08 Dec November Bestsellers

With the George Town Literary Festival at the end of the month, it is not at all surprising that most (though not quite all) last month’s bestsellers were from authors who made panel appearances. With his charm and wit, Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh’s Floating on a Malayan Breeze took the laurels, with John Krich’s engaging A Fork in Asia’s Road ploughing a similar furrow and doing well. Marco Ferrarese’s singular style of presentation – with tales of mounting Mongolian horses (don’t ask) – clearly won over new fans. As usual, Fixi were well represented with Regina Ibrahim’s new novel, Perjalanan, Tunku Halim’s old warhorse, Horror Stories, and the last of the KL Noir anthologies, Yellow. It was pleasing to see so many interested in the distinctive voices of Miguel Syjuco, Shivani Sivagurunathan and Brian Stoddart. It was the legend Kim Gooi who bucked the trend of festival authors, by the way. Here’s the full list.

1 Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh, Floating on a Malayan Breeze (NUS Press)
2 Marco Ferrarese, Nazi Goreng (Monsoon Books)
3 John Krich, A Fork in Asia’s Road (Marshall Cevendish)
4 Kim Gooi, The Poet of Keng Tung Jail (Kim Gooi)
5 Kris Williamson (ed.), KL Noir Yellow (Fixi)
7= Regina Ibrahim, Perjalanan (Fixi)
7= Tunku Halim, Horror Stories (Fixi)
9= Miguel Syjuco, Ilustrado (Picador)
9= Shivani Sivagurunathan (UPM Press)
9= Brian Stoddart, A Madras Miasma (Crime Wave Press)