A Book In A Quiet Corner

It has been almost a year now since we launched A Map of Trengganu at RA Fine Arts in a place called Solaris Hartamas.The band Diwangga Sakti played, Andre Goh sang, Jimmy Choo wowed shoe lovers, old friends and new inter-mingled, my sister baked cakes for us - old kuihs and new - and a really, really wonderful time was had by all.

Now the book is still selling well and I want to thank you all.

Yesterday I saw that Foyles of London had a few copies still on their shelves. So if you happen to be in London and would like to read about Trengganu (er, you would like to read that sentence again?) do make your way to Charing Cross. Even if the books are no longer there you'll still enjoy Foyles which, at one time, was the most famous bookshop in the world. Marks & Co (more widely known as 84 Charing Cross Road) made it to the stage, but Foyles fought the war and was both loved and hated for its eccentricities. But it is much better now. In the second half of my secondary school years, in a school called Victoria Institution (yes, you heard it right, I was once in an institution), our English teacher told us about Foyles, what a big place it was and how he'd spent his days there reading books he couldn't afford to buy. Foyles was - and still is - like that; it leaves you alone amid its chaos and it holds no grudge for your taking your fill of its bibliopolity.

I used to spend hours in its occult and philosophy wing wondering about Aleister Crowley, reading about Greeks in a barrel and many other things too weird and wonderful.

In leaner days the building that housed the wing was sold to Waterstones, and then Waterstones grew slimmer and the shop across the road is now taken over by people who divide its ground floor between respectability and semi-pornography, and its basement entirely for the serious study of the scatological.

It warms the cockles of my heart of course to know that today, the Foyles that gave comfort to my English teacher in his hours of need, that gave me things to read on dozy afternoons, that is visited by many of the great and good of this metropolis, also stocks A Map of Trengganu.

So, if you're tired of London, as Dr Johnson meant to say, do take yourself there and buy the book, or just read it if you please, and place a discreet bookmark in it for you to return to another day.
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Published on January 05, 2012 14:58
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