BOOKS I'VE BOUGHT RECENTLY

The Harmony Silk Factory (2005) / Tash Aw
Set against the colourful and tumultous backdrop of 1940s Malaya, a crucial period in Malayan history, Tash Aw’s novel is an engrossing portrait of the mysterious antihero, Johnny Lim, told in three spare, interlinked narrative strands dissecting Lim's psyche. Malaysia's literary pride, Aw's début is not only ambitious and comic, but emotionally engaging as well. He has managed to pull off a remarkable feat of the imagination. What a splendid accomplishment!

Never Let Me Go (2005) / Kazuo Ishiguro
In Kazuo Ishiguro's imaginary landscape, nothing is quite what it seems, a place where love and friendship are put to the test, and where the human heart is still an enigmatic and undiscovered country.

Bibliography
AW Tash [1972-] Malaysian novelist. Born Aw Ta-Shii in Taipei, Taiwan. NOVEL The Harmony Silk Factory (2005: winner of the 2005 Whitbread Award for the First Novel)

ISHIGURO Kazuo [1954-] Novelist. Born in Nagasaki, Japan. NOVELS Never Let Me Go (2005); When We Were Orphans (2000: shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread Novel Award and the 2000 Booker Prize for Fiction); The Unconsoled (1995: winner of the 1995 Cheltenham Literary Festival Prize; shortlisted for the 1995 Whitbread Novel Award); The Remains of the Day (1989: winner of the 1989 Booker Prize for Fiction); An Artist of the Floating World (1986: winner of the 1986 Whitbread Novel and Book of the Year Awards and the 1995 Premio Scanno; shortlisted for the 1986 Booker Prize for Fiction); A Pale View of Hills (1982: winner of the 1983 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize of the Royal Society of Literature)