Bookshelf in review - Part 1.

There was one night when I was drinking chrysanthemum tea, and the idea of documenting my bookshelf came back to me. I put down my drink and photographed sections of my ENETRI, which was excessively dusty. Then I thought, "No, this shouldn't be the way. If I want to write on something I own, better make it look neat and organised,". So I spent one whole night de-dusting and rearranging my books, magazines, files and ornaments.

This documentary is divided into four posts; each post containing description of a single row of shelf. Part 2 comes after the end of this post, up to Part 4. Now, let's start with the top shelf.

Section 1.

The magazine files contain not so important items, like half-used notebooks, several local magazines and folders used to store magazine and newspaper cuttings, posters, packaging and other trash dating back to 2002-2004. Then there are several booklets on Swedish culture which I obtained from a Swedish design fair last year. The books we have here, they aren't particularly noteworthy [except the title by M Sasek; I had to put it up there because it wouldn't fit into the lower shelves]. Two of them are heavily Scandinavia-related. The ones with the red spine were bought as a bundle [Haruki Murakami and Lewis Carroll titles at an offer price], with short story guru Dave Eggers and a rather cumbersome DIY book; very useful to be stacked with other hardcovers to serve as a makeshift bedside table.

Section 2.

Entering the design-centric section where I place mostly-hardcover titles on industrial design, art history, architecture and interiors, and magazines. The one with a binder's spine is a photocopy of a book on Iakov Chernikhov's Constructivist illustrations and philosophy. I haven't open Francis D K Ching's book for years. The Bauhaus book is probably my most-treasured Taschen title [this reminds me of someone telling me that the reason why Taschen books are cheap, compared to other books of the same category, is because they are secretly funded by a worldwide pornography trade]. The book with a grey spine was a gift from Teknion, a Canadian furniture company. Several years back, my schoolmates and I were invited to tour their ultra-elite manufacturing plant in Klang. The book next to it is about Stefan Sagmeister's works until 2001. I have to admit that the post I wrote about me meeting him is one of the most badly-written post I've ever published on VOX [teenybopper tendencies and all, and no, I'm not going to hyperlink it].

Section 3.

One of the notable titles in this section are by Charles Wallschlaeger and Cynthia Busic-Snyder. I got this book, Basic Visual Concepts and Principles from one of my Switzerland-educated lecturers back when I first stepped into design school. I think all [or at least, majority] of designers, perhaps mostly those old-timers, have this book in a tattered, 'post-it notes sticking out', weathered condition since it provides very basic yet vital understanding of design, whether it's 2-D or 3-D. Plus, its images were all from the age of Letrasets, airbrushing, keeping your proportions in check through grids instead of 'holding the shift key', sequential image transformation and all those good manual work, with very little display of computer-generated graphics. So, in a nutshell, if there is one designer who hasn't come across this book [let alone gain knowledge from it], they might be [just might be] one of those 'pretenders' who sit on Quark Express / InDesign all day, tightening the kerns in their Helvetica Neue-dominated corporate identity [a new practice known as 'keming'], because it's so trendy to use Helvetica for everything ever since the namesake movie came out two years ago.

I don't mean to write so much on this designer's handbook but compared to other books in the picture, this one has the most valuable content. Those books by Benrik are perfect examples of kitschy trash. I bought ABZ for a real bargain at Popular, less than half the price of the ones sold at Times. A good compilation of World War era posters, mainly from Europe. The rest are a number of stock image catalogues by Corbis, Photodisc, Ericksonstock and a couple of Lürzer's Int'l Archive, all taken from my father's office. The spine that reads 'KUALA LUMPUR' is a city guidebook published in the year 1986, written and photographed by a San Francisco native. It's very good at giving the reader an idea of how KL was truly like [and not just from a tourist's point-of-view] in the 1980s . It mentions Le Coq D'or restaurant, authentic Chettis on Petaling Street, outdated views of the city skyline during the construction of the Maybank Tower and many other eccentricities of KL that no longer exist today. I recall seeing this guidebook still on sale at Times, Sunway Pyramid, half a decade ago. Somewhere within are two presentations of the disappointing high end-hopeful mall, Avenue K.

Section 4.

More books which I have nicked from my father's office; two books showcasing works by advertising company Minale Tattersfield [I recently did an online research for the company and found out that Marcello Minale was shot dead while kayaking back in 2001, or something], both ten years apart. And then there's two more bulky books - a compilation of advertisements across all media, and another stock image book. And having written the last sentence, I shook my head over the number of books occupying my bookshelf that... should just be sent off to where it came from because what I do right now is not related to stock images at all.

Ah, those days of language-learning, aiming for a dream life in Berlin... is now under the list of 'projek-projek tergendala' [shelved projects]. The book next to 'beginner's german', however, was a gift from my former tutor. She thought a self-help book should do the trick in helping me cope with my 15-year-old blues. I ended up looking at the illustrations instead of reading it. The rest are encyclopaedias from my nerd period. I should highlight the book titled 'Malaysia Dalam Sejarah 3' which is a secondary school textbook from the year 1979, bought from a local bookstore that was having a clearance sale. I find it way more informative and old-school, compared to the textbook I used back in Form 4. Of course, it doesn't include much information on the leftist figures, since that almost everything printed in this country are edited by the government. Another special book in this section are the UNICEF-supported Children Just Like Me and Celebration! They were my most-viewed books during my primary school years. The writers travel around the world to show the kind of life kids were living, with their own distinctive cultures, practices, hobbies, beliefs and dreams. When I was given the first book back in 1995, it immediately sparked my interest in travelling the world. I kind of have a wish now, that maybe when I have the support and experience, I'd like to write a similar book, documenting people in general and not just kids.

Oh! That was only one shelf, and I've got three more to go. The post ends here; too much text can really drain your consciousness away. The second shelf will be documented in the next post.