Challenge January - February 2012

ebruary January/F

2012

Marginalia

pages of tips to get you ahead

PAPER-FREE Tips for e-reading.

• Get free e-books at Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org).

• Clean your e-reader with dampened spectacle cleaning cloths and lens cleaning solution, then dry with soft lintfree cloth.

FAN fiction

Love a story so much you write your own take? That’s fan f iction.

A Study in Emerald Mixing Sherlock Holmes and The Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, this novella by graphic novel author Neil Gaiman (of The Sandman) is not to be missed.

Download at: bit.ly/NeilGaimanshortstories

The Demon’s Lexicon Sarah Rees Brennan was wildly popular in the Harry Potter fandom before getting a book contract. Her first novel The Demon’s Lexicon was long-listed for the Carnegie Medal literary award.

DID you Know?

Interview with the Vampire author Anne Rice has famously banned all fan fiction based on her works, citing copyright issues.

19-26 We love words and we want to share the love. Here’s a smorgasbord of literary offerings that will help you literarily impress the boss and co-workers.

is the art of jotting down your thoughts in words or doodles in the unmarked spaces of your books. It’s a useful tool to crystallise your thoughts, or a way of personalising your book.

GENTLY DOES IT

If creased book spines give you the heebie-jeebies, follow these tips.

1 Place the book with its spine on a table.

To deal with gobbledegook:

2

3

Let the front cover down.

Then the back cover.

The Complete Plain Words

by Sir Ernest Gowers

You know who you are: the guilty ones who butcher the English language in vain attempts to impress the boss.

Learn to write clearly and concisely with this book.

To add intrigue to your job: Going Postal

by Terry Pratchett

4

Then open a few leaves in front.

A skilled con artist, saved from the gallows, ends up as the Postmaster of the rundown Postal Service. Dealing with bureaucracy isn’t the hard part, escaping an assassin is…

To impress people:

5

The Lazy Intellectual

by Richard Wallace

Then a few at the back, alternating front and back,

6 Gently pressing them down until the center is reached.

Confession: We don’t know the original source of this illustration that we found on the Internet. If you do, drop us an email!

With 10 chapters of facts covering philosophy to math, you’ll know enough of everything to be the most knowledgeable person in the office.

To deal with writer’s block: The Write Brain Workbook

by Bonnie Neubauer

Chock-full of creative exercises, this will get you off the block and writing.

UGH O R TH G N SI JUST PAS rs -i n -R es id H ea th ro w’s Wri te

en ce

The UK’s Heathrow Airport is reviving the genre of writing set in airports, inspired by Arthur Hailey’s bestselling 1968 novel The Airport. A selected writer gets to live for a week at Heathrow – with unrestricted access to wander about – to gather fodder for a book that is published shortly after.

• Tony Parsons’s airport residency ended in August 2011. His Departures: Seven Stories from Heathrow (2012) features the unsung heroes working behind the scenes. Your immigration officer

• Alain de Botton was the first writer-in-residence in 2009. The Swiss philosopher and writer’s musings on the steady stream of passengers, travel and life became A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary (2009).

has feelings too.

Wooden Reading Rest, $49.95 ( Tango Mango at Tanglin Mall)

Moleskine Reading Glasses (varying degrees), $77 (NBC Stationery & Gifts at Raffles City)

The Really Tiny Book Light (various colours), $17.50 ( Tango Mango at Tanglin Mall) Little Book Holder (various colours), $7.50 (NBC Stationery & Gifts at Raffles City/ Tango Mango at Tanglin Mall) Horrible Histories Playing Card (various themes), $13.90 ( Tango Mango at Tanglin Mall)

(Not) LOST in TRANSLATION

IMPRESS THE

Best-selling foreign language novels that have a place in many hearts.

THE ALCHEMIST – PAULO COELHO (1988)

65 million With over

copies sold, this enchanting fable of treasure-seeking and personal growth has been translated from the Portuguese to over 150 languages, making it the most translated work by a living author.

Wolf Totem – Jiang Rong (2004) Recipient of the first Man Asian Literary Prize in 2007, this semi-autobiographical exploration of Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution has sold over

20 million

copies worldwide since being translated from the Chinese language.

The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco (1980) A historical murder mystery, translated from the Italian, where things are never quite as they seem, the novel has sold over

50 million copies.

O

H

Learn a new word every day.

Wordsmith’s A.Word.A.Day www.wordsmith.org

g!

Ka-chin

Merriam-Webster Word of the Day www.merriam-webster.com

Legend KA-P

OW!

Action

?

Question

!

BOOKWORM CLUB GAME

Like Solitaire, you can play this alone. But that’s sad.

So ask other bookworms to join in!

Trivia

1

2

3 Most folktales hold similar themes and motifs, and the Aarne-Thompson Classification System is a widely used means of sorting them.

Tired of princes saving damsels in distress? Try reading some modern fairy tales with a twist at www.rosemarylake.com

4 Create a fairy tale story, in

5

Sentences,

Sha m If

where the prince needs to be rescued and move to square 14.

If not, stay put.

We started playing this game.

%RMQEP 8EPIW *EMV] 8E PI

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2SZIP

12

Recite a foodrelated quote to move to square 14.

If not, skip a turn.

13 Name a famous fictional detective.

Move to square 14.

If not, stay put.

14 In 2009, Hamlet came out tops in literary scholar Lucy Pollard-Gott’s ranking of the 100 most influential fictional characters in world literature.

Another tortured romantic hero, Jia Bao Yu from Dream of the Red Chamber, came in at no. 8.

11

15

16 Draw out a book title without using words.

If someone can guess it correctly, move on to square 17.

If not, skip a turn.

10

The earliest English cookbook A Forme of Cury (1390s) was a compendium by the master chefs of King Richard II, and included recipes like pygg in sawsesawge.

Follow the old English at ye owne perile.

Name a brand of travel guide book and move to square 17.

If not, stay.

9

Name a chef who has published a cookbook.

Move to square 14.

If not, stay put.

17

Pick ending it to mo If

18 Travel literature was fairly common in medieval Arabic literature, with Ibn Battuta’s fascinating 14th century Rihla (The Journey) recounting three decades worth of adventures through Europe, Africa and Asia.

Instructions • Use any small object (e.g. eraser) as a counter at the ‘START’ square • Get a die or use an online one (http://www.arcess.com/dice/dice.htm)

Your cheat sheet to poetry.

• Roll the die and when you land on a ‘Question’ square or an ‘Action’ square, answer correctly to move forward

The competitive art of performance poetry where works are recited aloud to audiences.

Not for the faint-hearted.

• If you fail to do so, stay put or miss a turn, and wait for your turn again • If you land on a ‘Trivia’ square, stay put and wait for your turn again • First to reach the end, wins!

Funny, often nonsensical poetry.

Like that one about the epicure dining at Crewe. http://bit.ly/crewe

5 Filipino publishing house Precious Hearts’ local pulp romances are the country’s most popular books. All books are 128 pages and happy endings are guaranteed.

Name any play akespeare wrote to move to square 5. not, skip a turn.

In English, haiku are three lines with syllables in five, seven, five.

6

Recite a romancerelated quote to move to square 8.

If not, stay put.

7

8

a book with a tragic g, and reasonably work o a happy ending, to ove to square 11. not, skip a turn.

The word tragedy comes from the Greek: τραγῳδία (tragoedia), and literally means goat song, possibly from the practice of singing lamentations for sacrificial goats. No word on how the goats saw it.

Name a book that ends with a tragedy and move to square 11.

If not, skip a turn.

Deriving from Italian for “little song”, no other form of poetry seems quite as romantic as the 14-lined sonnet favoured

by Shakespeare.

Forming a word from the sound it is naming. Like Baa or Moo.

Lengthy, serious poems often part of oral traditions.

19 Ernest Hemingway ‘s colleagues bet he could not write a story in six words. He won with For sale: baby shoes, never worn. Apparently he considered it his best work.

Come up with a

word story to complete the game.

If not, move back to square 14.

The rhythm used within a line, with five counts of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. Ba DUM Ba DUM Ba DUM Ba DUM Ba DUM just like your heart.

Repeating the same sound at the start of a phrase or set of words. Just like the names of most comic book superheroes like Peter Parker (Spider-Man) and Bruce Banner ( The Hulk).

Like Water for Chocolate

by Laura Esquivel No other book fleshes out the idea that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach quite as beautifully as this does. Powerful food imagery is woven through the book, substantial as a hearty meal.

Julie & Julia by Julie Powell Warning: You may begin to live by the maxim that You Can Never Have Too Much Butter. If, by the end of the book, you’re not tempted to pick up a copy of The Art of French Cooking, we salute you.

S a t i s fa c t i o n

1G 0 0% ua

ranteed

ritingyour w s u . het cio Delai t will wfor more th petite ap

Dramatic LicenCe

Singapore’s dramatic productions of note.

Can you match the right quote to the right Singa porea n write r?

1

“Each and every item in it is a reminder of affection”

“Great houses are history, clan, 3 essential unity; “Old hopes belief” 2

from I Still Prefer to Live in this House

from Uncle Never Knew

renewed by latest opportunities/Steadfast in defending dreams and slogan” from The Koran Chanter of Geylang Serai

4

“We find ourselves again/ become lighter than air” from Why I Sing

Answers on last page of Pullout

The Coffin is Too Big for the Hole

by Kuo Pao Kun A seminal work in Singapore’s collection of plays, this gently satirical look at life, death and bureaucratic red tape is a must-know.

Army Daze by Michael Chiang Very quintessentially Singaporean, this snapshot of bonding during Basic Military Training has entertained generations of Singaporeans since it was first released in 1984.

Emily of Emerald Hill by Stella Kon Well before The Little Nyonya, we see the triumph and tragedies in the life of a Peranakan matriarch in Singapore’s longest running play.

G

Guaranteed

The Man Who Ate Everything

by Jeffrey Steingarten Reading a highly witty book by a man who truly loves food is a marvel.

Human beings and our complex relationship with food get put under the microscope in this global gastronomic tour. You’ll definitely feel hungry after.

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss Even if green eggs and ham would be highly suspect in real life, SamI-am makes a highly persuasive case for this delicacy. Spoiler: the unseen protagonist eventually falls sway. So, lesson learned: don’t knock anything till you’ve tried it.

HOW TO BE A

SUCCESSFUL AUTHOR IN SINGAPORE

Not to burst your bubble or anything….

1. Write horror stories

LOVE WORDS? COME GATHER ALL AROUND

The lit scene in Singapore is hotting up.

Singapore Writer’s Festival One of Asia’s premier literary festivals, the international event is proudly one of the few multilingual festivals globally, featuring writing from Singapore’s four main languages, as well as Singlish. The festival, organised by the National Arts Council, is now an annual affair.

Lit Up Singapore Organised by Word Forward and The Writers Centre Singapore, the event focuses on emerging writers by engaging them as writers, poets, performers, directors, actors, hosts, moderators and volunteers.

Mutamizh Vizha (Tamil Literature Festival) Organised by the Association of Singapore Tamil Writers and the Tamil Language Council, it aims to promote the use of the Tamil language and to spur creative writing, with competitions held from kindergarten to tertiary levels.

TIP NoQ Online is a new online store that ships for a $5 flat fee within Singapore.

Paid membership entitles you to 10% off storewide. www.noqstore.asia

With nine out of 10 of the National Library Board’s most borrowed local titles coming from Russell Lee’s True Singapore Ghost Stories series, the 13-year-old collection is still going strong. Over a million copies have been sold.

2. Write children’s stories

The Diary of Amos Lee series has made The Straits Times’ National Best Sellers’ List for more than 52 weeks.

3. Write horror stories for children

The Mr Midnight series by Jim Aitchison, under the nom de plume James Lee, has sold over two million copies since the first book was released in 1998.

4. Failing which, tr y your hand at writing assessment books You have to admit this stuff is evergreen.

FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly(Steer Clear)

The English Patient Michael Ondaatje (1992)

Theatre Somerset Maugham (1937)

A Leap of Love Catherine Lim (2000)

The English Patient Anthony Minghella (1996)

Being Julia István Szabó (2004)

The Leap Years Jean Yeo (2008)

Many writers can’t bear to have their works adapted, so for Michael Ondaatje to say it ’s “good” is a sound endorsement.

Somerset Maugham’s carefully crafted character in his love letter to theatre becomes a caricature that not even Annette Bening’s performance can save.

All romances where leads display no chemistry are doomed to fail. The novella was lighthearted; the movie, pitifully mediocre.

Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk (1996)

I Am Legend Richard Matheson (1954)

The Queen of the Damned Anne Rice (1988)

Fight Club David Fincher (1998)

I Am Legend Francis Lawrence (2007)

The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club.

One of the rare adaptations where people who’ve actually read the book don’t feel cheated: faithful to the spirit and unbelievably cool.

It starts out so promisingly, before everything falls flat.

Many lay the blame on how the ending was changed from the spine-chilling perspective switch in the book, to unnecessary explosions.

MUST WATCH

Queen of the Damned Michael Rymer (2002) A flashy vampire wakes up an ancient undead queen with rock music. Bad acting and cheesy lines later, it still doesn’t make it to ‘It ’s so bad it ’s good’. It just stays bad. Keep far, far away.

The Teenage Textbook Movie (1998) The Teenage Textbook (1988) and The Teenage Workbook (1989) by Adrian Tan directed by Philip Lim: A veritable Singapore flick that captures the essence of awkward, pimply, crush-filled teenage years. Catch the hilariously uplifting movie on YouTube at bit.ly/teenagetextbook.

SETTING THE

SCENE Stockists of Singapore literature

1

2

3

Books Kinokuniya Hidden near the long corridor of world literature are the shelves dedicated to local publications.

Books Actually The largest collection of Singapore literary titles can be found here, including outof-print titles.

Select Books An active publisher and distributor of Asian books, go for the ‘widest selection of books about Asia’.

Main Store: 391 Orchard Road #0309/10/15, Ngee Ann City, Takashimaya Shopping Centre S(238872) www.kinokuniya.com.sg

9 Yong Siak Street, Tiong Bahru, S(168645) www.booksactually.com

www.selectbooks.com.sg

Answers to Whose Line Is It Anyway?: 1. Edwin Thumboo 2. You Jin 3. Isa Kamari 4. Cyril Wong

Research and writing by Abigail Kang / Edited by Bridgette See / Designed and illustrated by Yip Siew Fei & Ng Shiwei / ©Challenge Magazine

We sort out the wheat f rom the chaff in book-to-movie adaptations so you don’t have to.