The Places You Will Go

The Quill Awards

The Quill Awards have announced the nominees for the 19 categories honoured.

Find out more about the Quills here.

Hate Mail A-hoy!

For those of you who missed my review of Harry Potter and the Great Big Fat Door-stopper of a Book in Star Mag, I've reproduced it here, with the final two sentences left in (yeah, I'm still sore about being made to sound like I was interrupted mid-paragraph.)

And yes, I've received a great deal of hate mail since the review appeared. I guess posting it here means I can expect a lot more.

Harukami in the Morning, Harukami in the Nighttime ...

My new Book at Bedtime is Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. This means I'm starting and ending the day with Murakami, which may or may not be a good idea. I'll know more when I've read more.

(I finished Wedding Season in a rush on Friday night. Suddenly I couldn't wait anymore. I read in semi-darkness, with just the nightlight on! My eyes felt fried the next morning and no wonder! The ending was a bit of a shock! Won't give it away. I'm writing the review for the paper.)

Back to Murakami, Hsian got me Hard-Boiled. She too is one of those people who have to own books they like. I'm worried that I will soon need to buy a lot of Japanese fiction - Ka-ching! Maybe I shouldn't read anymore after Hard-Boiled....

But, but ...

Mindy, commenting on this blog, recommended Junichiro Tanazaki's Quicksand. And of course my friend Kazuo says everyone should read The Ring by Koji Suzuki. The problem is the last time I checked it costs over $100 and that's Singapore dollars! Kazuo is Japanese (with a name like that who would have guessed!) and he's very intense and serious about music and literature so I've no doubt The Ring is fabulous (and scary), but why is the damn book so expensive?! Hang on a minute, it's costs just (the equivalent of) RM35 on amazon.co.uk!

I wonder what Kazuo thinks of Murakami. Why do I get the feeling he will dismiss him with a snort and a sneer?