Limited Editon Lat's Kampung Boy

One of the stalls inside the Istana Budaya is selling Lat's best selling books so I took the opportunity to buy the Limited Edition set. Only 1000 copies were printed and each book has it's own personalised and original Lat's signature. The price is RM200 but I don't mind because it's a collectors item. Ilyas and Maisarah also like the books and they managed to finish reading them in less than an hour.

Tok Janggut - Kelantan Warrior

I'm going to bring this book to the stadium tomorrow

Not under my research expertise

Just bought two new books today. I started with Soccernomics (even though I'm currently reading another book on Tun Mahathir) because it's first chapter is so riveting that I could not let it down until I reached the next chapter. Basically the authors talk about why England never win any major tournament since 1966. Come to think of it, we could ask the same question on our own Harimau squad, why they never win any major tournament since ... hmmm, that's a tough one (SEA Games does not count due to age ruling). The book outlines three major problems affecting England and I think it mirrors the exact things that have been plaguing our own football team; the importance of import players and playing abroad, players' family background and football network. And they found that England are actually not doing bad at all. I wonder if they ever did the statistics on Malaysia they will get the same conclusion.

Autographed Books

All these books share one thing in common. They all have been autographed by their respective authors. Out of the eleven books, eight are first edition prints. My own little treasures. Hopefully.

A Scary Book Indeed!

Absolute Sandman Vol I, II, III and IV

Bought in 2009, to be read in 2010?

Three Books

Today I went to KLCC to meet my old friend Imran. We used to attend primary school together at Sekolah Kebangsaan Serdang during the 80s. The last time I saw him was in 1989 when both of us were in Form 1 at Sekolah Menengah Sri Serdang, so that was 20 years ago. We had our dinner at the food court and were having so much fun doing the catch up that we didn't realise we are the only two left in the dining area. The area has been closed and the workers are really waiting for us to go! I bought a book from him, a collection of poems (of which some were written by him) titled Salun Eksotikata. Before the meeting, I went to Kinokuniya and bought two books, a Malaysia Book of Records (for my upcoming project) and Odisi Bulan Biru by John Norafizan (my school mate in MRSM Taiping). I think I have bought all five books by John Norafizan but managed to read only the first one. I think I will start reading his second book once our new house is ready, hopefully.

V for Vendetta

Dedicated to the government...any government

A Prisoner of Birth

This is the latest novel by Jeffrey Archer and it just arrived today by post. I bought it at Amazon website and it only costs me £5 including postage. I read the first chapter and it was very tempting to finish it straightaway. But I'm going to stop and put this one in the box. I hope I will find time to enjoy it in Malaysia.

Let me tell you a story. No, wait, one's not enough.

Since I'm going to get busier for the next few months, I cannot afford to read a long winding novel because I know I will want to finish it as quick as I can, and this will takes lots of precious time off from me. So I bought this book which is a collection of 26 short stories. So it will be like reading one story a day. Brilliant!

Creatures of the Night

My first Neil Gaiman comic book

My latest book

This book arrived yesterday at my doorsteep. This is the second novel by Khaled Hosseini, the author of Kite Runner. Let's hope this book is as good, or even better, as his first one is.

World Book Day Part 2

Since today is World Book Day, I decided to celebrate it also by buying some books. I went to the Borders shop and came back home with these books. All of them have already been translated into mainstream films (which I haven't managed to watch a single one yet) so maybe I could start the proper way, which is reading the literary works first, and watch the films later. I could then decide if the film adaptations disappoint me or justified the books. The books that I bought are 'The Reader' by Bernhard Schlink, 'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini, 'Revolutionary Road' by Richard Yates and 'Watchmen' by Alan Moore. 

My first Indonesian book

Today my Indonesian friend, Maulana gave me his book, '40 days in Europe', a real life story on his musical entourage accross Europe which happened several years ago. He is a PhD student here in Lancaster and he used to play football and badminton with me. Last year his leg was broken when playing football and he spent 4 months recuperating in Indonesia while at the same time writing this book. Amazing guy!

Books Part 2

Today I received a book from Amazon titled 'The Sword of Attila by Michael Curtis Ford'. Which makes the number of books in my collection that has not been read yet to 44.

No. More. Books.

Hmm.... latest book by Steven Pressfield... 'The Afghan Campaign'... sounds interesting.....

Spices of Reading

I met my supervisor yesterday and had the usual discussion regarding my ongoing thesis. And then he mentioned about the philosophy of science and suggested that I should read books by Sir Karl Popper. Apparently he is the guy who offers a critical assessment on the classical observationalist-inductivist account of scientific method by offering his own theory of falsifiability. Hm.. interesting. My supervisor said that I should put more variety into my readings and not just concentrating on the subject matters, which is accounting. I told him I read some economics book (Freakonomics comes into mind) but stop short of telling him that I just bought two books on football from the car boot sale last weekend. One of the book is titled 'Football Fanatic'. And if I had to choose between reading a book on philosophy on science and a book about a guy who watch a match at all 92 Premier and Endsleigh League football grounds (plus Berwick Rangers) in less than a year, well....

Books

I have just finished reading Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly. He is one of those authors who just love to tell a full action-packed story to the max and I have a full collection of his books. His books will always have a hero inside them and they will suffer various tribulations and setbacks but somehow managed to escape through some near impossible (well, impossible anyway in the real life) escapes. And this latest book by him managed to put an interesting story on the Capstone of the Great Pyramid in Egypt.

Now, I am starting on The Lost Army of Cambyses by Paul Sussman. This is his first novel from the two published so far, so I don't have any high expectation here. But that somehow reminds me of John Darnton with his brilliant Neanderthal novel.

Anyway, I've finished updating my books collection in my file. So far I have 148 books in my collection (most of them are in my father in law's house in Malaysia) and I haven't read 40 of them! Looks like I had to really catch up then.

I Am Muslim

My article "Apa ada dengan janggut (What's in the beard)" has just been published in I Am Muslim blog site http://iammuslim2.blogspot.com/ Hopefully it is a such a worthy read to be included in I Am Muslim 2: Other Voices.

Wayne Rooney

Whenever there is a registered letter or package addressed to me or my wife, the college porter will put a little note in our pigeon hole, a reminder for us to collect it from them. I received two notes yesterday, one addressed to my wife and another one for me. It was an EBay stuff for my wife but my note has a remark on it, "See Mike". Mike is one of the porters and we are quite close as both of us love to talk about sports. Last month, I gave him a cake for his 62nd birthday.

So, last night after I finished my badminton matches, I went to see him. He said that since most of the parcels are always addressed to my wife, he's got a parcel for me this time. Wrapped nicely in a brown paper, in a shape of a book, with the word 'Ahmed' written in a large handwriting across it, and with no stamp attached to it, it was indeed his gift for me. I'm quite touched and thanked him. It's his way of appreciation for the cake.

When I'm back in my flat, I unwrapped the gift and what do you know, it's a 'Rooney: My Official 2007 Annual' illustration book. It has all the history about Rooney since he was a baby and a complete match analysis for each game he played since Everton until now (including the England matches). There are several interesting notes about him that I do not know of. And make me realise that he is indeed a very special talent.

This book will definitely take its place alongside 'Alex Ferguson: Managing My Life' and 'Red and Raw' in the bookshelf.