I love thee true'.

                          VIII

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

                          IX

And there she lulled me asleep
And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide! -
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

                          X

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'

                          XI

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.

                          XII

And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

John Keats

Whitbread Book Awards

Read all about the Whitbread Book Awards and this year's shortlists. (I'm not too late, thanks to Subtext Whore!)

The winners will be announced on 6 January 2005.

Moving is 85% done, but I'm not updating this blog as often as I'd like to as I'm experiencing lots of formatting problems and other technical glitches. Damn!

Bear with me. I hope everything will be back to normal soon.

Book Clubs and Such

Funny, just as I was toying with the idea of organising a meeting of fellow book bloggers and other book lovers, here's Eye on Everything's Mike the Man's post on Book Clubs.

I must admit that one the attractions of book clubs (for me) is that I will be "forced" to read books I normally avoid like the plague (for example, spy or war novels, and anything by David Eddings). It's just that I think I won't enjoy these books but who knows, right? Shouldn't knock it til I've tried it! Still, left to my own devides, I will always find an excuse to read something else. On the other hand, if I have to discuss them, I will be compelled to read them. However, I don't know how many forced-readings I'd actually last.

Anyway, this meeting I was thinking of organising would be more of an excuse to meet fellow bookworms, have a few drinks and nibbles, and talk about our favourite books and authors. I discussed it with Liz Tai aka Book Gobbler and suggested that we each bring a favourite book to give away. No one would be expected to discuss anything and as for further meetings, we'd play it by ear. She thought it was a good idea but we wondered whether it'd end up being just the two of us talking about Star Trek novelisations!! LOL!!

So, if you think you might want to join this little party, do drop me an email or comment. Mike, if you're reading this, we'd love you to come along and talk at length about Terry Pratchett. Um ... your harem is also welcome ;-) Ha-Ha!!