People stories win big
Memoirs and fictional families are the top picks for Malaysian readers.
MEMOIRS topped the list when it came to favourite non-fiction titles in this year’s Popular-The Star Readers’ Choice Awards.
Not surprisingly, the memoirs are none other than those of AirAsia boss Tan Sri Tony Fernandes and multi-billionaire Robert Kuok.
Flying High: My Story From AirAsia To QPR shares Fernandes’s story of how he created Malaysia’s first budget airline and turned the business into a multi-billion dollar company.
The group CEO of AirAsia is famously enthusiastic about British football and is co-chairman of Queen’s Park Rangers. Coming in second in the category was Robert Kuok: A Memoir, which was written by the reclusive Hong Kong-based Malaysian businessman with Andrew Tanzer, a longtime correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and Forbes magazine.
The book shares the 94-year-old Kuok’s amazing success story of how he built a multi-industry corporation that includes businesses in sugarcane plantations, oil, mining, finance, property, freight and publishing.
He divulges strategies and management insights, shares business principles and philosophies, as well as lessons learnt as he reflects over seven decades of doing business. The Johor-born business has been in the news again recently having been asked to join the Government’s Council of Eminent Persons.
Coming in third was
Letters To Home: Young Malaysians Write Back, edited by Ooi Kok Hin, Aish Kumar and Nik Mohamed Rashid Nik Zurin.
The editors asked young Malaysians from 24 universities across seven countries to share their fears, dreams, aspirations and hopes for our nation, compiling their thoughts into the book.
In the fiction category, Before We Forget by Michelle Yoon and Jess Teong won the top prize. The book is based on the screenplay of the hit movie The Kid From The Big Apple 2: Before We Forget.
This tale of three generations – a grandfather (Chun Gen), his daughter (Sophia) and granddaughter (Sarah) – delves into the conflict and differences between the three family members.
Sophia, estranged from her father, gives birth to and raises Sarah alone in New York. However one day, Sophia has to work in China and, unable to take Sarah along, leaves her with Chun Gen, who has never met his granddaughter. Their different lifestyles and opinions see them clashing often, but eventually they learn to adjust and grow fond of each other.
In the sequel, Chun Gen develops dementia and Sarah and Sophia both have to learn to cope, and care for him the best way they can while maintaining his dignity.
Teong directed both the movies while Yoon was assistant director on the first movie.
Meanwhile, Bernice Chauly’s Once We Were There isset during the Reformasi movement in Kuala Lumpur in the late 1990s. A young couple meet and fall in love, soon starting a small family with the arrival of a baby girl. However, when their young daughter gets kidnapped one day, they realise the ugly side of the city that is rife with child trafficking activities.
Chauly, an award-winning author, has also been festival director of the George Town Literary Festival since 2011 and lectures at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus.
London-based Felicia Yap’s novel Yesterday adds another level of suspense to a murder-mystery plot by introducing a world where nobody retains long-term memory.
The body of a beautiful woman ends up in River Cam, England. She turns out to be the mistress of a man named Mark, the prime suspect of her murder. A detective is put in charge of the case but he faces his own demons. How will the case be solved when no one on earth can retain memories from further back than two days?
Yap indeed wears many hats, including being a radioactive-cell biologist, a war historian, a Cambridge lecturer, a technology journalist, a theatre critic, a flea-market trader and a catwalk model. She has also written for The Economist magazine and the Business Times.
First prize winners in the awards took home RM3,000 and a trophy each while second and third prize winners received RM1,500 and RM1,000 respectively. Now in its 11th year, the RCA, organised by Popular Bookstores Malaysia, is an annual event that rewards and encourages local authors.
Nominees are chosen from last year’s bestselling local fiction and nonfiction titles in Popular and Harris bookstores nationwide.
The top three winners for both categories are picked by readers via a voting campaign.
The RCA is held as part of BookFest@Malaysia 2018, the country’s largest trilingual book exposition.
In its 13th edition, BookFest@Malaysia 2018 will be on daily, from 10am to 10pm, from now until June 17 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.
Admission is with purchase of the BookFest catalogue at RM2.50 per entry or RM10 for multiple entries over the nine days. Catalogues are available at all Popular and Harris bookstore outlets nationwide and also at the event’s entrance.
Entrance is free for students who are 18 years old and below and for senior citizens aged 60 and above. For more information, visit bookfestmalaysia.com.
Star Media Group Bhd is a media partner of BookFest@ Malaysia 2018. Visit The Star’s booth in Hall 3 (Link Hall) to subscribe or renew subscriptions to The Star bundle, ePaper, and StarBiz Premium. All subscribers will receive freebies and lucky draw items.