Two Book Nerds Talking

26/07/2024

At TBNT we’re celebrating the month of Merdeka by chatting to two of our most beloved Malaysian authors, Zen Cho and Yangsze Choo, and you’re invited to come along for the conversation!

Don’t miss this very special session on the 17th August, 4:30 pm at Eslite KL.

25/07/2024

How many of the New York Times Readers’ Choice Best Books of the 21st Century books have you read? Tell us your favorite from this list!

27/06/2024

So excited to dive into Zen Cho’s upcoming release - THE FRIEND ZONE EXPERIMENT - her first foray into contemporary romance! Think overseas Chinese, first love reconnection, family drama and lots of that signature Zen Cho uproariously funny storytelling!

Zen’s gracing Malaysia with her presence when the book lands in stores in August, so don’t miss the chance to meet her in person. TBNT will be moderating a session with Zen at Eslite Bookstores, 4:30pm on the 17th August, or book your seat to see her at Lit Books at 8pm on the same day.

21/06/2024

Pillows ✅
Comfy chair ✅
Jazzy music 🎶 ✅

Time for prep on an upcoming episode!

Can you guess what book we’re reading?

13/06/2024

Scenes from the Aēsop Women’s Library preview at Aēsop TRX, 13 June 2024.

Do visit their beautiful stores at Aēsop TRX and IOI City Mall starting today till 16 June 2024 to immerse yourself in this experience. To top it off, you get to take home a complimentary book of your choice, no purchase needed.

Cheers book nerds!

11/06/2024

TBNT was featured in Options The Edge magazine as part of the Aesop Women’s Library project

09/06/2024

TBNT is partnering with Aesop Malaysia to help get the word out about the complimentary books you can get from the Aesop Women’s Library happening at Aesop TRX, KL and Aesop IOI City Mall, Putrajaya on the 14th to the 16th June 2024.

In this week’s podcast we hit the studio with Amir Muhammad, Sharon Bakar, Dr. Sharifah Osman and Tutu Dutta to discuss Malaysian reading culture, the value of literature and what it means to have a project like the Aesop Women’s Library. Please do listen and enjoy!

For information on the books available at the Aesop Women’s Library, listen in to the first episode of this mini series:

Part 1.1: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/tbnt-x-aesop-e01-introducing-the-aesop-women-s-library-2024-voices-unbound-part-1--60236064

Part 1.2: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/tbnt-x-aesop-e01-2-introducing-the-aesop-women-s-library-2024-voices-unbound-part-2--60237715

Hello everyone! In this second special Aēsop episode, we're talking to some special guests that are no strangers to the literary scene in Kuala Lumpur. W

26/05/2024

Just wanted to share the very sweet message we received when our new episode on Butter by Asako Yuzuki dropped last week. Comments like these just make it all worthwhile! Thank you so much for tuning in and for letting us know we do have a few fans out there 🥰

16/05/2024

Throwback to the fun photo shoot day we had at Aesop HQ in Midvalley last year ahead of the Aesop Women’s Library 2023.
Here’s your heads-up to dust off your comfy shoes and flex those book-choosing fingers because guess what, AWL 2024 is coming back to town!!

22/02/2024

Guess which celebrated author we had the absolute pleasure of chatting with, and which book we will be featuring in an upcoming episode??

21/02/2024

Greetings book nerds!

It’s been a while but we’re back and we’re excited to announce that we’ll be moving into Season 7 of TBNT! 🥳

Thank you to everyone for sticking around and we hope you’re just as excited as we are for this brand new season. Stay tuned for our episode on our anticipated reads for Q1 of 2024, and we have an author interview coming up (hint: the book is about foxes).

As Honey says, the new year doesn’t start properly till after Chinese New Year. We hope you’ll join us for another good bookish year ahead! ❤️

18/11/2023

We Malaysians are endlessly fascinated by the supernatural and the uncanny, and Kopi Soh’s Looking After the Ashes is the perfect way to immerse yourself in the world of Baba Nyonya cultural beliefs and superstitions. We caught up with Kopi Soh on Zoom to discuss pantang-larangs, parenting and more. This was one of our best conversations all year! Don’t miss it.

Listen now at: https://www.spreaker.com/user/renegaderadiomy/kopi-soh-final-mixdown or search for Two Book Nerds Talking on Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

20/09/2023

Florentyna Leow's How Kyoto Breaks Your Heart is a collection about the ways in which heartbreak can fill a place and make it impossible to stay. It's a "time capsule" of her time working and living in Kyoto, and we were so enamoured with her book that we just had to have a chat with her. She's a kindred spirit and we hope you'll enjoy this tender episode (and pick up her book!).

Episode is available on all your usual podcast platforms or click the link here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/56855723

If you’d like to get your hands on her book, our lovely friends at Lit Books has it: https://litbooks.com.my/product/how-kyoto-breaks-your-heart/

16/08/2023

𝗧𝗕𝗡𝗧 𝗦𝟬𝟲𝗘𝟭𝟯 | 𝗜𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗮𝗺 𝗟𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝗟𝗶𝘁 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀

We got to talk to award-winning short story writer Saras Manickam back on 15 July 2023 live at our favourite indie bookshop Lit Books, PJ. We get into her short story collection 𝙈𝙮 𝙈𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙋𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙪 and it was such a lovely conversation.

Saras writes with much empathy and understanding of human complexities, tackling difficult issues like racism, mistreatment of migrant workers, and domestic abuse. Her short story collection is filled with violence, tenderness, and hope.

We hope you enjoy this episode and do pick up 𝙈𝙮 𝙈𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙋𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙪!

Episode is available on all podcasting platforms or click here to listen: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/56477040

17/07/2023

Can’t wait for this!! We still remember when we had our video conference book club with Yangsze Choo, give us a shoutout if you were there with us at Lit Books!

Cover reveal! I’m so thrilled to share that my third novel, The Fox Wife, will be published by Henry Holt next February, 2024. Love the beautiful cover illustration by the talented Patrick Leger!

27/05/2023

Important announcement!

23/05/2023

This is the third special episode brought to you by Aesop Malaysia in conjunction with the Aesop Women's Library: Malaysia Edition.

In this episode, we got Hanna Alkaf, Viji Krishnamoorthy, Alina Rastam, Qurratul ‘Ain, and 梁靖芬 Leong Ching Foon aboard to talk to us about being a woman writer in Malaysia. It is such an illuminating episode and we think we can confidently say that our women writers are forces to be reckoned with.

This is the third special episode brought to you by Aesop Malaysia in conjunction with the Aesop Women's Library: Malaysia Edition. In this episode, we got Hanna Alkaf, Viji Krishnamoorthy, Alina Rastam, Qurratul ‘Ain, and 梁靖芬 Leong Ching Foon aboard to talk to us about being a woman writer ...

15/05/2023

Save the dates everyone! 🤩

FREE BOOKS!! 🤯

🌸 The Aesop Women’s Library 📚 Join us as Aesop proudly presents their inaugural Women's Library in Malaysia! 🇲🇾 From May 26–28, visit Aesop Pavilion and Aesop The Gardens Mall in Kuala Lumpur, and from June 2–4, head to Aesop Gurney Plaza, Penang. 📖 Customers will get one FREE book of their choice when visiting the stores on these dates. To help local independent book publishers and bookstores. 🤗

We're thrilled to be a part of this incredible journey alongside six local publishing houses. 💫 Penwings is honored to feature our best-selling title, Midnight Monologues by Charissa Ong Ty (), on Aesop’s shelves along with other local authors and titles diverse in genre; from novels to short stories to poetry, ranging from emerging writers to seasoned authors 🤩📚

🎙️ Don't miss the literary podcast episode with Aesop and Two Book Nerds Talking (), where we delve into the power of self-expression through the written world. 🎧 Check out the link in our bio for this inspiring conversation! ✨

14/05/2023

Introducing The Aesop Women's Library!

During this time, the shelves of Aesop Pavilion, Aesop Gardens, and Aesop Gurney Plaza will be cleared of products to make way for significant works of literature by Malaysian women authors.The selection is sprawling in genre and spirit: from emerging voices to seasoned authors, and short stories to novels and poetry. To find out more, listen to this episode!

You'd be spoilt for choice as there will be 25 titles to choose from. Do visit the selected Aesop stores and these books will be complimentary, no purchase required.

Save these dates:
26-28 May 2023 (Aesop Pavilion, KL and Aesop The Gardens Mall)
2-4 June 2023 (Aesop Gurney Plaza, Penang)

Cheers book nerds!

Introducing The Aesop Women's Library! During this time, the shelves of Aesop Pavilion, Aesop Gardens, and Aesop Gurney Plaza will be cleared of products to make way for significant works of literature by Malayisan women authors.The selection is sprawling in genre and spirit: from emerging voices to...

14/05/2023

Cheers booknerds!

This is the second episode of our Aesop Women's Library special. In this episode, Honey and Diana will be talking about some of their picks for the fiction and poetry collections that will be availble at the selected Aesop stores soon.

You will be spoilt for choice and we're here to help highlight some titles that might interest you.

Listen to the episode to hear Honey and Diana recite poetry in Bahasa and Mandarin 😉

Enjoy!

Cheers booknerds! This is the second episode of our Aesop Women's Library special. In this episode, Honey and Diana will be talking about some of their picks for the fiction and poetry collections that will be availble at the selected Aesop stores soon. You will be spoilt for choice and we're here t...

08/05/2023

The TBNT team hard at work on our new project! Can you guess what we’re working on that combines delicious skincare with a celebration of Malaysian literature?

Thank you Annice for being so lovely and patient with us ❤️✨

06/05/2023

Thanks for the mention, The Beat Kuala Lumpur!

Book nerds of the world, unite! Founded by Honey and Diana, "Two Book Nerds Talking" offers Southeast Asian perspectives on all things reading and literature.

26/04/2023

Who knows you better than your best friend? Who knows your secrets, your fears, your desires, your strange imperfect self?

Get ready to be all in your feels with We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman.
Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years, and when Edi is diagnosed with terminal cancer and put into hospice care, Ash's life is reshaped.

Catherine Newman has managed to write a book that is both sad and funny, and we highly recommend this read. Buddy read with your best friend and make sure to have a good cry and hug after.

On a happier note, do stay till the end of the episode for a very exciting announcement! You don't want to miss it 😉

Cheers!

Listen here:

Who knows you better than your best friend? Who knows your secrets, your fears, your desires, your strange imperfect self? Get ready to be all in your feels with We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman. Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years, and when Edi is diagnosed with...

25/04/2023

THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

We got to speak to the fantastic on her new book 𝘼 𝘿𝙖𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙁𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙣 𝙉𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩.

This is the prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree, set some 500 years before and it’s about the period known as the Great Sorrow, or Grief of Ages. Get your copy of the book at bookstores and stay tuned for the episode!

Big thank you to for this opportunity 🤩

12/04/2023

So many wonderful upcoming reads in this new box Definitely Books - A community for book lovers sent us, which one would you read first?

05/04/2023

𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗔 𝗔𝗟𝗞𝗔𝗙 @ 𝗟𝗜𝗧 𝗕𝗢𝗢𝗞𝗦

Cheers book nerds! Our fav indie bookshop is having an event with .alkaf again!

Come join Honey, Elaine from Lit Books, and of course, Hanna Alkaf for a lovely morning talking about Hanna’s latest book, 𝙃𝙖𝙢𝙧𝙖 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙅𝙪𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙈𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨.

Get your tickets below and we’ll see you on the 6th of May! 🤩

Tickets: https://litbooks.com.my/product/author-event-with-hanna-alkaf/?fbclid=PAAaak3_kmqBETf6I4IPjEqnGnXnxz02dpvN4GcpR9mFM7qRPOFvIkxRvxKrI

02/03/2023

“Just teach me!” Farah burst out, more hyper than Geeta had ever seen her. Her good eye was manic with possibility. “I can stop Samir, too. I just need to know how you did it, how you got away with it.”
“And by stop him, you mean you want to—”
“Kill him!” Farah said, her voice far too loud. She chopped one hand on the opposite’s palm with a meaty thunk. “Get rid of him. Take him out. Give him a dog’s death.” She clicked her tongue as her thumb sliced across her throat.”

———-

Five years ago, Geeta lost her no-good husband. As in, she actually lost him—he walked out on her and she has no idea where he is. But in her remote village in India, rumor has it that Geeta killed him. And it’s a rumor that just won’t die.

It turns out that being known as a “self-made” widow comes with some perks. Freedom must look good on Geeta, because now other women are asking for her“expertise,” making her an unwitting consultant for husband disposal.

With Geeta’s dangerous reputation becoming a double-edged sword, she has to find a way to protect the life she’s built—but even the best-laid plans of would-be widows tend to go awry. What happens next sets in motion a chain of events that will change everything, not just for Geeta, but for all the women in their village.

Filled with clever criminals, second chances, and wry and witty women, Parini Shroff’s The Bandit Queens is a razor-sharp debut of humor and heart that readers won’t soon forget.

22/02/2023

I read quite a bit of King. As one fren says, “a King book is like a palate cleanser, an in between books.” And having picked up his books through the years, there is a special place in my heart for his fantasies. The Eyes of The Dragon remains one of my favourites and his fantasies often exist within the same sphere- the man in black in Dark Tower is the villainous Flagg in Dragon. And there’s often a kingdom in peril, a boy coming face to face with a portal and having to rise to the occasion like a metaphor for growing up.

In Fairy Tale, the boy is Charlie who promised he will do good if his father stopped drinking. And then one day he saves Howard Bowditch, an old man with an old dog (named Radar). Confession: whenever there’s a dog in a book my heart always sinks a little because I DON’T WANT THE DOG TO DIE. So Charlie strikes up a friendship with Bowditch and got his house when the old man dies. And then, the very chilled pace of the book picks up. Bowditch has a shed and in this shed there is a trapdoor, and down this trapdoor is a path to another world. This is what Bowditch is protecting.

In this world, Charlie meets grey people whose faces are slowly eroding, a phenomenon of something monstrous in charge of the land. There r elements of body horror here and blood sport and ghostly guards. There is also a magic sundial that can turn back time.

All throughout this, Charlie finds stories and characters that are eerily familiar like he is living through fairy tales gone askew (and the notion that all lore and tales have a common origin). There is nothing you have not read or heard and seen before but in King’s hands you are invested and you want to know where it leads and, how monstrous the monster. And you want to know that good can triumph over old evil and ordinary people can be heroes. Pick this up if you fancy a little fantasy with a side of horror. And does the dog survive? Well you just have to read this book 😬

19/02/2023

I don’t envy the bookstore staff who has to decide where best to shelve by Lily Brooks-Dalton. Is it a contemporary novel about family dynamics? Does it belong on a shelf with other post-apocalyptic novels? Or is it rightly a fantasy about the next evolution of the human race?

In The Light Pirate, we meet a family living in Florida. Kirby is an electrical line worker, his job an increasingly vital and deadly one as adverse weather threatens an electrical grid stretched to its limits. His young wife, Frida, struggles to acclimatise herself to her new role as stepmother to Kirby’s young boys while heavily pregnant. As a huge storm bears down upon the family Frida goes into labour. By the time the hurricane has passed, the family - and the world around them - will be deeply, irrevocably changed. Wanda, child of the storm, must learn to survive in this terrifying new world.

Many post-apocalyptic narratives portray a future that arrives with a bang - a nuclear fallout, a global pandemic or asteroid collision that heralds the collapse of the social structure. The Light Pirate feels so much more terrifying for its realistic vision of the slow creep of decline caused by aging civil infrastructures, the apathy of government, the willful ignorance of climate reality by the general populace, and even the inadequacies of the family unit for a survivalist future.

Brooks-Dalton is equally concerned with society’s inadequate preparation for what is almost certainly an incipient reality, while dreaming of the advent of a new, better humanity. She’s written a beautifully insightful and deeply empathetic novel that manages to be both bleakly prophetic and yet wildly hopeful, a narrative that holds a lens to so many of the problems that demand our immediate attention and urgent action.

25/01/2023

✨ 𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗘✨

We’ve finally sat ourselves down in the studio to bring you some of our anticipated reads of the first half of 2023!

Ranging from fantasy to non-fiction, a dash of a VERY much talked about 'memoir', dreadful and hopeful reads about climate change, we've come up with a mixed bag of titles and genres to suit everyone's taste.

We're getting back into the grove of bringing you more bookish content so do stay tuned! If you have not checked out our , do check it out and hopefully it prompts you to pick up one or a few interesting reads this year. Cheers!

Cheers booknerds! It's been a hot minute since you've heard our dulcet voices. Life certainly got crazy towards the end of 2022 but we've finally sat ourselves down in the studio to bring you some of our anticipated reads of the first half of 2023! Ranging from fantasy to non-fiction, a dash of a VE...