Saying goodbye...

... Something I hadn't meant to do. I can't upload images anymore because there is a 1GB storage limit. It would be boring to just have words so this blog of mine and my photo-blog have come to an untimely end. I have, however, started a Facebook page to highlight my writing work etc, so please click here and 'like' it.

I hope you've enjoyed travelling down the reading and writing path with me on this blog. I hope to see you on my Facebook page 'Zuraidah Omar - Working With Words'.

A writer on writing

I love buying biographies of writers or their autobiographies and enjoy reading about their lives. While these books reveal quite a bit about the writers' psyche and what drives them to write, the books don't of course delve into the mechanics of writing. In other words, how they write. For this, one will need to get books by writers specifically on writing - and I have two of these on my shelf.

One is Stephen King's On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft (click on this link for a comprehensive review and summary). I have to admit that I haven't read any of his books but he is a prolific writer and a successful one at that, with more than thirty international bestsellers. As such, even if his genre is not my cup of tea, it doesn't mean that I can't learn from him.

In this book, King writes as if he's talking to the reader. He is rather modest in his First Foreword (there are three, albeit short ones), asking himself, "Why did I want to write about writing? What made me think I had anything worth saying?" And then he gives his answer, "... someone who has sold as many books of fiction as I have must have something worthwhile to say about writing it, but the easy answer isn't always the truth. Colonel Sanders sold a hell of a lot of fried chicken, but I'm not sure anyone wants to know how he made it." Nonetheless, he asserts that he does "care passionately about the art and craft of telling stories on paper. What follows is an attempt to put down, briefly and simply, how I came to the craft, what I know about it now, and how it's done." 

Raised by his single-parent mother, after his father deserted the family when King was just two years old and his brother four, he led a rather disjointed life. He had a lively imagination as a child and loved to write from a young age. When he was thirteen, he sent a story to a science fiction magazine but it was rejected. The first story that was published, I Was a Teenage Grave-robber, appeared in a horror fanzine. But this didn't happen too often then. He says, "By the time I was fourteen... the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing. By the time I was sixteen I'd begun to get rejection slips with handwritten notes a little more encouraging than the advice to stop using staples and start using paperclips." Yes, King's book is rather humorous, making it an easy and fast read.

The first part of the book is autobiographical but it gives us an idea of King's love for writing from a young age. He even edited his high school newsletter and produced his own four-sheet The Village Vomit. As the latter contained fictional, but not necessarily kind, stories about the faculty, it got him into trouble. The upside was that it led to the counselor getting him a stint with the town's weekly newspaper "to turn 'my restless pen' into more constructive channels." This was where he learnt his first lesson from the paper's editor: "When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story." It wasn't an easy road to success but he persevered. 

In the second part, King explores what writing is and he begins with this: "It's writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. It you can take it seriously, we can do business. It you can't or won't. it's time for you to close the book and do something else." He then shares his 'toolbox' with the reader. 

The most important tool is vocabulary - "the bread of writing". You shouldn't, he advises, be "looking for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes... Make yourself a solemn promise right now that you'll never use 'emolument' when you mean 'tip'." The next important one is grammar: "One either absorbs the grammatical principles of one's native language in conversation and reading or one does not... if you don't know, it's too late. And those incapable of grasping grammar... will have little or no use for a book like this, anyway." After that come elements of style (he cites Strunk and White's book, about which I have posted on this blog, many times). These tools must be mastered for good writing. 

According to King, "while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one." How? "... read a lot and write a lot", he says. "There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut." He goes on, "If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that." 

Then there is the actual writing. It's good to be disciplined about this. King works to a schedule: "Mornings belong to whatever is new - the current composition. Afternoons are for naps and letters. Evenings are for reading, family, Red Sox games on TV, and any revisions that just cannot wait. Basically, mornings are my prime writing time." And he writes every day if he's on a project, feeling that if he doesn't, "the characters begin to stale off in my mind... the tale's narrative cutting edge starts to rust and I begin to lose my hold on the story's plot and pace. Worst of all, the excitement of spinning something new begins to fade." He is driven to write, saying that "for me, not working is the real work." 

He sets an objective when he writes: "I like to get ten pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words. That's 180,000 words over a three-month span, a goodish length for a book - something in which the reader can get happily lost, if the tale is done well and stays fresh... only under dire circumstances do I allow myself to shut down before I get my 2,000 words." 

It's also important to the writing process to have a definite place to write. "Until you get one," King asserts, "you'll find your new resolution to write a lot hard to take seriously... The space can be humble... and it needs only one thing: a door which you are willing to shut. The closed door is your way of telling the world and yourself that you mean business... If possible, there should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or videogames for you to fool around with. If there's a window, draw the curtains or pull down the shades unless it looks out at a blank wall." 

King's other nuggets of advice:

• Write what you like,  then imbue it with life and make it unique. 
• Don't be too worked up about the story's plot because that can take away spontaneity.
• The situation comes first and the characters come after that. Let the characters do things their way.
• Good description is essential but it's a learned skill that comes from reading and writing a lot.
• Don't over-describe: "Description begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader's... locale and texture are much more important to the reader's sense of actually being in the story than any physical description of the players."
• Well-crafted dialogue is crucial in defining characters and the key to writing good dialogue is honesty about the words coming out of the characters' mouths. 
• Characters shouldn't be one-dimensional.

As he gives out his advice, King draws upon his own works and that of others as examples. Towards the end of the book, he points out that "writing isn't about making money, getting famous... it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your book, and enriching your own life, as well."

World's biggest book sale!

I'm in Prague now and thought I'd share a book event coming up - Big Bad Wolf's book sale coming up in December at the Mines Convention Centre - it seems that more than 3 million books will be up for sale! This is the time to stock up your home library as well as libraries of kindergartens and children's homes.

Books in the warehouse waiting to be sold.

In a tree and window

Excuse me for not posting on Monday, as I usually do. My reason? I'm on holiday! Nonetheless, I'd like to share two book-related photos I took.

This Book Tree in Berlin is in my sis Noni's (in photo) neighbourhood. 

Pre-loved books are put there for others to take. 

Old books are used creatively in this shop window in Berlin.

The journey of a lifetime

On the Muslim date of 8 Zulhijjah 1433H, which will coincide with Wednesday 24 October 2012, Muslim pilgrims from all over the world will be in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, to begin the Hajj, a religious duty required of those who are able once in their lifetime. Hubby and I had been privileged to be amongst the guests of Allah in 2010, during which my good friend Yasmin Gan Abdullah and her husband also performed their pilgrimage. After returning home, Yasmin and I collaborated to produce a book of our experiences. By Allah's grace, another good friend, Noorshin Ng Abdullah, and her son Kamil are in the Holy Land at this moment. Alhamdulillah.

I have always been fascinated by personal Hajj stories, particularly of people who converted to Islam, and have a number of books on my shelves.

Michael Wolfe's book, The Hadj published in 1993, begins with how he came to Islam. He was born into an American Jewish-Christian family and, as a young man, had traveled a few times to Morocco. He was drawn to Islam and when he embarked on his Hajj, he began in that country. He stayed there for a month to prepare himself, a story that takes up the first ten chapters of the book. The following eleven chapters are of his Hajj,which to him "felt more like a starting point... I had been traveling through a religion as much as through a landscape. Now I was leaving my physical goal behind. The hadj at its best is a vivifying factor. Later I hoped to internalise its meanings."

Having written about his journey of a lifetime, Wolfe then edited a collection of "significant works by observant travel writers from the East and West over the last ten centuries." One Thousand Roads to Mecca, which came out in 1997, presents "distinct sides of a spirited conversation in which Mecca is the common destination and Islam the common subject of inquiry." This conversation goes as far back as the medieval period and into the twentieth century. I found the Hajj accounts of Australian Winifred Stegar (1927) and Lady Evelyn Cobbold from England (1933) particularly interesting.

The Road to Mecca by Muhammad Asad was first published in 1954 and is considered amongst the top 50 spiritual classics. He writes that his book is not "the story of a deliberate search for faith - for that faith came upon me, over the years, without any endeavour on my part to find it. My story is simply the story of a European's discovery of Islam and of his integration within the Muslim community." He had converted in 1926 after extensive travels throughout the Middle East. The book is a physical as well as spiritual travelogue. He describes his tawaf around the Kaaba: "And I, too, moved slowly forward and became part of the circular flow around the Kaaba... I walked on and on, the minutes passed, all that had been small and bitter in my heart began to leave my heart, I became part of a circular stream - oh, was this the meaning of what we were doing: to become aware that one is a part of a movement in an orbit? Was this, perhaps, all confusion's end? And the minutes dissolved, and time itself stood still, and this was the centre of the universe..." 

Two less formidable books, in terms of length, are Ali Shariati's Hajj (the Malaysian edition was published in 1987) and The Road to Peace by Liza Angela Milo Abdullah, published in 2000. An Iranian, Ali Shariati was a well known Islamic scholar who had suffered in the prisons of the Shah of Iran; he died in 1977 shortly after his release. His book guides the reader through the Hajj rites, interpreting them in the light of Islamic history and highlighting their social significance. 

Liza Angela Milo Abdullah is an Italian who became a Muslim in 1976 and performed her pilgrimage in 1996. In her book, she "narrates each day's events,... explains the significance of the rituals she performs. Interspersed within are other information such as the history behind them." She describes her elation as she sets out on her journey, "My heart is happy and I thank God, I am now ready to perform the journey with my body and with my soul. I tell my family to smile and be happy for me as I am fulfilling my vows as a Muslim." Three weeks later, as she waits in Jeddah to return home, she writes, "The journey is over - the most beautiful experience of my lifetime is over and yet it is not - for I carry it in my heart."

Getting the Best Out of Al-Hajj by Abu Muneer Ismail Davids is not a personal account, like the other books in this post, but I found it extremely useful and informative in my own preparation for the Hajj. With knowledge acquired after spending 15 years in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, about all aspects of Hajj from the Quran and Sunnah point of view, he published this book in 2000 (the second edition was published in 2006). The book provides "a good and plentiful source of information that helps the pilgrim to do the Hajj rites and rituals, from all sides and aspects that is solid and established in the Quran and Sunnah."

Mountains of Mecca - nasheed by Zain Bhikha

'We Three'

My apologies for not posting last Monday - I was on a getaway, during which I had a most relaxing time. Thankfully, it was a short one because I'm really not a sun, sea and sand person. The best part of the holiday, however, was being with my two friends, Stephanie and Beverley, who were visiting from New Zealand. We knew one another when we studied at Victoria University of Wellington and the last time I saw them was in 1999, when my family and I were in New Zealand for our university's 100th year celebration.

Stephanie and Beverley are twins; I knew another set of Kiwi twins during my student days - Christine and Dianne - and a twin, Karen from America, whose sister didn't come over with her. While people may be intrigued by twins, they would find triplets fascinating and I'm fortunate to know one. She is Datin Noor Azlina Yunus, who I got to know on my first writing project and with whom I've become friends. Azlina, also known as Joy Hooper, was born in Feilding, New Zealand, on 12 December 1946. She and her sisters, Judith and Jillian, were minor celebrities who had their lives documented by the press until they were 21. In 2007, the sisters decided to write We Three - A Memoir of the Hooper Triplets, which was self-published in 2009 and given to family and friends in New Zealand, Australia and Malaysia.

I have posted earlier on sharing memories and this is a perfect example of one - a book that invites us into the lives of Joy, Judith and Jillian, sharing the times that they had together with their parents before they went their separate adult ways, each with her own story. Joy met her Malaysian sweetheart, Yunus, while studying at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, married him and moved nearly 9,000 kilometres away from home. Judith headed north to the University of Auckland, where she met Vietnamese student Thong Nguyen. They lived in Vietnam after their marriage, moved to Auckland after they were evacuated from Saigon in 1975, and eventually settled in Australia. Jillian, also a graduate of the University of Auckland, was the one who married a Kiwi and lived her entire life in New Zealand. 

The book has lots of photographs, a reminder to those of us who would like to write memoirs the importance of archiving the many family pictures that have been taken through the years. The Hooper triplets decided to produce their memoir "as a record, in an economical format, for our immediate families, for a wider pool of relatives and for close friends who had witnessed us growing up or had, in some way or other, been a part of our lives." Incidentally, Azlina/Joy is the one on the left on the front cover (the photo was shot when they were four years old).

Azlina, as she is now. She has edited countless books on art, crafts and culture, and is the author of a number of books, including Songket Revolution and Malaysian Batik.

Changing hands

In January this year, I had posted about what to do with books that you don't want to keep. Not that you would have as many to give away as these stacks of books.

One of my suggestions in the post was to hold a book swap party. A group of like-minded people in Subang Jaya has gone further by initiating the Subang Jaya Book Exchange Programme. It's a community effort held at the USJ 2 Community Hall, where people can gather on the first and third Sunday of the month to exchange books. Fantastic, don't you think? I haven't been but I hope to do it soon.

Mouth-watering Malay meals

Apologies for there being no post last Monday - Hubby and I were off to Kota Kinabalu for my university alumni reunion - some photos are on my photo-blog. There were lots of catching up along with lots of eating.

On the subject of eating, I love food even though I may not be a whizz in the kitchen. Besides eating, I also love cookbooks, especially when produced by people I know. The most recent addition to my cookbook collection is Nostalgia Medan Selera, the re-publication of Medan Selera that was first published in 1958 in Jawi. The Rumi version came out in 1971. The book is a  compilation of the recipes of the late Haji Ahmad Yaakub Al-Johori, who used to cook for the Johor royal house. This latest edition is an updated version put together by several of his great-grandchildren. Incidentally, he was the grandfather of my uncle-in-law, Abdul Manaf Mohd Noh, who inherited the cooking gene.

The front cover.

A little 'history' of the book over the decades.

Recipes from the book. Not all recipes come with pictures.

From the northern state of Perak comes A Taste of Batu Gajah, a collection of recipes by Datin Norsiah Bakhari that were produced into a book by her daughter-in-law, Datin Seri Raihan Abdul Rahman. I have a close association with Datin Norsiah, whose late husband, Dato' Zabidi Shamsuddin, had served as the Malaysian Education Officer in Wellington, New Zealand, when I studied there. Dato' Zabidi and Datin Norsiah loved to invite students to their house, an invitation no-one in her right mind would refuse. Other than their warm hospitality, a visit to their house meant being treated to delicious Malay food.

The front cover.

Each recipe comes with a mouth-watering photo.

The recipes are divided into sections.

Malay language translations of the recipes are found in the back pages.

The cuisine of the east coast state of Kelantan is represented, for me, in Nik's Kitchen, a book of recipes by Puan Sri Nik Esah Nik Ahmed Kamil. I was privileged to have edited The Benchmark, a compilation of newspaper articles written by her late husband, Tan Sri Harun Mahmud Hashim. There is also another link. Both of these books were produced by Yasmin Gan Abdullah, with whom I wrote Hajj - the Humbling Journey.

The front cover. 

Some background on Kelantan.

A Kelantanese classic.

Kelantan is well-known for its very sweet desserts.

These cookbooks are not just a compilation of recipes. There are stories that go with the dishes. Food is not just a putting together of this or that ingredient; there are memories associated with the many kinds of food placed on the table. And then there are the feelings of comfort and good cheer. Oscar Wilde couldn't have said it better when he declared, "After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one's own relatives."

Showpiece shelves

The bookshelves in our house look like... well... bookshelves. But they don't really have to be. Bookshelves can be conversation pieces, if you can get your hands on any one of these.

I didn't choose to highlight the bookshelf below because of David Beckham's book, but because it's a bookshelf that isn't one. Sticklebook is an invisible shelving system of aluminium brackets, combed strips and screws. I wouldn't really consider it a serious bookshelf; I would put it up as a display unit to showcase a few of my books.

The Rolling Shelf is also not a 'serious' bookshelf. But it does provide interesting options for arranging your books, vases and other decorative items. 

Now, this is one serious bookshelf. It stores a lot of books and yet serves as an interesting and attractive feature wall. There would be a problem putting up and taking off books from the top shelves, however.

Back to something frivolous - inclined storage from Germany that gives the impression of suspended shelving.

Let's end this post with the Bookwave - a storage unit that's can be a curtain, a room divider, even a sculptural hanging.

From scholar to novelist

Umberto Eco's books, translated from Italian, are not an easy read. His plots are complicated and his characters are multi-dimensional, so you will need to concentrate from the first page. But I like his style and the twists and turns in his stories. There is a sophistication to his writing that is incomparable.

A regular follower of this blog would know by now that when I like a writer, I would read a number of his books. And Eco is no exception - I have three of his on my bookshelf. One, purchased in 2009 at a Big Bad Wolf sale for just RM8.00, is The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. First published in 2004, it is a rather playful story about a rare-book dealer who, although he has lost his memory about his own life, can remember every book he has ever read. To retrieve his past, he withdraws to his family home in the country and attempts to relive his life through boxes of old newspapers, comics, records, photo albums and diaries kept in the attic. His search is made all the more realistic within the pages of Eco's novel with reproductions of actual items.

The above book is a walk in the park to read when compared to Eco's earlier novel, Foucault's Pendulum, which first came out in 1988. It is a thriller of interconnected mysteries running into more than 600 pages that, along the way, takes a dig at "exploitative publishers and pompous intellectuals" (Jonathan Coe, in The Guardian, 12 Octobeer 1989).

I came to appreciate Eco when I bought his first novel, The Name of the Rose, which was originally published in 1980 and went on to become an international bestseller. The book, later made into a movie starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater, is set in medieval times. It is in fact a detective story in which the protagonist, a learned Franciscan, is called upon to solve a mystery involving monks who were murdered in bizarre ways. 

In 2011, in an interview for The Guardian, Eco says, "People are tired of simple things. They want to be challenged." Thus, his books have been about conspiracies and the paranoia created because of them. Almost 80 years old at the time of the interview, Eco has had a distinguished academic career, publishing scholarly works, before he ventured into fiction-writing. The Name of the Rose established his reputation as a novelist and there was no looking back after that. 

Bookish DIY

You have time on your hands, a brooch that's seen better times and a strip of pretty ribbon. It doesn't take much to turn the brooch and ribbon into a classy bookmark - beautiful enough to give away as a present. You can do the same with an earring that's lost its 'partner'.

What about books that you don't want to keep anymore? Other than giving them away, what else can you do with them? Well, what about a wreath of white roses? Click here to see how it's done.

Book pages can also be turned into book letters and you can learn how to do this here.

An old hardcover book becomes a vintage photo frame. Make a number of them to give out as party favours - a unique giveaway.

If all the above DIY bookish projects are a bit too much for you, then this could be just up your alley - use the book pages for gift wrapping!

Eid Mubarak

Eid ul-Fitr is celebrated by Muslims on the first day of Shawal, the tenth month in the Muslim Calendar. It marks the end of one month of fasting during Ramadan. It is a joyous day of thanksgiving. In Malaysia, this day is 19 August 2012.

Knowing my Prophet

We are in the last ten days of Ramadan, the month when Muslims around the world fast from dawn to dusk. It is a month when we refocus our attention on God and strive to purify ourselves; it is a month of self-evaluation vis-a-vis Islamic guidance through the Quran and Sunnah. The Quran was first revealed to Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) during this holy month.

I have several books on my Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him). The first one, which I bought very many years ago, was Martin Lings's Muhammad - his life based on the earliest sources. It is acclaimed worldwide as the definitive biography of the Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) in the English Language.

It was first published in 1983 and draws upon eighth- and ninth-century Arabic sources, of which some are translated in the book for the first time. Lings, whose Muslim name is Abu Bakar Siraj al-Din, uses a narrative style that makes the book extremely readable. Take this passage from Chapter Eight, for example, which describes how the fatherless infant Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) becomes a nurseling of the Bedouin woman, Halimah: "So I went and took him, for no reason save that I could find none but him.I carried him back to where our mounts were stationed, and no sooner had I put him in my bosom than my breasts overflowed with milk for him. He drank his fill, and with him his foster-brother drank likewise his fill. Then they both slept; and my husband went to that old she-camel of ours and lo! her udders were full. He milked her and drank of her milk and I drank with him until we could drink no more and our hunger was satisfied. We spent the best of nights, and in the morning my husband said to me: 'By God, Halimah, it is a blessed creature that thou hast taken.'" 

Another well-known biography of the Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) is Muhammad - a biography of the Prophet by Karen Armstrong. She is not a Muslim and was, in fact, a Roman Catholic nun for seven years. 

In her introduction, Armstrong observes that "the old hatred of Islam continues to flourish on both sides of the Atlantic and people have few scruples about attacking this religion, even if they know little about it." Indeed, the book's first chapter "traces the history of Western hatred for the Prophet of Islam". In a later chapter, she refers to Islam as "a religion of social justice". In her last paragraph, she quotes Wilfred Cantwell Smith who wrote in 1956 that "the 'fundamental weakness' of both Western civilisation and Christianity in the modern world 'is their inability to recognise that they share the planet not with inferiors but with equals.'" She then concludes, "The reality is that Islam and the West share a common tradition. From the time of the Prophet Muhammad, Muslims have recognised this, but the West cannot accept it... If Muslims need to understand our Western traditions and institutions more thoroughly today, we in the West need to divest ourselves of some of our old prejudice. Perhaps one place to start is with the figure of Muhammad: a complex, passionate man who sometimes did things difficult for us to accept, but who had genius of a profound order and founded a religion and a cultural tradition that was not based on the sword - despite the Western myth - and whose name 'Islam' signifies peace and reconciliation".  

An earlier publication in my collection is Muhammad - A Mercy to all the Nations by Al-Hajj Qassim Ali Jairazbhoy, first published in 1937. 

In his preface, the author states, "To raise a people sunk in the lowest depths of degradation and vice, and to have the rare fortune of achieving success in his mission in his own lifetime, is decidedly the monumental work of a highly successful character, one to inspire mankind with action, perseverance, patience, and faith. Any other would have despaired of success, would have yielded to the pressure of utterly hostile circumstances, but the Prophet gloriously outlived all struggles, persecutions, temptations, and failures; he was confident of his mission, confident of success, and so he succeeded at last in the very place of persecution, and could confidently say, 'Verily, I have fulfilled my mission.'" The last chapter of the book is of special interest, where the author advances his claim that "all the prophets had prophesied the advent of a world Prophet who should verify the truth of all the prophets who had appeared in the World". 

I bought my copy of Rafiq Zakaria's Muhammad and the Quran in 1997 at the London British Museum. Published in 1991, he reveals in his preface that "the idea of writing this book came to me after reading Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. Its acclaim by a large number of non-Muslim intellectuals and its popularity, especially after the fatwa by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, convinced me that a fair picture of Islam needed to be presented once again in order to remove much of the distortion that has crept into its perception".

He further states, "The book is not the life story of Muhammad, nor does it give a translation of the whole text of the Quran. It is an attempt to bring out the essentials of what Allah has pronounced and what his Messenger preached and practised... Instead of giving my personal views, I have quoted the studied observations of highly respected persons, both Muslims and non-Muslims; their testimony lends authority to the assessment of the various issues under dispute". 

In this book, Rafiq Zakaria has selected 1,111 Quranic verses (out of a total of 6,666) to "reveal the nature and spirit of Islam and bring out clearly its message of monotheism and the consequences of good or bad deeds for this life and the life hereafter". He also covers "the stories of the prophets from Adam to Jesus, as narrated in the Quran... (to) give an illustrative insight into the values that the faithful are asked to emulate". 

'Abd al-Rahman 'Azzam, the first secretary-general of the Arab League, first published The Eternal Message of Muhammad in 1954 in the Arabic language. It is deemed a classic study in the Muslim world of the Prophet's (Peace Be Upon Him) Message. Written for a Muslim audience, the author points out in his preface, "My intention in writing the original essays was to clarify for Muslims some of the principles and origins of their society, faith, and revealed Law, and to speak of the life of their Prophet. It was not my intention to apologise or preach to non-Muslims". 

'Abd al-Rahman is saddened by the materialism of the West, the idol he terms as 'a high standard of living' to which many, including Muslims, appear to be attracted to. His book is "a serious attempt to point out the Muslim answers to today's world" and focuses on the fundamentals of Muhammad's (Peace Be Upon Him) Message, i.e. faith (Iman) and right-doing (Ihsan). The chapters explore social reform, the Islamic State and international relations, as well as what the author believes to be the causes of world disturbance. On the latter, he states that "extremism in patriotism or national loyalty has been a basic cause of the increase of world disturbances and the gradual expansions of wars from local struggles to universal  holocausts". 

He asks, in his last chapter, "Why not teach people, therefore, to loathe war as they loathe murder?", and calls upon mankind to return to "the (righteous) way of the prophets, who directed instincts in a manner satisfactory to the standards of virtue and the common welfare". 

Hare, heir and air

The English language is a quirky language. No-one probably knows, not even those born to speak the language, why 'heir' is not pronounced with a hard 'h' sound, like in the word 'hare', but instead sounds like the word 'air'. If the pronunciation rules (or non-rules?) are hard enough for non-native speakers to understand, what about the many meanings of a word?

Let's take a short simple word, for example, 'fast'. In my English dictionary for advanced learners, the word can mean 'happening, moving or doing something at great speed', 'holding something tightly or firmly', 'colours or dyes that do not come out of the fabric', 'living a life that's expensive or dangerous', or 'not eating food for a period of time'. And then there's usage. Do you get down, get off or get out of a vehicle? Is it 'compare to' or 'compare with'? Does the murderer get hanged or hung?

Fortunately, there are books to help us in getting to grips with the language. So, continuing with my English theme and following up on an earlier post about writing-related books, I'm sharing below three of the books that I often refer to.

The Good Word Guide, edited by Martin H Manser, is a starting point to understanding the use of the English language. It explains the difference, for example, between 'stationary' and 'stationery'; it shows how certain words are pronounced, such as 'foyer' and 'nougat'; it also points out incorrect usage.

Touted as "a writer's best friend" on its cover, the Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage is a more advanced guide than the above. It not only provides current usage of commonly confused words and phrases, but also explores their historical background. It may interest you to know that the words 'envious' and 'enviable' both meant 'highly desirable' at one time. Along the way, 'envious' lost the meaning while 'enviable' retained it.

Having these two books for reference would be sufficient. Nonetheless, it may be useful to have one more on your bookshelf - The Wordsworth Dictionary of Foreign Words in English by John Ayto. While this book provides thousands of foreign words that have become part of the English Language, it also gives accounts of their origins and backgrounds. A familiar word is 'cul-de-sac', a French word which literally means 'bottom of the bag'. When it became used in the English language in the early 18th century, it referred to a cavity or tube in the body that is open at one end only. Today, the word is used for a road that is closed off at one end.

I'm sure we all share the sentiments of Vivian Buchan, whose lines below were published in the Spelling Progress Bulletin (Spring 1966): 

One reason why I cannot spell,

Although I learned the rules quite well

Is that some words like coup and through

Sound just like threw and flue and who;

When oo is never spelled the same,

The duice becomes a guessing game;

And then I ponder over through,

Is it spelled sow, or throw, or beau?

And bough is never bow, it's bow,

I mean the bow that sounds like plow, 

And not the bow that sounds like row -

The row that sounds like roe.

I wonder, too, why rough and tough,

That sound the same as gruff and muff,

Are spelled like bough and though, for they

Are both pronounced a different way.

And why can't I spell trough and cough

The same as I do scoff and golf?

Why isn't drought spelled like route,

Or doubt or pout or sauerkraut?

When words all sound so much the same

To change the spelling seems a shame.

There is no sense - see, sounds like cents

In making such a difference

Between the sight and sound of words,

Each spelling rule that undergirds

The way a word should look will fail

And often prove to no avail

Because exceptions will negate

The truth of what the rule may state.

So though I try, I still despair

And moan and mutter, "It's not fair

That I'm held up to ridicule

And made to look like such a fool,

When it's the spelling that's at fault.

Let's call this nonsense to a halt."

When in England...

The Olympics 2012 are proceeding very nicely now in London as I write this post. Fortunately for us in Malaysia, we have several channels on our satellite network dedicated to the various sports, which make up for the fact that we're not there to be part of the action. If I were, the most likely place I'd be would be at Greenwich Park for the equestrian events.

Several Malaysians I know are in London and they are bound to have periods of lull in between their activities, including shopping. So while they wait here and there, they might fancy holding a book in their hands (and reading it), and I have just the title for them - Watching the English by Kate Fox. It is a rather tongue-in-cheek study of 'the hidden rules of English behaviour'. She has other books to her credit, the titles of which indicate that she has fun in choosing her subjects; one of them is the The Racing Tribe: Watching the Horsewatchers. 

In the book above, Fox, who is a social anthropologist, breaks down her observations into two parts - Conversation Codes and Behaviour Codes. In the first part, there is a chapter on 'The Weather' because, as she declares in her opening line, "any discussion of English conversation, like any English conversation, must begin with The Weather". We had learned this to be true during our holidays in England, when we discovered that  the weather is indeed the best way to strike up a conversation with a local. Even if it's just to say something as obvious as "it's raining quite a bit, isn't it?" to the stranger sharing the table with you in the cafe, while both of you look out at the drenched view outside.

To Fox, her English compatriots can be described as "self-conscious, ill-at-ease, stiff, awkward and, above all, embarrassed", which of course brings to mind the quintessential English gentleman in the film Bridget Jones's Diary - Mark Darcy, played by one of my favourite actors Colin Firth. The film and the book are good examples of another English trait highlighted in Fox's book, that of humour, which is one of irony, understatement and self-depreciation. Being a fan of English comedy (the Monty Python television series and Fawlty Towers come to mind), these are elements I appreciate rather than the slapstick type common to American humour.

As far as behaviour is concerned, Fox observes that "the English may  not speak much on public transport, but when they do open their mouths, the words you are most likely to hear, apart from 'sorry', are 'please' and 'thank you'". However, she warns, this "does not mean that we are good-natured, generous, kind-hearted people. We just have rules about Ps and Qs, which most of us observe, most of the time".

I had a great laugh reading this book, and I still do when reading it again. If you're doing so in public, you might see a raised eyebrow or two as you giggle through its pages.

Making notes

When participating in the Silverfish Writing Programme a number of years ago, we learnt that we need to always have a notebook with us - for jotting down what we observe around us, descriptions of interesting people we see or meet; in other words, anything that could make good material in our writing. An exercise that we did during the programme was to order a cup of coffee at a nearby cafe, sit at an outside table and make notes of what was going on around us. We also had to create a story based on our notes; I wrote an imaginary conversation between two men I had been watching while drinking my coffee.

Notebooks these days come in all kinds of sizes, colours and designs. I can spend a lot of time just browsing through a bookstore's stationery section, looking over the notebooks; it's hard to resist buying one. Much as I'd like to buy a Moleskine, I still haven't been able to justify buying something so expensive for my note-taking. After all, there are so many cheaper alternatives that will still do the job. I prefer notebooks with blank pages rather than ruled ones - besides writing, the blank pages invite me to doodle or draw as well.

Above are a few still-to-be-used notebooks that I have. The gilt-edged notebook and the one in the middle are both gifts. I had bought the one on the right from the Islamic Arts Museum shop, which sells beautiful stationery items. An exquisite notebook (below), which my sis-in-law gave me, is from Japan and attests to the craftsmanship of the Japanese. It's handmade and so pretty that I don't think I shall be writing anything in it at all.

I have been following the tip learnt from the writing programme till today - there is always a notebook tucked into my organiser, which goes from bag to bag with me.

Writers are not the only ones who carry notebooks with them. This site delves into the pocket notebooks of 20 famous men, including Mark Twain (writer), Charles Darwin (scientist) and Ludwig van Beethoven (composer/musician), while this one takes a look into the notebooks of several people, including Marilyn Monroe (actress) and Frida Kahlo (artist).

So start carrying a notebook with you (and use it) - you will be in distinguished company!

Ten years later...

In mid-2011, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a telephone call from Suria Zainal, now Senior Director at the Malaysian Timber Council (MTC). It had been ten years since we met; I was then the writer of MTC's tenth year anniversary coffee-table book, which was produced by Editions Didier Millet. Suria told me that MTC would be celebrating their twentieth year in 2012 and they would like me to write the book. Of course, I said 'yes'! It's not often that a writer can claim to have written two commemorative books for the same organisation, ten years apart!

On 12 July 2012, MTC held a simple but classy dinner to celebrate their twenty years of serving the Malaysian timber industry, during which the book was launched. I hadn't seen the book at all before this. The text had been written by me, revised by MTC where necessary and edited by Datin Noor Azlina Yunus, with whom I had worked on my first major writing/editing project as well as my book projects for UMW Holdings. 

The design was undertaken by an advertising company and Azlina and I were not involved in the process, although we did have a look at the initial book draft. At that point, many things were not right with the book. After that, due to time constraints, Suria and her team at MTC carried on without us. It was therefore with some anxiety that Azlina and I (both of us were at the dinner) pulled the book out of its slipcase when we received our copies after the launch. Well, we were both pleased with the end result; the book we held in our hands looked nothing at all like the draft that we saw. 

The book in its slipcase.

The book... uncovered.

The start of a chapter.

Some of the pages above and below.

The book also shared the thoughts of key industry personalities.

Suria, who managed the project, had wanted the tone of the twentieth anniversary book to be somewhat informal compared to the earlier book. This was to be achieved by an anecdotal approach in the written text as well as a contemporary and bright, but not garish, design. I believe that she achieved her objective. 

The tenth anniversary book certainly looked very different 

from the newly-launched twentieth anniversary book.