The O. Henry Prize Stories

TWO COLLECTIONS of the best stories from the best literary magazines in the U.S. and Canada that you must have on your bookshelf.

1. The O. Henry Prize Stories 2006 (Anchor, 2006) / Laura Furman (ed.)
A radiant reflection of contemporary fiction at its best, The O. Henry Prize Stories 2006 features stories from locales as diverse as Russia, Zimbabwe, and the rural American South. Series editor Laura Furman considered thousands of stories in hundreds of literary magazines before selecting the winners, which are accompanied here by short essays from each of the three eminent jurors on his or her favourite story, as well as observations from all twenty prizewinners on what inspired them. Ranging in tone from arch humour to self-deluding obsessiveness to fairy-tale ingenuousness, these stories are a treasury of potential classics.

2. The O. Henry Prize Stories 2007 (Anchor, 2007) / Laura Furman (ed.)
An arresting collection of contemporary fiction at its best, these stories explore a vast range of subjects, from love and deception to war and the insidious power of class distinctions. However clearly spoken, in voices sophisticated, cunning, or naïve, here is fiction that consistently defies our expectations. Selected from thousands of stories in hundreds of literary magazines, the twenty prizewinning stories are accompanied by essays from each of the three eminent jurors on which stories they judged the best, and observations from all twenty prizewinners on what inspired them.

The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2008

THE OVERWHELMING SUCCESS of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2007 has confirmed its reputation as one of the largest and most prestigious literary events in Southeast Asia, and has paved the way for even more exciting literary encounters in 2008.

With a packed programme of workshops, discussions, performances and social events, all held in stunning venues in the beautiful Balinese hilltown of Ubud, the 2007 festival delivered stimulation and refreshment for the intellect and senses of the hundred or so writers from Indonesia and around the world who participated in the programme, and the many hundreds of visitors who listened to them and joined them in conversation.

Virtually every festival event was booked out, and for a few of the most popular sessions it was difficult to find standing room. After full days of discussion on aspects of this year’s festival theme, “Sekala Niskala―the Seen and Unseen,” which threw up topics as diverse as the impact of terrorism on real people’s lives, and the ways contemporary Balinese deal with the unseen in their daily lives, enthusiastic visitors thronged to evening events like the poetry slam and the writers’ cabaret.

From listening and talking to acclaimed literary “big names”―Kiran Desai, Rana Dasgupta, Richard Flanagan, Patrick Gale, Tan Twan Eng, Shashi Tharoor, Madeleine Thien and Xu Xi―to experiencing passionate performances from emerging talents like Tusiata Avia, Giannina Braschi, Miles Merrill and Cyril Wong, the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2007 programme mixed rare and exciting flavours. It also offered the unique opportunity to experience some of Indonesia’s most exciting writers and to discover the stories, styles and substance that makes Indonesian literature unique.

The underlying theme of 2008’s 5th International Ubud Writers and Readers Festival on October 14-19, 2008 will be “Us and Them.” Together with established writers, emerging writers will confront the issue of cultural collisions. Invited guests include Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka, acclaimed Chilean writer Isabel Allende, British-Caribbean author Caryl Phillips, Mexican writer Alberto Ruy-Sanchez, Australian novelist Helen Garner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks, and Vikram Seth.

This will be a dialogue like no other at Ubud, which lies on the fertile crossroads of two rivers, two oceans and two continents―Asia and Australia. The exotic retreat of the rich and famous in the 1930s―now re-invented as an international rendezvous for writers, poets, painters and artistes from all parts of the world―has become the stage where voices from China, India, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and more are heard. In 2008 this partnership will be strengthened with writers from beyond the region, from the heart of Africa and South America.

“Collision of Cultures” will be one of the main themes of the Festival in 2008. World religions, languages and lifestyles will be examined and discussed together with the subject of migration and its impact on communities. Hot debates addressing crime and punishment in Asia, and more specifically drugs, civil rights and moral dilemmas, will also take centre-stage. With women’s rights and education in mind, Asia’s rural communities on the periphery of social development will be brought to the fore by literary lights of the day.

As always you’re sure to find a spicy feast of writers, workshops, book launches, literary lunches, dinners and cocktails, conversations and panels, with poetry, performance, dance and music to heighten the unique flavour of the festival.

And if that is not enough, the Festival in 2008 will take to the streets, literally, with international street performers matching their wits against Ubud’s youth in a carnival of skill and artistry.

Ubud in 2008 will be a literary encounter like no other.

MPH Breakfast Club at MPH Bangsar Village II

DAPHNE LEE and CHOONG KWEE KIM at

MPH Bangsar Village II on October 27, 2007

The 9th MPH Breakfast Club for LitBloggers on Saturday, October 27, 2007, will feature Choong Kwee Kim, whose first illustrated book, Ah Fu The Rickshaw Coolie (MPH Publishing, 2007), was released in August 2007. Kwee Kim is a journalist with The Star in Penang, Malaysia.

Also featured is Daphne Lee, author of One Red Flower, A is for Anklet, If I Were a Star and Sweet Pink Posies (MPH Publishing, 2006). A columnist and book reviewer with The Star’s Sunday magazine, StarMag, Daphne is a passionate advocate of children’s books with Malaysian content. She has a huge book collection that goes back more than 30 years that is still growing. Her dream is to own a bookshop and write good children’s books.

Choong Kwee Kim and Daphne Lee will be introduced by Eric Forbes. Janet Tay will facilitate the session.

Date October 27, 2007 (Saturday)
Time 11.00a.m.-12.30p.m.
Venue MPH Bangsar Village II, Lot 2F-1 (2nd Floor), Bangsar Village II, No. 2, Jalan Telawi 1, Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: 603-2287 3600

Food and refreshments will be served
All lovers of literature are most welcome

2007 Man Asian Literary Prize Shortlist

FIVE NOVELS have been shortlisted for the first Man Asian Literary Prize on October 25, 2007. A longlist was announced on Friday, July 20, 2007. Writers from India dominated the 23-title longlist with 11 titles. The Man Asian Literary Prize aims to recognise the best of new Asian literature and to bring it to the attention of the world literary community. The prize is sponsored by the Man Group, the same company that sponsors Britain’s prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Asian novels not yet published in English are eligible for this prize.

1. Soledad’s Sister / Jose Dalisay, Jr.
2. Families at Home / Reeti Gadekar
3. Smile As They Bow / Nu Nu Yi Inwa
4. Wolf Totem / Jiang Rong
5. Habit of a Foreign Sky / Xu Xi

The winner of the first Man Asian Literary Prize will be awarded on November 10, 2007 in Hong Kong

The Almost Moon Contest

ALICE SEBOLD’s The Almost Moon begins with the narrator, Helen Knightly, confessing that she has just killed her mother. The events unfold in a span of just twenty-four hours with the dexterity and skill needed to engage and sustain the reader so that the history of the protagonist’s life comes across effectively to tie into the present. Sebold manages to surprise with the ending, but it is one which leaves little room for judgement or debate.

Its first line, “When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily,” already grabs the reader’s attention, not unlike the introduction of Susie Salmon in The Lovely Bones (2002). Sebold continues to shock and intoxicate in her new novel about matricide―not just a crime novel, but one that unravels the often unfathomable layers of family, love and loss. In between her addictive, crisp narration of the sometimes horrific, unexpected events, Sebold inserts philosophical musings of Helen Knightly and prompts the reader to consider the greyness in between moments when morality and reality clash, that nothing is ever black and white in life―not marriage, not family and certainly not murder.

In conjunction with the release of Sebold’s The Almost Moon (October 16, 2007), I have a copy of the new novel to give away to the first person with all the correct answers to the following questions pertaining to the author. Email your answers to mphpublishing@mph.com.my. Oh yes, the contest is opened only to those who live around this neck of the woods (so that I can pass the book to you by hand in case you win). So tell me where you are writing from. Good luck!

Questions
1. Name all the books that Alice Sebold has written.
2. Who does Helen Knightly murder in The Almost Moon?
3. How many children does Helen Knightly have?
4. Which novelist is Alice Sebold married to?

Closing Date October 31, 2007

Book courtesy of MPH Distributors

Have you read any of these?

New & Highly Recommended

THE FOLLOWING BOOKS are highly recommended:

1. Other Colors: Essays and a Story (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007) / Orhan Pamuk
2. Run (HarperCollins, 2007) / Ann Patchett
3. Bridge of Sighs (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007) / Richard Russo
4. The Almost Moon (Little, Brown, 2007) / Alice Sebold
5. The Street of a Thousand Blossoms (St. Martin’s Press, 2007) / Gail Tsukiyama

What I Found at ... MPH Mid Valley, Kuala Lumpur

NOT SURE what to read next? No worries. Here are a couple of suggestions you might like to explore when you next visit the bookshop. Enjoy!

Novels
1. Tanamera (1981) / Noel Barber
2. The Law of Dreams (2006) / Peter Behrens
3. Christine Falls (2006) / Benjamin Black
4. Weight Loss (2007) / Upamanyu Chatterjee
5. Fasting, Feasting (1999) / Anita Desai
6. The Kingdom of Ashes (2007) / Robert Edric
7. The Gathering (2007) / Anne Enright
8. The Singapore Grip (1978) / J.G. Farrell
9. The Siege of Krishnapur (1973) / J.G. Farrell
10. World Without End (2007) / Ken Follett
11. Ancestor Stones (2006) / Aminatta Forna
12. The Russian Concubine (2007) / Kate Furnivall
13. Mister Pip (2006) / Lloyd Jones
14. The Indian Clerk (2007) / David Leavitt
15. The Good Terrorist (1985) / Doris Lessing
16. The Golden Notebook (1962) / Doris Lessing
17. The Opposite House (2007) / Helen Oyeyemi

18. Songs Without Words (2007) / Ann Packer
19. The Dive from Clausen’s Pier (2002) / Ann Packer
20. My Name is Red (2001) [trans. from the Turkish, Benim Adim Kirmizi (1998), by Erdag M. Göknar] / Orhan Pamuk
21. The Almost Moon (2007) / Alice Sebold

22. Secrets of the Sea (2007) / Nicholas Shakespeare
23. Animal’s People (2002) / Indra Sinha
24. The Gift of Rain (2007) / Tan Twan Eng
25. The Street of a Thousand Blossoms (2007) / Gail Tsukiyama

Stories
1. Cat O’ Nine Tales (2006) / Jeffrey Archer
2. The Secrets of the Fire King (1997) / Kim Edwards
3. What You Call Winter (2007) / Nalini Jones
4. The View from Castle Rock (2006) / Alice Munro
5. Mothers and Sons (2006) / Colm Tóibín

Nonfiction
1. Other Colours: Essays and a Story (trans. from the Turkish by Maureen Freely) (2007) / Orhan Pamuk
2. Istanbul: Memories and the City [trans. from the Turkish, Hatiralar ve Sehir (2003), by Maureen Freely in 2005; published as Istanbul: Memories of a City in the U.K.] (2005) / Orhan Pamuk

2006/7 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize

FICTION RULES again in the shortlist for the 2007 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for works of literature (fiction, nonfiction, poetry or drama) by a United Kingdom or Commonwealth writer aged 35 or under at the time of publication. Among the shortlisted titles, there are four novels and two works of nonfiction. There are no collections of short stories or poetry this year. There is only one début work: Ceridwen Dovey’s Blood Kin.

The Shortlist
1. Blood Kin (novel) (Atlantic, 2007) / Ceridwen Dovey
2. The Carhullan Army (novel) (Faber & Faber, 2007) / Sarah Hall
3. Inglorious (novel) (Faber & Faber, 2007) / Joanna Kavenna
4. The Wild Places (nonfiction) (Granta, 2007) / Robert Macfarlane
5. Joshua Spassky (novel) (Jonathan Cape, 2007) / Gwendoline Riley
6. Occupational Hazards (nonfiction) (Picador, 2006) / Rory Stewart

The winner will be announced on November 29, 2007

The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2008

THE 2008 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival will be held on October 14-19, 2008. And guess what? Assuming things do not change, Chilean novelist Isabel Allende is leading the line-up for next year’s event! Allende, of course, is the author of such wonderful novels as The House of the Spirits (1985), Of Love and Shadows (1987), Eva Luna (1988) and Daughter of Fortune (1999), and a compelling memoir, My Invented Country (2003). Her latest book is Inés of My Soul (2006), a historical novel that recounts the astonishing life of Inés Suárez, an audacious Spanish conquistadora who toiled to build the nation of Chile.

The theme of the 5th International Ubud Writers and Readers Festival will be ‘Us and Them.’ Both established writers and emerging writers will confront the issue of cultural collisions. Besides Allende, other invited guests include Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka, British-Caribbean author Caryl Phillips, Mexican writer Alberto Ruy-Sanchez, Australian Helen Garner, Geraldine Brooks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March (2005), and Vikram Seth, the celebrated author of such books as A Suitable Boy (1993) and Two Lives (2005).

October Readings

Alice SEBOLD ... The Almost Moon (Little, Brown, 2007)

ALICE SEBOLD’s second novel, The Almost Moon (Little, Brown & Company), is finally out in the bookstores. The moon symbolises the watchful eyes of Helen Knightly’s dementia-afflicted mother. Wherever she goes, her mother taunts and haunts her. The novel begins with the protagonist snuffing out her “crazy bitch” of a mother: “When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily. Dementia, as it descends, has a way of revealing the core of the person affected by it. My mother’s core was rotten like the brackish water at the bottom of a weeks-old vase of flowers.” The emotional turmoil her mother subjects her to pushes Helen over the edge and into the abyss of insanity. Has it been worth the wait? Read it and find out.

Alice Sebold is the author of a novel, The Lovely Bones (2002), and a memoir, Lucky (1999)

Book courtesy of MPH Distributors

CONTEST #2 Results

THE RESPONSE to the contest was overwhelming. I had only five books to give away this time round. For those who did not win, please try again in the next contest. I will be organising another one once I have amassed more books.

Congratulations to the winners of Contest #2!

Lydia Teh has won Haruki Murakami’s bestselling Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2006). Leowanie Leow gets Robert Goddard’s Name to a Face (2007). Carmen Lau will be happy to know that Joanne Harris’s The Lollipop Shoes (2007) is all hers to enjoy, while Stephen Brigg’s compilation of Terry Pratchett’s quotes, The Wit & Wisdom of Discworld (Harper, September 2007), goes to Dzof Azmi. Philip Roth’s Everyman (2006) goes to Li-Hsian Choo.

Please collect your books from me during the MPH Breakfast Club for LitBloggers at MPH Bangsar Village II on Saturday, October 27, 2007 between 11:00a.m. and 12:30p.m.

Happy reading!

ANSWERS
1. Geraldine McEwan
2. World Without End
3. Nathan Zuckerman

All books courtesy of MPH Distributors

Anne ENRIGHT ... The Gathering (Jonathan Cape, 2007)

Irish novelist Anne Enright’s bleak yet funny tale of troubled family life set in good old Dublin scoops the 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. This is the second win for an Irish writer in two years; John Banville won it for The Sea in 2005. She is the second Irishwoman to win the prize; Iris Murdoch won it for The Sea, The Sea in 1978, some 29 years ago. (Of course, Roddy Doyle won it for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha in 1993.) Enright won one of the literary world’s most prestigious awards for her controlled prose and her skillful use of figurative language. Hard to believe, but 2008 will be the 40th year of the Booker Prize for Fiction; the prize was first awarded in 1969. Can you imagine who would win it same time next year?

Bibliography
ENRIGHT Anne [1962-] Novelist, short-story writer. Born in Dublin, Ireland. Novels The Gathering (2007: winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction); The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch (2002); What Are You Like? (2000: winner of the 2001 Encore Award; shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread Novel Award); The Wig My Father Wore (1995) Stories Taking Pictures (2008); The Portable Virgin (1991: winner of the 1991 Rooney Prize for Literature and shortlisted for the Irish Times/Aer Lingus Irish Literature Prize) Nonfiction Making Babies: Stumbling Into Motherhood (2004)

Read what Janet Tay and Sharon Bakar has to say

2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

TODAY’S THE DAY. The winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction will be announced in London today! So, who will it be? Will Ian McEwan get his second Booker Prize with On Chesil Beach? Or will it be Lloyd Jones’s Mister Pip or Anne Enright’s The Gathering? Perhaps Nicola Barker, Mohsin Hamid or Indra Sinha? Truth be told, your guess is as good as mine.

Update
Anne Enright’s bleak tale of dysfunctional family life set in Dublin scoops the 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

MPH Breakfast Club for LitBloggers

DAPHNE LEE and CHOONG KWEE KIM at

MPH Bangsar Village II on October 27, 2007

The 9th MPH Breakfast Club for LitBloggers on Saturday, October 27, 2007, will feature Choong Kwee Kim, whose first illustrated book, Ah Fu The Rickshaw Coolie (MPH Publishing, 2007), was released in August 2007. Kwee Kim is a journalist with The Star in Penang, Malaysia.

Also featured is Daphne Lee, author of One Red Flower, A is for Anklet, If I Were a Star and Sweet Pink Posies (MPH Publishing, 2006). A columnist and book reviewer with The Star’s Sunday magazine, StarMag, Daphne is a passionate advocate of children’s books with Malaysian content. She has a huge book collection that goes back more than 30 years that is still growing. Her dream is to own a bookshop and write good children’s books.

Choong Kwee Kim and Daphne Lee will be introduced by Eric Forbes. Janet Tay will facilitate the session.

Date October 27, 2007 (Saturday)
Time 11.00a.m.-12.30p.m.
Venue MPH Bangsar Village II, Lot 2F-1 (2nd Floor), Bangsar Village II, No. 2, Jalan Telawi 1, Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: 603-2287 3600

Food and refreshments will be served
All lovers of literature are most welcome

The 6A's of Autumn

1. Away (Random House, August 2007) / Amy Bloom
2. The Air We Breathe (W.W. Norton, October 2007) / Andrea Barrett
3. The Gathering (Jonathan Cape, May 2007, Grove/Atlantic, September 2007) / Anne Enright
4. Songs Without Words (Alfred A. Knopf/Piatkus, September 2007) / Ann Packer
5. Run (Bloomsbury/Harper, October 2007) / Ann Patchett
6. The Almost Moon (Little, Brown, October 2007) / Alice Sebold

Anne ENRIGHT ... The Gathering (Jonathan Cape, Grove/Atlantic, 2007)

THE NEW Man Booker Prize winner?

Could this be the year Anne Enright wins the Man Booker Prize for her novel, The Gathering (Jonathan Cape, Grove/Atlantic, 2007)? One of contemporary Ireland’s most distinctive literary voices, Enright, in her fourth novel, paints a melancholic portrait of a large Irish brood in Dublin as they confront the ghosts of times past: family secrets, betrayal and its redemption, love and its disappointments. By inhabiting her various characters, she blends the past and the present seamlessly to narrate a story rich in love, grief and death. American novelist Don DeLillo praised The Gathering as the finest of her four novels so far. I think so, too.

Her second collection of stories, Taking Pictures (Jonathan Cape, 2008), should be out sometime in the first quarter of 2008.

The winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction will be announced in London on Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Doris LESSING wins the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature!

BRITISH NOVELIST Doris LESSING has won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature for her “sceptism, fire and visionary power.” Lessing, a few days short of her 88th birthday, is the outspoken author of such novels as The Grass is Singing (1950), The Golden Notebook (1962), The Summer Before the Dark (1973), Memoirs of a Survivor (1975), The Fifth Child (1988) and Love, Again (1996). She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction on three occasions for Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971), The Sirian Experiments (1981) and The Good Terrorist (1985). With this win, Lessing has become the 11th woman to win the prize since it was first awarded in 1901, some 106 years ago, and the oldest ever winner of the prize. Though Lessing is one author whose works defy categorisation, she is best known for her exploration of the inner lives of women. Her latest novel is The Cleft (Fourth Estate, 2007). Her two volumes of autobiography are especially worth reading: Under My Skin (1994) and Walking in the Shade (1997).

Lessing has written and published some 54 books that straddle an array of styles and genres since her first novel was published in 1950. If you have not read any stuff by the Nobel laureate and would like to explore her ouvre, these, I think, are the books you should look for:

1. The Grass is Singing (1950)

2. The Golden Notebook (1962)

3. Memoirs of a Survivor (1975)

4. The Good Terrorist (1985)

5. The Fifth Child (1988)

6. Under My Skin (memoir, 1994)

7. Love, Again (1996)

8. Walking in the Shade (memoir, 1997)

2007 National Book Awards

THE FINALISTS for the 2007 National Book Awards have been announced. Columnist and commentator Christopher Hitchens’s anti-religious polemic God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Twelve/Hatchet, 2007) has been shortlisted. So has Edwidge Danticat’s memoir, Brother, I’m Dying (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007) and Arnold Rampersad’s Ralph Ellison: A Biography (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007). There are also two first novels, Mischa Berlinski’s Fieldwork (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007) and Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to the End (Little, Brown & Company, 2007), and two collections of short stories, Lydia Davis’s Varieties of Disturbance (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007) and Jim Shepard’s Like You’d Understand, Anyway (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007). The last time a collection of stories won the National Book Award was in 1996 when Andrea Barrett won it for Ship Fever (1995). And there is of course Tree of Smoke (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) by Denis Johnson.

Fiction
1. Fieldwork (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) / Mischa Berlinski
2. Varieties of Disturbance (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) / Lydia Davis
3. Then We Came to the End (Little, Brown & Company) / Joshua Ferris
4. Tree of Smoke (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) / Denis Johnson
5. Like You’d Understand, Anyway (Alfred A. Knopf) / Jim Shepard

Nonfiction
1. Brother, I’m Dying (Alfred A. Knopf) / Edwidge Danticat
2. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Twelve/Hachette) / Christopher Hitchens
3. Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux) / Woody Holton
4. Ralph Ellison: A Biography (Alfred A. Knopf) / Arnold Rampersad
5. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Doubleday) / Tim Weiner

Poetry
1. Magnetic North (Houghton Mifflin Company) / Linda Gregerson
2. Time and Materials (Ecco/HarperCollins) / Robert Haas
3. The House on Boulevard St. (Louisiana State University Press) / David Kirby
4. Old Heart (W.W. Norton & Company) / Stanley Plumly
5. Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006 (W.W. Norton & Company) / Ellen Bryant Voigt

Young People’s Literature
1. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Little, Brown & Company) / Sherman Alexie
2. Skin Hunger: A Resurrection of Magic, Book One (Atheneum Books) / Kathleen Duey
3. Touching Snow (Atheneum Books) / M. Sindy Felin
4. The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic Press) / Brian Selznick
5. Story of a Girl (Little, Brown & Company) / Sara Zarr

The winners will be announced on November 14, 2007, in New York