Lat Collection

Datuk Mohamed Nor Khalid a.k.a Lat was born in a village called Kota Baharu in Perak, not to be confused with Kota Bharu the capital of Kelantan. He had a wonderful talent for drawing as a child and drew excellent comics. At the age of 9, his gifted talent began to yield his family income. His first real book was Tiga Sekawan, a story about three friends who banded together to catch robbers. The book was published in his sixth year at Jalan Pasir Puteh Primary School in Ipoh. His publisher paid him 25 Ringgit for his service. By 1968, Lat was earning 100 Ringgit a month from his work.
He later moved to Kuala Lumpur to become a cartoonist. Lat later joined the New Straits Times as a crime reporter but later on became a cartoonist. His first book Kampung Boy, an autobiography of his life was published in 1979 and sold thousands of copies within three months. Kampung Boy was published in France by a French publisher. An American edition of Kampung Boy was published by First Second Books in August 2006. This was the first of his books to be published in the United States. His second American release, Town Boy, is scheduled for release in October 2007. His cartoons reflect his view about Malaysian life and the world.
The main theme of Lat's oeuvre is life in multi-racial Malaysia, ranging from deeply personal memories ("Kampung Boy"), political satire (often lampooning the heated debates between the two major political parties, UMNO and PAS, as well as taking a satirical swipe at every major government policy as they are announced, living life abroad from the Malaysian point of view and the ever-changing relationships between the different ethnic groups. He often mixes his social commentaries with humorous passages and slapstick.

Paint

Paint is the essential guide to the most popular painting mediums; watercolor, acrylic, oil, colored pencil and pastel. Edited by Amy Jeynes, Paint is fifteen step-by-step demonstrations that you work along with top artists from blank paper or canvas to finished painting. It is full of quality photos and illustrations as guidance for you to move from the basic skills to the master essential intermediate skills. It is for intermediate artists looking challenge themselves with new mediums.
I bought Paint from Kinokuniya, KLCC, KL for ‘Afi and all. Art is one of 'Afi favourites apart from his innovative & creative talent in computering, skatebording, etc.

Naguib Mahfouzs' Collections

These are Nana's collection. She is really obsessed with the late Naguib Mahfouz, novelist and great Egyptian writer. She had finished the Harafish and planned to buy the 2005 collection called The Seventh Heaven. Born into a lower middle-class Muslim family in the Gamaleyya quarter of Cairo on 11 December 1911, Naguib Mahfouz was named after Professor Naguib Pasha Mahfouz , the renowned Coptic physician who delivered him. He was an Egyptian novelist who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature and regarded as one of the first contemporary writers of Arabic literature, along with Tawfiq el-Hakim, to explore themes of existentialism. Mahfouz was the seventh and the youngest child in a family that had five boys and two girls. The family lived in two popular districts of the town, in el-Gamaleyya, from where they moved in 1924 to el-Abbaseyya, then a new Cairo suburb; both provided the backdrop for many of Mahfouz's writings. His father, whom Mahfouz described as having been "old-fashioned", was a civil servant, and Mahfouz eventually followed in his footsteps. In his childhood Mahfouz read extensively. His mother often took him to museums and Egyptian history later became a major theme in many of his books.The Mahfouz family were devout Muslims and Mahfouz had a strictly Islamic upbringing. In a future interview, he painfully elaborated on the stern religious climate at home during his childhood years. He stated that "You would never have thought that an artist would emerge from that family".

Before he departed this transitory world, in July 2006, Mahfouz sustained head injury as a result of a fall. He remained ill until his death on August 30, 2006 in a Cairo hospital.
In his old age Mahfouz became nearly blind, and though he continued to write, he had difficulties in holding a pen or a pencil. He also had to abandon his daily habit of meeting his friends at coffeehouses. Prior to his death, he suffered from a bleeding ulcer, kidney problems, and cardiac failure.
Mahfouz was accorded a state funeral with full military honors on August 31, 2006 in Cairo. His funeral took place in the el-Rashdan Mosque in Nasr City on the outskirts of Cairo.
Mahfouz once dreamed that all the social classes of Egypt, including the very poor, would join his funeral procession. However, attendance was tightly restricted by the Egyptian government amid protest by mourners.