Skip to main content

This Side Up.

Daphne Lee has a review of Adibah Amin's new (and long-awaited) novel in yesterday's Starmag and gives it a hearty thumbs up.

She seems to be a little confused over the title though, first calling it This Side of the Rainbow, then later calling it This End of the Rainbow, which I assume to be the correct title since that's what's printed on the picture of the book's cover.

Ms. Lee's concluding thoughts:
Anyone who is familiar with Adibah’s writing through her column As I Was Passing can expect the same fresh, simple and direct style here. This book is an easy read, and it is also eye-opening, especially if you are not familiar with Malaysia’s pre-independence days and the social unrest of the 1950s.
Anyone seen this in bookstores? I was in the Local Books section in MPH MidValley on Saturday but I didn't notice it anywhere.

And pity about the cover... it looks like it was designed by a high-schooler with a pirated copy of Photoshop.

Further reading:
Daphne Lee's interview with Adibah Amin (22 Oct 2006)

Comments

  1. the cover is awful! i was thinking to say this on my blog. and about not knowing where to get a copy! i have been in to raman's hop several times to ask have you got it yet? seems he can't get copies from the distributor. sympozium said there were copies in kino. mph were selling it the other day at the young writers thingy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Poor Adibah Amin... her book's finally out and now she's got distro problems?!

    A colleague tells me he saw ONE COPY LEFT in the Popular at Amcorp Mall... but that was during the weekend.

    Yeah, the cover's really bad... even self-pubbed books get better-designed covers! When I get my copy I think I'll wrap the book with my own cover! :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. A shame about the cover. Doesn't make one want to pick the book up if she was an unknown author. As it is, she's Adibah Amin, so her name will overcome all obstacles!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi - I got my copy from Kinokuniya a few weeks back. It's not just the cover that is off putting - it's also a very weird size, bigger than the normal paperback. Haven't read the contents yet so I will not read the review until after I've digested Ms Adibah's words. Eliza.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That's another strike against the book - I hate non-standard size books too!

    But how's the book so far, Eliza? Enjoying it?

    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

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.

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!