Book A Book

wow As a bibloophile im super thrilled Tsutaya bookshop has finally opened in Pavilion Bukit Jalil.hope they stock better variety of novels like yoko ogawa and the translated japanese fiction writers.have an Asean and Central Asian writers section.we need to widen and open up our minds to Vietnamese,Cambodian,Burmese,Phillipines writers and those from Uzbekistan etc. Now i just cant wait to read Tan Twan Engs novel the new fiction the House of Doors.looking at the fabulous blazing red blooms behind him,i think South Africa where he resides now is a garden city.i was lucky to get his personal autograph to my book the garden of evening mists.i was transported to another time when i read it.but the movie starring Hiroshi Abe spoiled it.should have asked Ken Watanabe or Joe Odagiri who have better English proficiency to play the main lead. The colonial influence blends East meets West influence as my favourite writer Somerset Maugham once stayed in E n O hotel in Penang and when i first visited Bangkok,i took a cab to Mandarin Oriental and went to the lounge and took a photo there n then took a leisurely river cruise to explore Ayutthaya. just read Fareed Zakarias book 10 lessons for a post pandemic world which should be read by our public policy makers on what happened when the US which scores highly on global health security index and has leading medical research institutes like CDC with 2% of world population had one of the highest Covid fatality rates at 25% because of public administration andfailure,slow to act n leadership that didnt take the risks seriously.there are some points i dont agree with Farid that feels a democratic system in which there is free and open dissemination of information works best in handling a pandemic.when its people tout freedom not to wear masks or have their activity monitored via apps ,then contact tracing is hard and public healthcare system buckles under unprecedented mass admissions. on the point that the quality of government is more important than the quantity ,i support his argument.when the federal govt and the state administrators dont cooperate well,procedures and red tapes slow down swift actions to mobilize resources like building new medical facilities or deploying medical staff. A bloated administration has too much bureaucratic red tapes and conflict of interest.he takes lessons from history to look at the success and failures of public policies.a crisis can be a catalyst for change as this is time to tackle global issues of climate change but look at it, a war and economic sanctions post pandemic is driving nations with green agenda like Germany n Austria back to using non sustainable coal for energy.economic sanctions cause supply chain disruption and food insecurity that will cause rising hunger in developing nations especially as protectionism cause nations to take self interest of domestic consumers priority over international export markets.so the change is for the better or a turn for the worse?