Wanted: folk who enjoy words

 

Tomorrow let’s prove that we’re not all slaves to TV

GOT A MINUTE this Saturday? Do me a favor. Get yourself a copy of one of the books on the right side of this website: the list includes links which lead to Amazon, Bookazine and other suppliers. You can get one with a click. If you are in Hong Kong, pop in and see me at a launch party at Bookazine, Princes Building, from 2pm—that’s Saturday, October 24th, 2009.

Why? There’s lots of reasons. First, you’ll make me rich (not); second, you’ll get some nice gifts to give away at Christmas (maybe true); but most importantly, you’ll cheer up some hard-working people.

My friends in the book / newspaper / magazine / distribution industries are depressed because everyone says that no one’s intelligent enough to read any more – everyone’s been dumbed down so much that they just watch bad TV and surf Facebook.

Ever since Reader’s Digest in the US went bankrupt and the New York Times reported they were on the skids, the printed word industry has been shellshocked.

I’ve told them that there are some fantastically intelligent, witty, cultured people on this planet who know how to read, and I’ve said that I can prove it by pointing to my readership. So I’m hoping that somebody buys one or other of my new volumes, either via the net or through the bookshop.

If no one does, ’ll just have to buy them all myself and hide them in my garage. Hmm. First, I’ll have to buy a garage.

Anyway, one of the books is Wicked Christmas.  It’s a gorgeously illustrated story of Santa Claus’s worst and best Christmases. It’s ostensibly for kids, but it’s also full of little jokes to make it fun for adults. And of course, it’s not just for laughs: it contains a tale which leads readers to think about The Real Meaning of Christmas. (Cue: “Away in a Manger”.)

The other is Mr Wong Goes West, a comedy-crime novel in my feng shui detective series. Instead of telling you how good it is (I’m too modest, hah) I will merely attach this list of reviews that my publisher collected for the series:

“This is a wonderful, intelligent and very funny mystery which will appeal to a broad range of readers who will learn many helpful feng shui tips along the way. (Austcrimefiction.org)

“Vittachi is a consummate post-colonial satirist,” (Scotland on Sunday)

“Nury Vittachi has contributed a very unusual whodunit to the murder mystery genre, full of offbeat humor as well as wisdom. Entertaining and witty, The Feng Shui Detective would most likely be placed in the 'cozy' sub-category… This is a work which seems to include a number of resolved cases until you reach the end, where you find they haven't been resolved at all the way you thought. The so-called inscrutable East wins hands down.” (Who-dunnit.com)

"A wacky and hilarious whodunit: you just have to dig in and hold on for the wild ride... Beyond characters and the zany plotting, one of the pleasures of this novel is Vittachi's use of language." (The Asian Review of Books)

“Endearingly wacky” (The Times, UK)

“Vittachi's unique worldview infuses his writing with vitality and gives his characters a charming believability” (Publisher’s Weekly, US)

“Makes you laugh out loud and often” (The Age, Australia)

“Wacky, original and fun” (Independent on Sunday)

“Extremely funny” (Daily Telegraph, UK)

“A very funny book. Dangerously so.” (That’s Beijing)

“A Tasty smorgasboard of Asian life” (Japan Times)

“Heading for cult status” (Herald-Sun, Australia)

 

Technorati Tags: wicked christmas,christmas book,real meaning of christmas,true meaning of christmas,nury vittachi,feng shui detective

Comments

[Angela]

Wicked Christmas! This is soooo me.

Found a perfect Christmas present for my nieces!

Nury, would you be so kind to autograph it for: Chu-Chu, Mimi, Vivi, and Lili?

The girls will be thrilled.

[TS]

"Just the right thickness to fix that wobbling table" (IKEA Catalog 2009)

[Christy]

Yes Nury I'm coming!!! Your "party" was the sole reason I finished all my literature and linguistics assignments super early so that I can go.

[May]

see u tomorrow

[sheilajade]

Am dying to go but cannot, but il grab a copy when i can for future autograph session and group picture with my idol.

[Julie]

The art of reading is still alive and well! Here in the UK last week the winner of the Booker Prize was announced (I've read all the winners!) proving that literary fiction is still alive and kicking!

[sej]

Reading is dangerous, you can learn so many things.

Just the other day, after reading Prof David Greene's An Elegant Universe, and Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, I had an epiphany. I finally truly understood the ideas, if not the mathematics, behind quantum mechanics, particle physics, string theory, black holes and a whole heap of other things. They all just came together. I always had a fairly good idea of a lot of stuff, but now I'd really captured it. I got so excited I understood this stuff, the end result was very nearly me throwing in my job to go back to uni to study physics. (I still think free-will is just an illusion though).

See? Dangerous I tell you! Dangerous!

[Vince A]

sej, re free will being an illusion - is that another way of saying my choice is to believe that I have no choice in what to believe.

I wish I had time to read Greene and Hawking, but alas have to settle with watching Big Bang Theory...

[Angela]

Greene, Hawkings..all rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.

physics, big bang, bah! All tall tales. Remember young men, it's turtles all the way down!"

[Nury]

Julie, congrats on reading all the Booker prize winners! That's quite a feat. I have the small honor of being one of the people who persuaded the Booker prize people to set up a second prize for Asia. So this side of the world is following in your side's footsteps.

Sej, I read A Brief History of Time too -- it's not nearly as difficult as people make out.

There were a survey in the UK which showed that 99 per cent of people who bought that book failed to finish it. So we are the exceptions.

Vince, I recommend you go to mobipocket.com or ebooks.com and get a reader on your phone. Then the problem of not having time to read vanishes.

Every time you are waiting for a bus or train or taxi you can transport yourself to another world...

[Christy]

Nury it was so nice meeting you, Karuna, Bernard and Kanyu today. :)

And that cheek-kiss greeting -- that was actually my first! (blush, blush -- more used to hand shakes, haha, and that crazy streak in me sometimes compels me to squeeze people really hard)

[Mahjuja]

There are many potential readers out there who probably don't get the chance to read books because they're too engrosssed in basic survival. Plus it's in nobody's interest to sponsor people with books (books can't be used to sell products, yet, thankfully, like that soap opera, movie etc.) When they start seeing books in that light, it will be something like this, Mr. Wong notices so-and-so brand paint on the walls or so-and-so make car in the garage. God forbid that day!

[louise]

i missed it! :( any planned meet & greet sesion soon?

[sej]

Nury, I agree. Stephen Hawking has done a fantastic job in simplifying what can be a formidible subject.

The problem is, people want all the information presented to them in a form they don't have to think about, something akin to a childrens story book. And when something does get hard, rather than put in the effort, they turn away.

Give them something like Hawking's book with terms such as "Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle", or "Modified Newtonian Dynamics", and their eyes would just glaze over.

Vince:

is that another way of saying my choice is to believe that I have no choice in what to believe.

No. I believe you cannot choose what to believe, and nor can you choose to believe you can or cannot make that choice. There is no choice to be had, anywhere. It is an illusion.

[sej]

Mahjuja,

Nury's Mr Wong Goes West... Pg 138...

The air was fresh-tasting as Joyce McQuinnie left the hotel and headed in a straight line towards the nearest branch of Pacific Coffee.

And this was also not the first reference to an existing organisation.

Nury,

Didn't you write a column recently on Pacific Coffee? Co-incidentally, has anyone checked to see if they have actually changed their shelf labels?

[Rika]

Oh my goodness, sometimes it's hard, you have to admit. I am a mad reader, once I get hooked I can't stop and then pets are starving, our fridge is empty and house and garden turn into a dump site.

So I only allow for holidays and one hour per week where I am waiting for ballet - yes! ballet - class to start. Problem is that during the week I forget what has happened in the book and I have to read all over again. This way I will need a decade to get it finished.

So how and when do you do all this reading?

However, was a good girl and ordered my lot! Friends kids are starting to read and will love them. Although Wicked Christmas is for my own x-mas hols :o)

[TS]

No book dealing with culture and generation clashes, such as the Feng Shui Detective series, would ring true if it didn't touch on the worn-on-the-sleeve obsession with brands you find in the major cities of South-East Asia.

If the sentence had been:

The air was fresh-tasting as Joyce McQuinnie left the hotel and headed in a straight line towards the nearest café.

It would leave out part of her personality.

[TS]

I have read A Brief History of Time many years ago. I do not profess to understand it completely, but it did give me a good understanding of current state of the science of reality.
Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow have rewritten/updated the book by writting a new book A Briefer History of Time in which they address the development since the first book. It's also a bit more "layman" in its approach to the subject.

Everyone who has just a passing interest in such matters, will soon realise that if there is strict rules in the universe, the likelihood of free will is just an illusion. It might be a bit early to close the book on free will until we fully understand the fabric of reality.
I have my own little private theory, that it all comes down to the "resolution" of the fabric of reality. It's best described in an analogy.

Imagine a tube perched at an angle of 45 degrees. Take a glass marble with a diameter that only just allows it to fit inside the tube.
The marble will fall to the bottom, side movement restricted by the tube wall, there is no free will.

No imagine the same setup but this time the marbles are so small the you can fit a hundred or more through the opening of the tube.
The marbles will still fall to the bottom of the tube restricted by the tube wall, but this time there is room for them to move around, there is now limited free will.

In the third setup the diameter of tube and marbles doesn't matter because when you release them, they flow in and out through the tube wall as if it wasn't even there, you now got free will but you haven't got any rules either.

Personally I think the middle example is closest to reality, we do have free will but it is more limited than we imagine in everyday life.
I realise that my analogy is flawed but that is the nature of such things.

[Vince A]

TS, I had decided (an apt word?) that sej's last note on free-will was perhaps a running joke I am not getting.

But your post almost shares the same notion, so my curiosity is piqued.

Is that an idea from Hawking's book? Is there an Invasion of the Body Snatchers occurring? Do Angela's tortoises have free will?

[TS]

Vince A,

It have been discussed since ancient times by philosophers and scientists.

If everything in the universe have to follow certain rules, how can there be such a thing as free will?

[sej]

TS,

I like your analogies.

I too think the middle one is the closest to reality, but I like it from the point of view it gives you the perception of free will (the balls are allowed to move around a bit), but it is just that, a perception, as it can be seen as a closed system (the balls are not permitted to escape), hence with strict rules - and no true free will.

As for Nury's book, I agree, but it shows that there is ample scope for sponsership, just Nury needs to work out how to tap into it.

Vince,

It wasn't so much a running joke, as just to show how dangerous reading is. Reading provides information and new ideas, which can challenge the status quo, or existing order, and comes about regardless of how good, worthwhile or well regarded those ideas are. It is the fact they're something different to the accepted norm which is important.

[Angela]

Very interesting POVs.

Information and new ideas do not solely come from reading, there are other sources -- talking to people, watching movies, traveling, having unique experiences, etc. But I prefer the pace that reading provides. Information is gradually introduced as my eyes lap up the printed words, it's not rushed and I am not forced to take immediate action to respond, I am just an observer. My brain have enough time to digest the ideas and mull over it. I really like reading, it's like slow, sensual love making with information.

Good morning! :)

[Angela]

erratum: should be "..slow, sensual love making with words"

[sej]

Angela,

I agree, it would be a big mistake to not recognise information and ideas can come from other sources. How did ideas get around before there was any form of writing? How did writing itself get around?

However, I think the written word is the most convenient method of idea and information dissemination and exchange. You can get a large amount of information out to an extraordinarily large number of people in a very short time frame. I feel the written word also better survives the test of time than other mediums.

During times of repression, one of the first things to be disposed of, are books. Movies, art works and cultural items are next, followed by restrictions on travel and group meetings.

[Karuna]

Nury
Happy to meet you and the rest of the local gang at BookAzine.
Liked the list of your to-read-book suggestions that you handed out on Saturday.
Would be a good idea to add a panel on the right side of this blog -- "Nury's favorite books" and list the books. We can add our comments under each book.
And as you find some more interesting books, add to the list.
It will be an useful place for us to share our experiences with books.

[Mahjuja]

Mr. Jam, isn't there supposed to be a new column today? I'm getting serious withdrawl symptoms!:-(. I need my regular dose of wit and sarcasm. Can't get any of that anywhere else, where I am.