Silverfish Books will be eight this month

Silverfish Books will be eight this month, on the 26th of June to be exact. To some of you it might seem like we have been around for ever, but to us it feels like, "Has it really been that long?!"

Many of you will remember our beginnings at Desa Sri Hartamas. That was in 1999, in the pre mega-bookstore era of KL, right after the Asian currency crisis. Crazy. When first established the only other place you could get a decent book in KL was from Skoob. That was the reason for setting it up in the first place. People (at that time) thought a cafe in a bookshop was a novel idea, but all we wanted was a cup of tea (or coffee) while we had a yadda-yadda with our customers.(We still do.)

Desa Sri Hartamas was new at that time. Taxi drivers didn't know where it was, a bus came in every hour (or whenever the driver felt like it) and parking was murder. We got tired of constantly answering questions over the phone like, Where is Sri Hartamas, ah?In KL, ah? We decided to move So Bangsar, it was. Only upstairs lot available, so be it. We couldn't afford the predatory rentals of the downstairs lots, anyway.

Then we got into publishing through Silverfish New Writing 1 in 2001, organised the first Kuala Lumpur International Literary Festival in 2004, and we have been otherwise keeping ourselves busy - not letting moss grow under our feet and that kind of thing. Business has been okay but not brilliant, what with the book industry in the country intent on defying gravity and all that. But, let's not go there.

We are not having any special anniversary do this year, but we could make Salleh ben Joned's readings from Adam's Dream on Saturday 7th of July at 5.30pm (yes, we have changed the date though Salleh's birthday is on the 4th) at Silverfish Books a double celebration. Hmmm. A few bottles of wine should do it, no?