Skip to main content

Thor Kah Hoong's Scattered Brain.

Thor Kah Hoong's back with a desultory article about... er... well, lots of random stuff. And a poem about Hemingway. Okay okay I admit it! I have no idea what he's on about half the time!
Labels:

Comments

  1. Lydia Teh18/7/06 10:41 am

    That makes two of us, Ted. I gave up reading the article halfway as I got lost. Most of the time his articles are too "brainy" for me and I'm just an average Star reader, as Sharon might say.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ted Mahsun18/7/06 11:18 am

    Ha ha! Funny isn't it? But somehow, I still find his articles wonderful to read. Must be the way he strings words together.

    ReplyDelete
  3. bibliobibuli18/7/06 4:57 pm

    sometimes his articles are wonderful - one or two have been classic (his crit of harmony silk factory and petr ho davies short stories) mostly they are a total ramble and offputting for most star readers ...

    it seems to be a column about "look how clever i am to have picked up these books you've never heard of" when it should be a column about "look guys, you are going to enjoy this and this ..."

    it's a wasted opportunity to draw in potential readers and i feel quite cross about it at a time when reading needs all the convincing advocates it can get ...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ted Mahsun18/7/06 5:16 pm

    I enjoyed his review of tash aw's book very much but did not read the other one you mentioned.

    You are right that the column seems like a show-off soapbox for him but I've come to accept that maybe all this show-offiness is an eccentricity of small bookstore owners :D

    I don't mind it in particular. When there's potential readers to convince, at least there's Daphne Lee and all those other book writers at the Star, not to mention you, and Lydia.

    ReplyDelete
  5. bibliobibuli18/7/06 9:27 pm

    ted - there's not enough of us writing about books and there's not enough space in the papers

    which is why your voice in cyberspace is a very welcome one

    i don't mind thor's cumudgeonly tone - in fact i like it myself - but perlease focus!!!

    Here's the Peter Ho Davies article

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ted Mahsun18/7/06 9:58 pm

    Haha! "Curmudgeonly" is a nice word to describe Thor's ramblings!

    Thanks for the link.

    BTW, Sharon, I emailed you just a while ago and I'm wondering if you got it... or whether it fell into your inbox's black hole...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Lydia Teh19/7/06 10:36 am

    Sharon, I agree with your take on Thor's selection of books : most of them I've never heard of.

    Ted, 'eccentricity of small bookstore owners' - I don't personally know any of these folks but you may have a point there.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lesson: Commemorative Covers are Lame.

Well, I got the first day cover that commemorates the 35th anniversary of the establishment diplomatic relations between China and Malaysia that I mentioned a couple of posts ago. Except that it's not a first day cover, it's a commemorative cover, which is a slightly different beast. I guess I should read the news article properly next time! The difference between the two is that first day covers are specially-designed envelopes stuck on with specially-designed stamps, and marked with a specially-designed postmark. A commemorative cover is a specially-designed envelope... and that's it. All in all, it's an unremarkable affair, especially if you're used to well-designed first day covers (not that Malaysian first day covers are well-designed... but I digress). Oh sure, a commemorative cover has a stamp printed right on to it but that's just like an overglorified aerogramme. Lame. On the whole, what a disappointment. I haven't been collecting first day cover
5 comments
Read more

HOWTO: Get Rid of Silverfish

The bane of every book collecting person: the Silverfish. DUN DUN DUNNNNN!!! How to get rid of them? If one book has been infected, place it inside an air-tight plastic bag along with some silica gel desiccant. The silica gel is important to get rid of moisture, because you will now place the sealed plastic bag with the book in it inside the freezer. Leave it in there for a couple of days so that those bugs catch their death of cold. If you're feeling particularly paranoid, (like I usually am) feel free to leave the plastic bag in there for a week. If they're not dead, then you might likely have an infestation of zombie silverfish , which is out of the scope of this blogpost. But what if a whole colony of silverfish decided to invade your whole bookcase? Then you have to make sure you're ready for war. Place a generous amount of silica gel (or if you can find it, diatomaceous earth) behind your books at the back of the shelves so that moisture levels remain low.
23 comments
Read more

Send me to Clarion West! - My crowdfunding effort.

I just launched my crowdfunding page to help fund my Clarion West trip on GoGetFunding and I am nervous as heck. Anyway here's a link . Any help or support much appreciated even if it's just to share the link around. Thank you so much!
Post a Comment
Read more