Yasmin Ahmad's Films

Yasmin Ahmad's Films by Amir Muhammad
Date of purchase: 4th December 2009
Place: Borders Bookstore, The Curve

I discovered this book by chance (it's the best way of finding a good read.. without expecting it) while browsing the store. I had no idea of the writing or publishing of this book. So seeing it displayed on the shelf was a pleasant surprise. The book easily drew me in because 1. I've always wanted to read Mr. Amir Muhammad's work (as we've shared tents a couple of times selling books.. Hi Mr. Amir, I don't know if you remember me) 2. I love the humanity in Yasmin Ahmad's movies, and I have only seen a couple of them, so this will be a good chance of seeing through reading, and 3. at the back of the book it says 'All the writer's royalties from the first edition will be donated to the MERCY -Yasmin Ahmad Fund for Children.' This is the first edition, published in November 2009. I love charities, so I was hooked.

The book gives us an insight of 6 of Yasmin Ahmad's movies, Rabun, Sepet, Gubra, Mukhsin, Muallaf, Talentime, twelve of her commercials and 2 internet shorts. It basically highlights the hidden meanings behind the words, scenes and symbols she uses in her work. I am neither a good writer nor a qualified reviewer, so I think I shall not go on trying to evaluate so much. I just wanted to share and highlight the existence of this book (not that I think it needs any assistance in making itself known). I just thought sharing is caring. So there you go. The next time you enter a bookstore, look for it.

I'm still reading the book. After completing it, I think I'm gonna go out there and look for her movies. Stay home, watch them, and drown myself in the thought of us losing such a great talent. Malaysia does need more Yasmin Ahmads. I hope the future brings in more people like her. People who are not afraid to show they have big hearts.

As an end note, I'd like to share a line Mr Amir Muhammad wrote in this book, '..God will never give us more than we can handle.' I heard the same phrase spoken to me just a few weeks back by my best friend. When I read it, the words just spoke out to me and I wanted to share it. I'm not sure what it'll mean to you. But it means a great deal to me.

Thanks for your time reading...

Codex by Lev Grossman

Category: Fiction
Type: Paperback
Condition: Slightly yellowed pages, otherwise good
Price: RM10

About to depart on his first vacation in years, Edward Wozny, a hotshot young investment banker, is sent to help one of his firm's most important and mysterious clients. His task is to search their library stacks for a precious medieval codex, a treasure kept sealed away for many years and for many reasons. Enlisting the help of passionate medievalist Margaret Napier, Edward is determined to solve the mystery of the codex-to understand its significance to his wealthy clients, and to decipher the seeming parallels between the legend of the codex and an obsessive role-playing computer game that has absorbed him in the dark hours of the night.

Cool for Cats by Jessica Adams

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It's 1979 and Linda Tyler is the assistant cook at her local Chinese restaurant, engaged to a bank clerk in a small town called Withingdean, when she answers an ad in a music paper. Suddenly, she gets the job that everyone else in England wants. Within days she leaves behind her predictable existence, along with her fiance, and moves to London, starting work on NWW, a punk and new wave music magazine. Before too long, records by Blondie, Squeeze and The Clash are landing on her desk, and she's on the guest list for every concert in town. After that, the challenge for Linda is discovering who and what she loves most - her freedom, or the Australian photographer who's just walked into her life? When she finally works out the answer, though, she will also have to make the most important decision of her life.

The Ring by Danielle Steel

Category: Fiction
Type: Paperback
Condition: Fold lines on spine, browned pages
Price: RM5

In Germany engulfed by war and hatred, the beautiful wife of an influential banker fell in love with a German author. His Jewish heritage led them both to death. The husband who survives her lives on to protect her memory, and their children. And the ring he passes on to his daughter, Ariana von Gotthard, remains a bond of love between them. Separated from her family, and unable to escape Germany, Ariana is finally arrested. A young Nazi officer offers her survival and hope for the future. Tragedy and a sudden twist of fate carries Ariana to America, to a chilling deception, and a new life of unfamiliar terrors. Her past seemingly lost forever, her future uncertain, the ring she still clings to is all she has left of her father and brother. And in time it will become the bridge from her past to her future.

Scruples Two by Judith Krantz

Category: Fiction
Type: Paperback
Condition: Fold lines on spine, browned pages
Price: RM5

Billy Ikehorn is a contemporary woman living on a grand scale. A self-made beauty and the exquisite owner of a fabled Beverley Hills boutique called Scruples and married to the Oscar-winning producer Vito Orsini. To those who only know her from afar, she seems to lead a dream existence, wrapped in all the power of glamout, riches, and success. Then a stranger arrives in Billy's life--Gigi Orsini, Vito's sixteen-year-old daughter by an early marriage. Independent, deeply interesting, street-smart, and enchantingly humorous, Gigi captures Billy's heart and sets in motion a train of utterly unexpected events. Life with Gigi hold both joy and pain for Spider Elliot and Valentine O'Neill, Billy's partners in Scruples. The many new freinds Gigi makes during the next five years will grow important to Billy in ways she could never have forseen. Scruples Two moves swiflty and unexpectadly, filled with breathtaking change, from California to New York to Paris, following two of the most fascinating and touching females in modern fiction, Billy Ikehorn and Gigi Orsini.

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle

Category: Non-fiction/Travel
Type: Paperback
Condition: Good
Price: RM15

Enjoy an irresistible feast of humour and discover the joys of French rural living with Peter Mayle's bestselling, much-loved account of "A Year In Provence". Peter Mayle and his wife did what most of us only imagine doing when they made their long-cherished dream of a life abroad a reality: throwing caution to the wind, they bought a glorious two hundred year-old farmhouse in the Luberon Valley and began a new life. In a year that begins with a marathon lunch and continues with a host of gastronomic delights, they also survive the unexpected and often hilarious curiosities of rural life. From mastering the local accent and enduring invasion by bumbling builders, to discovering the finer points of boules and goat-racing, all the earthy pleasures of Provencal life are conjured up in this enchanting portrait.

Perfect Strangers by Robyn Sisman

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Suze Wilding and Lloyd Rockwell are perfect strangers. She lives in London, he lives in New York. They know nothing about each other - until one summer they exchange jobs and homes.

Suze is impetuous, impatient and NEVER wants to get married. Lloyd is complicated, cautious and contemplating marriage to eminently suitable Betsy. But when Suze discovers a plot at work to get rid of Lloyd, the two begin communicating long-distance - and they wonder what might happen if they ever met face to face...

Special Relationship by Robyn Sisman

Category: Fiction
Type: Paperback
Condition: Yellowed pages, otherwise good
Price: RM10

Renowned London literary agent Annie Hamilton never forgot Jordan Hope. And now he's back. As the saxophone-playing United States presidential hopeful, Jordan is a constant reminder to Annie of their whirlwind love affair during the heady days of Oxford in the 1960s and of the secret she's kept ever since.

Comfortably married with three wonderful children, Annie thinks her life is complete. But her son Tom, now twenty-one years old, discovers Annie's secret and his own shocking connection to it. In tumult, Tom flees to Manhattan to try to unravel the past and confront the man who might be his father, with no regard for Jordan's delicate political situation. Desperate to explain, Annie races after Tom…and straight into the arms of the man she thought she'd never see again.

Just Friends by Robyn Sisman

Category: Fiction
Type: Paperback
Condition: Fold line on front cover, sticker mark on back cover, yellowed pages
Price: RM10

Thirtysomethings Freya and Jack have been “just friends” for more than ten years. Of course, they’ve had their differences. Freya doesn’t approve of Jack’s taste for student teeny-boppers from Planet Bubblegum, and Jack has problems with Freya’s utter scorn for human frailty–especially his own.

So when Freya, dumped by her lawyer boyfriend, moves temporarily into Jack’s apartment, tensions simmer. They reach a boiling point when Jack agrees to act as Freya’s Significant Other at her step-sister’s society wedding. Now, old friends, best friends, just friends, are fighting like cats and dogs.