The Penang Bookshelf
A Wordy Newsletter
(Sorry. Not a worthy one)
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| From The Penang Bookshelf |
Dear Friend
Drones Over Penang?
No,
this isn't a reference to the collection of eminent literary characters
who have just added (?) a bit of academic and literary class to the
island as they graced The George Town Literary Festival this last weekend. It's just I have an uncanny feeling these newsletters, when they do manage to appear, are being monitored.
 In the last newsletter I
made an unguarded reference to my juvenile efforts at upsetting US
imperialism in the late 60s. Then within days of the newsletter being
published The Penang Bookshelf was targeted with a book order from a
well known branch of the US Government. Just trying to accurately
pinpoint me before they strike, perhaps. What did they order? Urbanization in Southeast Asia: Issues and Impacts. Best to avoid open spaces for now.
Glitterati or Literati?
I
don't care much. The only thing I remember in the whirl was that it was
the first time I had ever returned from a sales event with empty boxes.
Not one, but nearly three of them. One of them was full of Tan Twan
Eng's two novels. There are only two copies, both signed, of The Garden of Evening Mists left before I re-stock. Thanks very much to The Penang Bookshelf's customers, new and old.
I do think the organisers need a decent bit of praise for managing to 
convince whoever needed convincing to run the festival again this year
after its inauguration last year. Also a big thanks to the China House
team whose support was impeccable. I won't distract you by gabbling on
about who attended. More importantly, for those of you who couldn't
attend, The Penang Bookshelf has been deluged with a whole load of books
on wordy subjects that it doesn't normally carry. The full list is in
the November Arrivals
post on The Penang Bookshelf Blog. There's some non-Malaysian/Asian
literary stuff as well, mainly from the Yale University Press. If any of
it's of interest, snap it up quickly because if the non-Asian titles
aren't sold by the end fo the year, they'll be trotting their way back
to the distributors.
Bo Tak Tui Lai (The Baldies are Back)
My paranoic tendencies have been given full vent this month. First the
US Government and now, for the second month running I been bludgeoned
into teaming up with a hunky bald author who's going to put me to shame.
This piece of man flesh is Tim Hannigan who is descending on Penang to promote his latest book Raffles and The British Invasion of Java.
Now Raffles did have more hair than Tim and I ever had. Or has he
carefully arranged his hair so as to hide a his own desert on his dome? I
must ask Tim when I, you and others less folically challenged meet up
with him at 9.30am  on Monday 12th December at 7 Terraces, Lorong Stewart, Penang. The Penang Bookshelf will be on hand to sell the book for RM35 instead of the retail price of RM39,90. Just think, if you buy the book together with another full priced book from Monsoon Books , you can get it for just RM30. An email to spiralsynergyinfo@yahoo.com should secure you a place. If
you don't live in Penang and still want to take advantage of the offer,
I'll grudgingly hold it open until I go until I go to bed on 12th
December. If you do live in Penang, want the book at this ridiculous
price and won't come to the talk, I'll need a doctor's certificate.
The
Penang Bookshelf will also be selling Tim Hannigan's book at Spiral
Synergy's Super Stylish Shopping event at the Rasa Sayang Hotel, Batu
Ferringhi on Saturday 1st December.
Spare A Thought For The Aussies
On 30th May 2010 when The Penang Bookshelf put out its stall for business for the first time at Little Penang Street Market, its first customer was an Australian. She went on to
become
our first internet customer as well. Since then The Penang Bookshelf
has built up a clientele of whom about 20% live in Australia. After
flinging the last newsletter at you I went on a brief flit to Sydney,
my first visit to the country. What staggered me most was how cut off
from Asia the country appeared to be. Scouting for books on Asia in
second-hand bookshops proved to be fairly fruitless. This may explain
The Penang Bookshelf's large Australian client base. The miserable
unfortunates are starved of books about Asia! In sympathy with their
plight from now onwards orders over 2kg will be post free surface mail
to the whole of East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania. That includes the
deprived in Australia as well.
Welcome to the ChaosAlthough I have now abandoned lounging about in cosy shops on the high street, I do still 
welcome brave visitors to my chaotic hideout in Batu Ferringhi (address
below). I don't carry personal injury insurance so if you trip up over a
book or are hit by one as I drive home the finer points of my pricing
policy, it's your look out. However some do survive to tell the tale. I survive as long as I remember these principles.
Thanks for reading this far,
William Knox
The Penang Bookshelf
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News Snippets
Welcome Aboard, Mitt!
While
the world heaved a collective sigh of relief over Romney's defeat in
the recent US elections the Penang Bookshelf moved swiftly to add him to
the payroll 
. He's teaching us how to 'recalibrate our emergent marketing platform
to support a wider spread of asset classes.' Zzzzz... What was that you
were saying, Mitt? Sorry my mind was wandering 47% of the time.
After The Penang Bookshelf's link up with Gerakbudaya which is producing sales for us both already, he's dragging us screaming into further
linkups
or is it leverages? Help me, Mitt! The upshot seems to be that The
Penang Bookshelf's in talks with both an antiquarian bookseller in KL
and a leading UK postal historian of World War II in Asia to feature
their stock.. The latter is based in a Hertfordshire village which is
still suffering from the after effects of me trying to practice law
there in the 1980s. Isn't that enough to be going on with, Mitt? No,
apparently not. A Singapore academic and an English widow of a former
Malaysia resident are offering The Penang Bookshelf their libraries as
well.
How
does The Penang Bookshelf afford Mitt's fees? Good question. We
contract him out to pedal his 20 minute intensive course, popular with
politicians the world over - "Romnesia, Truly Easier."
A Bit of Feedback Please
The award winning postal historian, David Tett, 
whose research library The Penang Bookshelf will be helping to shift,
has one of the better collections of books on World War II in Asia. It's
so extensive that we can't put it all up immeadiately. We'll be starting with a selection of about 50 books. If you're interested in this period of history, do let me know
if there are any particular books or areas of interest that you would
like The Penang Bookshelf to feature. Of course if you're feeling sorry
for David and want to save him having to pay commission to The Penag
Bookshelf, you can always buy the books off him first.
The Penang Sketchbook Has Given Birth!
Editions Didier Millet (EDM), yet caved into my moans about their failure to reprint The Penang Sketchbook, which has 
been incessantly, but deservedly, overplugged in newsletters of the
past. (Now it's just overpriced at The Penang Bookshelf.) However EDM
have thought up of a new way of milking cash from the title. They've
just published a pocket sized Penang Notebook with
lots of space in which to note your next purchases from The Penang
Bookshelf. There are quite a few pages of pics from the original book as
well. It's selling at some horrendous price like RM37 in bookshops,
but at RM35 at The Penang Bookshelf or RM30, if you buy it with another
full priced book. As if that's not enough, they've produced a Malaysia Notebook as well. Same offer applies.
Wuh Lien-Teh Collection Expanded
In
the last newsletter you had to put up with news of a couple of more
than usually venerable tomes which were ready for plucking from The
Penang  Bookshelf. The Jawi Arabic dictionary is just about to leap into the hands of a happy new owner, I hope!
Meanwhile scrabbling about in a few boxes has unearthed more books by or about the late great doctor. In fact, this seems to be the most viewed post on The Penang Bookshelf Blog at the moment.
Lazy Authors
The
Penang Bookshelf has all sorts of scum and other riff-raff amongst it's
customers. They include authors, publishers and, most importantly,
readers. A couple of authors have turned to The  Penang Bookshelf recently for help in research for books that are in the making. One of them, a novelist, needs to recreate Tanjung Tokong in
the late 70s and early 80s. The other, wants photos of North
Borneo/Sabah before World War II for his forthcoming comprehensive book
on photography of the period . The trouble is most of the photos aren't
terribly lively. Maybe it was a dour time. If you can help him liven up
his collection, he'd be very grateful. As usual there's more about it on The Penang Bookshelf Blog
Germans Want More Malay Literature
A good customer of The Penang Bookshelf has recently landed up in Germany and has wasted
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Lousy pic, but that's all yer getting.
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no
time in telling his new hosts how much they're missing by not having
more Malay literature to read in German. He's even discovered that some
benevolent soul has engineered it so that the German Government have a
pot of euros - grab now before they disappear - to fund translations
from Malay into German. So if you know of a publisher who publishes
Malay books that could spice up the German literary scene, do let me know.
Another of Mitt's Gaffes?
Mitt does drone on about platforms. (Maybe KTM Berhad,
Malaysian Railways, is Bain Capital's next target) So The Penang
Bookshelf has succumbed to listing a growing part of its stock on Abebooks. Of course their heavy fees and commission ensure that the books featured are cheaper elsewhere.
Let's see if it's worth it, but The Penang Bookshelf has already sold a
book there - at a loss. Mitt, some re-calibration, please! |
Odd LinksOne for dog lovers and another for
the rest of this newsletter's readership. Something for everyone. I do
hope you feel the same about The Penang Bookshelf's inventory. If any'thing's missing, do let me know.
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About The Penang Bookshelf
Category Pages - Asian Fiction, Asian History, Asian Religions, Borneo Chinese Ceramics Malaysian Architecture Malaysian Agriculture Malaysian Arts and Culture Malaysia: Cartoons, Malaysian Chinese Community Malaysian Cooking and Food Malaysia: Colonial Biography, Malaysia: Modern Biography, Malaysia - Fiction Malaysia: Journalism， Malaysia: Language & Linguistics, Malaysia: Literature, Malaysia: Malay Community Malaysia & Singapore: 19th Century History, Malaysia: Post-Independence History, Malaysia: Miscellaneous, Malaysian Nature and Wildlife Orang Asli (Indigenous People) Malaysian Poetry Malaysian Politics Malaysia: Religion Malaysia & Singapore: World War II Perak Singapore: Anthropology & Sociology Singapore Fiction
Email: penangbookshelf@gmail.com
Telephone: +60-12-972-6485
Business Address: Aquarius, 4-8-8 Jalan Low Yat,
Batu Ferringhi, 11100, Penang. (The Penang Bookshelf's entire inventory
is available for browsing. Please call to fix an appointment.)
Mailing Address: 36, Cheeseman Road, 11600 Penang, Malaysia
Registered Business No: PG0282219-D
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