By The Book

In a world of bite-sized news and clickbait headlines, longform articles can often seem like a hard sell - but they are not without their fans, particularly for their ability to bring together writing style and narrative. We look at what it takes to write longform articles, and how they fit into today’s increasingly digital world, by speaking with writer Emily Fishbein. In Footnotes, we clos...

The first instalment in the Daevabad trilogy, The City of Brass sets up the story of Nahri, a girl with special abilities who may not be what she always thought she was, Ali, a prince chafing against his own ethics and the long-held beliefs of his city, and Dara, a being with a tragic past. And it blends it all up with fantasy, Middle Eastern mythology, and a tightly plotted story. We discuss this...

Ask most people what The Great Gatsby is about, and you’re likely to hear of flappers, parties, and Jazz Age-glamour. But eye candy-filled screen adaptations aside, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s treasured classic is actually a dark exploration of relationships and the hollowness of the American dream. Inspired by a BBC article , we discuss why this novel is so prone to being misrepresented, th...

Poet, recluse, mystery - Emily Dickinson's writing was only discovered after her death, and has been studied for over a century since. With her allusive, unconventional style, singular punctuation, and preoccupation with the themes of death and mortality, her work (and her personal life) has long fascinated readers. In this episode of Bibliography, we talk about the life and work of Emily Dickinso...

What can books and literature contribute towards raising awareness on and eventually ending violence against women? To mark International Women’s Day, we look at The Read For Pixels programme, by The Pixel Project , an online initiative that organises YouTube sessions with authors, to discuss their writing, why they support ending violence against women, and women in the media and popular cu...

The Sandman, Archie Comics, Watchmen, Covidball Z... in this episode, we explore the world of graphic novels, from stalwarts of the genre, all the way up to webcomics and how they're changing the game. We also touch on Malaysian names to look out for, and discuss fundamentally why we love this marriage of drawing, paneling and writing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Barack Obama’s memoir A Promised Land, was one of last year’s most-anticipated books. It details the run-up to his historic election as US President, as well as some of the high and low points of his first term, including the 2008 global financial crisis, his healthcare initiative, and the killing of Osama bin Laden. The book also comes at an interesting point in time: the tail end of...

A tale combining Malaysian folklore and mythology, religion and philosophy, and a rollicking adventurous road trip, How the Man in Green Saved Pahang, and Possibly the World is an ambitious, busy, and deeply enjoyable debut novel from Joshua Kam. We speak to Joshua about the inspiration behind the book, the research it took, and how it explores Malaysia and her history in a different way. And then...

Trying to condense the length and breadth of Chinese literature into one show is an impossible task - but with Sinophone researcher Dr Tee Kim Tong as our guide, we take a trip through time and around the world, to understand the roots of Chinese literature, how it has evolved, its literary and genre leanings, and its diasporic offshoots. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Novelist, raconteur, flaneur, man about town - Charles Dickens is widely considered as one of the greatest, and most beloved writers of all time. In his day his stories were shared by the public (whether or not they could read - as people were paid to read them aloud) and hotly anticipated (since they were often serialised). In this Bibliography episode, we speak about Dickens' work, his legacy, a...

In our first Book Club of 2021, we go to a favourite Malaysian writer, Zen Cho, and her latest novella titled “The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water”. The wuxia-inspired fantasy story continues Zen’s tendency to draw on Malaysian history and mythology for her rich tales, and uses this intriguing setting to tell the story of a young nun and a ragtag group of bandits - all...

One of the best-selling and most-translated fiction writers of all time, Dame Agatha Christie spent much of her writing career exploring mysteries and murders through her two famous detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. In this episode of Bibliography, we take a look at what was behind her success, as well as how her own very eventful life informed her work. See omnystudio.com/listener for p...

As part of the Swadaya X George Town Literary Festival series of virtual events, we moderated a session with Singaporean writer Melissa De Silva on her book ‘Others’ is Not a Race. The conversation was a heartfelt and intimate one about Melissa’s Eurasian heritage, what it means to write about identity, and, as is often the case when Malaysians and Singaporeans converge, food. Th...

It's the beginning of a new year, and after the doozy that was 2020, we wanted to look at books that tackle the idea of starting over, whether through migration, a change of landscape, or having to begin again after hardship. As well as why moments like these, of renewal and change, have been fruitful starting points for so many authors. And then in Footnotes, we discuss some of our reading resolu...

As 2020 draws to a close, we look back at all the things we’ve read this year and discuss some of the highlights - especially the books that have kept us company or given us solace in what has been an extraordinarily challenging year for all of us. We close things off in Footnotes by talking about some of the books we are looking forward to in the coming year. See omnystudio.com/listener for...

International Men’s Day falls each year on Nov 19, and to mark the occasion, we look at how men and masculinity are portrayed in literature - and how these ideas are evolving. Joining us for the conversation is reader and occasional book reviewer Vijay Dorai, and we talk our way through books by Irving Wallace, Chuck Palahniuk, Michael Chabon, and many more. See omnystudio.com/listener for p...

In this episode of our monthly Book Club, we're resuming our sojourn through the world of Morpheus and the Endless, as imagined and told by Neil Gaiman and a host of artists. These two volumes, Fables and Reflections, and Brief Lives, each expand on the mythology, while telling stories both small and short, and wide-ranging and devastating. In Footnotes, we talk about some other graphic novel reco...

In this decidedly different year of 2020, we’ve had to reconfigure and reimagine how to do many of the things we’re used to - and the George Town Literary Festival (GTLF) is no exception. With physical proximity and travel being such a challenge, the festival has gone virtual this year with a series of podcasts and online events - and for a topsy-turvy year where most of life seems to...

The man that brought us Jurassic Park, Sphere and Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton was many things. The father of the techno-thriller, he was also a deeply educated man who chose not to pursue medicine or anthropology, in lieu of becoming a writer. In this episode of Bibliography, we talk about the stories, the style, and the screenplays that resulted from Crichton's work. See omnystudio.com/lis...

Last year’s Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo’s “Girl, Woman, Other” intertwines the stories of 12 characters in the UK over the course of several decades - and has been making waves specifically for shedding light on the lives of people rarely heard from in literature, specifically people of colour. Writer and fellow reader Sumitra Selvaraj joins us to dissect the bo...

Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? The story of Snow White is so familiar to many of us, and part of our earliest experiences with fairytales, and what we know of it is shaped in no small part by Disney. But around the world, this story of a girl, her jealous stepmother, and a prince who saves the day (sometimes), takes various forms. Professor Maria Tatar's The Fairest of T...

Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? The story of Snow White is so familiar to many of us, and part of our earliest experiences with fairytales, and what we know of it is shaped in no small part by Disney. But around the world, this story of a girl, her jealous stepmother, and a prince who saves the day (sometimes), takes various forms. Professor Maria Tatar's The Fairest of T...

With World Animal Day falling on the 4th of October, we pay tribute to the many books and stories that feature animals, and talk about the way these books emphasise our complex relationships with them. Joining us is Macaranga editor Wong Siew Lyn, and the books we discuss include the Panchatantra, folk tales from East Malaysia, Charlotte’s Web, Moby Dick, White Fang, and Black Beauty. In Foo...

In this month's episode of Bibliography, we look at the life and works of George Orwell, the man whose works continue to inform political thinking today, and who introduced terms such as Big Brother and doublethink into culture. We discuss his non-fiction work, the novels that have defined his legacy, and the lengths he went to in order to write a truthful account of experiencing life as a tramp....

In this month's episode of Bibliography, we look at the life and works of George Orwell, the man whose works continue to inform political thinking today, and who introduced terms such as Big Brother and doublethink into culture. We discuss his non-fiction work, the novels that have defined his legacy, and the lengths he went to in order to write a truthful account of experiencing life as a tramp....