UnkReads - 9 Days In The Kingdom

I wish I could say that the images below were photographed by me.

Unfortunately, you can tell that these were snapped from a great new book I am reading. One entitled, 9 Days In The Kingdom by 55 great Photographers. And naturally, I am not one of the 55. I won't be here, pathetically trying to capture a few of the hundreds of magnificent pictures in this coffee-table book from the humid discomfort of my kitchen, if it was so.






In January 2007, 55 of the greatest names in the world of professional photography congregated in Bangkok. Their job? To capture a slice of the country in 9 days and commemorate King Bhumipol's 60th Anniversary on the throne.

And so off they went, each with an assigned agenda. To the far North and the Deep South, from the Andaman Coast to the great Northeastern plateau. To shoot an aspect of Thai culture that complements their style and particular Eye for photographic detail.

The result, a stunning portrait of the Kingdom told in pictures (and some words). One day, one day, I will be involved in a project like this.

In the meantime, I can only gawk.

UnkReads - Hyper Rev

The latest edition of the RX8 after-market 'Bible' is in...






Let the Mods begin!!!

A Suitable Boy

My mother used to read to me as a child.

She would sit us down on our beds, my brother and I, and like the storytellers you sometimes hear on the BBC, narrate a chapter or two from Enid Blyton or Roald Dahl in her pitch-perfect, English teacher's elocution. We enjoyed these sessions immensely before bedtime, although by the ages of 3 or 4, we could already read largely on our own. There was something about her voice, the way she made the stories come alive with the animation of her vocal cords, the dynamic diction, that kept us in rapt amusement.



Mother was never stingy with books. And visits to the bookstore were an almost weekly affair where we could pick whatever caught our fancy. Strangely, we hardly went to the library as children. She had this eccentric theory that the books were dirty, having passed through the grimy hands of so many different people. What if they brought them to the toilet?, she would say. And till this day, I still don't have a habit of borrowing books from the Communal Collection. Its not a hygiene issue for me though. Its just that I like to keep the books that I have read. As a sort of physical record of works or words that have formed an impression on me if you like. I haven't told her though, that I have been bringing books to the loo since time immemorial.

I read myself through most of my childhood. Vivaciously. And Mother made sure we flipped through the dictionary when it came to words we did not understand. This strengthened our vocabulary tremendously. And by the time I was in Primary 6, my teachers were surprised at the supposed sophistication of my sentences. I mean knowing a few bombastic words is one thing. Stringing them up elegantly in proper contextual prose is another. And there is no short-cut to good writing. You have to read, see how the better writers do it, and learn.

Between the ages of 18 and 27, I hardly found time for books. The thrills of dating, National Service, University textbooks and entering the workforce, meant that there was little time for such frivolous indulgences. Even the newspaper was read with flippant abandon, apart from the TV listings that is, which were scrutinized thoroughly.

Lately, I have found my love for the written word again. And Vikram Seth's somewhat seminal A Suitable Boy reminds me of that dark decade where the words somehow escaped me. I had begun reading this novel as a 1st Year undergraduate back in 1995 but never got down to finishing it. Why, I cannot remember. I do recall though, that I had borrowed it from a friend who said she was moved by the author's nuanced story-telling. I probably wanted to impress her by finishing the book as well so that we could perhaps have a lengthy, romantic discourse on its merits over a hot Latte at the cafeteria. Obviously things progressed faster than my reading, 1, 349 pages notwithstanding.

The book is sitting next to me on my sofa, having just bought a brand new copy from Kinokuniya this evening. And I hope by embarking on it now, some 12 years later, the reason why another person has asked me to read it will become apparent.

UnkReads - Lost Roads

When Lifestyle, the leisure and entertainment section of Sunday's paper, devoted 2 full pages to this newly released book by former Life! writer Tan Shzr Ee and photographer Desmond Foo, I said aw shucks, they beat me to it.



But before coming into the office earlier in the evening, I still mousied down to the bookstore to pick up 1 of the reported 1000 published copies.

Why so Kiasu you may ask.

Well because I've been toying with the idea of getting one of these projects off the ground too. I like writing, I like taking photos. Its just that I don't know any publishers who would actually want to...err..publish me. And there's this little problem of not having a transcript and a set of good stock pictures ready for editorial perusal =))

In short, I wanted to check out the competition without having actually done anything about the competition =))

And truth be told, I'm not too impressed with Shzr Ee's and Desmond's efforts. No, not a hint of sour grapes at all =P

Anyway, don't be misled by the title because it seems to evoke a sense of roads and places vanished from Singapore. Rather, the roads and places mentioned in the book have probably been vanquished from the consciousness of most Singaporeans, and presumably do not exist in the minds of the younger generation.

There are, for example, the Bukit Brown Cemetery off Lornie road, Singapore's last living village Kampong Lorong Buangkok and the beach at the end of Jalan Bahtera where the carcass of an old abandoned ship stretches out from the sand into the water like a small jetty.

Frankly, I've never heard of these places before so kudos to Shzr Ee for telling us.

But her's is a very poetic, literary style, pregnant with romantic recollection and intimate imagery. Weaving in, at the same time, a slice of history and a touch of real-life conversation. Certainly not your everyday Coffee-table book prose. And there are way too little photographs of the places mentioned in this collection of essay-type chapters to flesh out what she is talking about. What meagre few pictures, although artistically shot by ST photojournalist Desmond Foo, are in Black & White, supposedly a cost-cutting initiative. Making everything look a trifle too sombre and cheap.

Maps are included for the adventurous or recently armchair-TV reformed, looking for an alternative to VivoCity or CineLeisure on Sunday.

When Shzr Ee called Lost Roads a Scrapbook in the Preface, I wondered why. Its a little more than that though, I concede, after ploughing through it the better half of this gloomy Monday morning.

I'd say a Under-The-Coffee-Table book. Good for an informative read but better left below.

UnkReads: The Harmony Silk Factory

Tash Aw's The Harmony Silk Factory is a stunning book. Not perfect, but stunning all the same.

This is the story of Johnny Lim, a Malaysian of Chinese descent. The story details parts of his life just before, during and after the second world war. Aw's brilliant use of 3 different narrators to tell the story is what makes this a compelling read. I am reminded of that classic play, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, where three players talk about a man (Godot) and we never actually meet him, because he never turns up.


The first section is told by his son, Jasper, who narrates the story of his father based on his research. He paints a picture of a despicable man. He learns of his fathers early days working in a tin-mine owned by the British. The death an english boss results in a career-change and he becomes a successful fabric salesman who eventualy marries Snow Soong, the most beautiful woman in the Kinta Valley, we are led to believe.

The second section of the book is narrated by Snow. It is in the form of her diary, and details a bizarre honeymoon trip, which was more of a 'group' honeymoon with 3 (yes, 3) chaperones - a japanese 'Marquis', a british mine-owner, and another englishman, Peter.

The final section is told through the lens of Peter, and its an account of the same trip.

We see different aspects of Johnny in each section of the book, with Snow's & Peter's potrayal of Johnny quite different to Jasper's.

Aw is able to lend credibility to each of his characters by the use of totally different styles. Its impressive because its hard enough to write as yourself, but you need a great amount of emphathy required to sound like 3 different people. And although the narrations sometimes contradict each other (i believe this is done on purpose to show that different people perceive things and other people differently), its what makes the book good.

Tash Aw is Malaysian, and a Lawyer by training. He lives in London.

Highly recommended.