By The Book

Our book club ventures into a galaxy far, far away with BFM’s Arvind Yuvaraj, to re-acquaint ourselves with a beloved screen character: Princess Leia. Claudia Gray’s young adult novel, Leia: Princess of Alderaan introduces us to a 16-year-old Leia Organa, and takes us along on her journey of growing into her legacy. And as a nod to Father’s Day, we discuss our favourite literary dads, both complex and beloved, from Game of Thrones, The Godfather, and Harry Potter.

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What if we could reconstruct the library of the humorist, author, and literary icon that is Mark Twain? What would we be able to find out about how he read, and why is that knowledge important? We find out with Alan Gribben, professor of English at Auburn University, who's spent the better part of his academic life hunting down the books of Mark Twain. He's also (not coincidentally) the author of Mark Twain's Literary Resources: A Reconstruction of His Library and Reading. After that, we also give a book readers' review of the adaptation of Good Omens, and reply to some correspondence.

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The Hari Raya celebrations begin this week, and along with it, reflection on the values that are often associated with the holiday. We take this time to talk about empathy when it comes to reading, and how books have the ability to put us in someone else's position. Our picks include Anthony Bourdain's travel books, Black Beauty, Wonder, and All the Light We Cannot See.

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With the premiere of the highly anticipated Amazon Prime adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens, we chat about literary adaptations that have worked. Why have some movies and shows worked better than others? What are the great ones managing to capture? We discuss this and more, including Game of Thrones, Handmaid's Tale, and The Godfather.

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For this month’s book club, we turn armchair philosophers with BFM’s Haniff Baharudin, and delve into Julian Baggini’s The Pig that Wants to be Eaten: And Ninety-Nine Other Thought Experiments. The book poses 100 thought experiments drawn from the history of philosophy and ideas, leaving readers with many questions to mull over. We then round things off with some favourite books that question reality: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, and The Raw Shark Texts.

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Yangsze Choo's latest book explores 1930s Malaya, mythology, forbidden love... and weretigers. We talk to her about The Night Tiger, and the research required to evoke and describe a Malaya from the past with both accuracy and poetry.

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It’s been one year since Malaysia’s watershed elections. We mark the anniversary by discussing the books that awoke in us, in ways both overt and subtle, a sense of political awareness. Picks include George Orwell’s Animal Farm, The Diary of Anne Frank, Alan Moore’s Watchmen, and Sonny Liew’s The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye.

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For the very first edition of our monthly book club, we read Paul Kalanithi's memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, with BFM's own Tee Shiao Eek. The book chronicles his journey from neurosurgeon in training, to a patient diagnosed with stage IV metastatic lung cancer, and examines his changing relationship with medicine, time, mortality and hope. We discuss all this, and more.

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Zen Cho’s first internationally published novel, “Sorcerer to the Crown”, debuted to much acclaim. We speak to her about the pains and pleasures of writing its follow-up, “The True Queen”. And because it’s World Book Day, we get back to basics and talk about the pleasures of reading… well, just about anything!

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As the “Game of Thrones” TV show starts its final season, we reminisce about the epic fantasy book series by George R.R. Martin that started it all - and how it feels to watch a show that has now overtaken the books. We also talk about our love for epic fantasies as a whole, from David Eddings to Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower”. 

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