Liberty Books: 50 years’ of serenity

I hadn’t noticed that I had been standing and reading this beautiful book since an hour. It was only when my phone rang that I realize that I have been reading the book, uninterrupted by anyone, all this time.

 It wasn’t the first time I had landed at this particular bookshop and had gone through the same exercise. This wasn’t your average bookshop, trust me. It’s a sanctuary. A sanctuary for readers.

The peace, the calm, the uninterrupted time spent gazing and browsing through books is an experience that defies the idea that you are standing in just a plain structure of Mortar and brick; instead, to a true book lover it would be no less than a place of worship, where you submit yourself to literary gods.

And this sanctuary went from being a simple Kiosk owned by Mr. Abdul Hussain in 1952 to a chain of bookstores .From working in a bookshop to having a bookstore of his own, Mr. Hussain did not just start Liberty books –he started a reader’s movement with the ideology of “Reading liberates your mind”.

Liberty emerged in 1961, starting its operations at PC and later to diffuse itself at Marriot and Sheraton.

Despite the books industry in Pakistan being in a poor state of affairs, Liberty opened its first books clearance outlet at Boat Basin in 1985, and later introduced itself to more readers by opening an outlet at Park towers in 2000.

From retail to distribution, Liberty Books covers all. With a motivated and well-trained workforce, Liberty Books represents itself as Pakistan’s leading book store internationally. Its popularity amongst the UK and US publishers can be realized from the fact that it has been the exclusive distributor for many popular series such as Harry Potter etc.

But Liberty Books has not been a successful venture only because of the assortments of books it has to offer. Its artillery includes association with renowned authors like Mohammad Hanif, Asif Noorani, H.M.Naqvi and Zahid Hussain.

The Odyssey of Liberty Books yet continues to seduce its dedicated readers by offering them a special discount cushion on its 50^th birthday celebrations. The readers are heartbeat of Liberty Books and half a century long relationship would just not be complete unless they are treated royally! There is a lot more from where those beautiful books are pouring in from for the last 50 years. Stay tuned to the 50 year celebrations at Liberty Books!

Zufah Ansari

THE WORLD IN 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future

A vivid forecast of our planet in the year 2050 by a rising star in geoscience, distilling cutting-edge research into four global forces: demographic trends, natural resource demand, climate change, and globalization. 

The world’s population is exploding, wild species are vanishing, our environment is degrading, and the costs of resources from oil to water are going nowhere but up. So what kind of world are we leaving for our children and grandchildren? Geoscientist and Guggenheim fellow Laurence Smith draws on the latest global modeling research to construct a sweeping thought experiment on what our world will be like in 2050. The result is both good news and bad: Eight nations of the Arctic Rim (including the United States) will become increasingly prosperous, powerful, and politically stable, while those closer to the equator will face water shortages, aging populations, and crowded megacities sapped by the rising costs of energy and coastal flooding.

The World in 2050 combines the lessons of geography and history with state-of-the-art model projections and analytical data-everything from climate dynamics and resource stocks to age distributions and economic growth projections. But Smith offers more than a compendium of statistics and studies he spent fifteen months traveling the Arctic Rim, collecting stories and insights that resonate throughout the book. It is an approach much like Jared Diamond took in Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse, a work of geoscientific investigation rich in the appreciation of human diversity.

Packed with stunning photographs, original maps, and informative tables, this is the most authoritative, balanced, and compelling account available of the world of challenges and opportunities that we will leave for our children.

To order, visit: http://www.libertybooks.com/books/science-fiction/the-world-in-2050-four-forces-shaping-civilizations-northern-future.html

Interview: Jeff Kinney – Author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Question:Greg seems to get into trouble a lot. Do you like him as a person?

Jeff Kinney:That’s a great question! While I was writing this book, I struggled with the fact that Greg is really not that likable a person. In most books, the protagonist is someone who is quite likable, but Greg does not have many redeeming qualities. I hoped that, despite this, a reader could still enjoy the story.

But there’s always room for a character to grow and learn, so by the end of the book, don’t be surprised if you see some changes in Greg.

Question:Which do you like doing more: writing or drawing cartoons?

Jeff Kinney:Both writing and drawing are a struggle for me. I am cursed with being a very slow illustrator, and this book requires at least 1,000 illustrations. So sometimes, the joy of illustrating is a bit diminished by the amount of time that illustrating takes. What I enjoy is seeing the words and illustrations come together on the page. To move the ideas in my head onto a printed (or Web) page is a real joy.

Question:What do you like to do when you’re not writing or drawing cartoons?

Jeff Kinney:I love to do my “real” work, which is developing new games and content for Funbrain. I also love to spend time with my sons, Will and Grant, and my wife, Julie. I love to play volleyball, which I do twice a week. And I’m always up for the latest reality show on television.

Question:When you were a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?

Jeff Kinney:I’ve always wanted to be a cartoonist, and I’ve always had an interest in computer programming. So in a sense, I got to be exactly what I hoped to be when I was younger.

Question:Did you keep a journal when you were growing up?

Jeff Kinney:I didn’t keep a journal when I was younger, but I wish I had. That would have made writing this book a whole lot easier! But about five years ago, I started keeping a journal. The reason I started a journal was because I was wasting too much time watching television and playing video games, and I wasn’t doing anything to pursue my cartooning aspirations. I thought that perhaps if I documented what I did every day, it would “shame” me into spending more time working on my cartoons. Ironically, keeping a journal was what inspired me to create this book. I liked the interplay of words and pictures in my real journal, and I thought it would be fun to create a fictional journal based on my childhood.

I would recommend to any kid out there to keep a journal. Most of my friends can’t remember much about their childhood at all, and they wish they could. Even if you only keep a journal for a short while, I guarantee that you’ll treasure it for the rest of your life.

Question:Do you have any suggestions for how to write a journal?

Jeff Kinney:Yes. Keep your entries short and sweet, so that you don’t feel that you have to write a lot each day. That kind of pressure can become overwhelming, and it can force you to quit. I stopped writing in the “real” journal I kept a few years ago for that very reason – because there was too much pressure to continue.

There’s a whole new type of journal out there today – Web logs, or “blogs.” I think blogs are fascinating. They allow kids to keep a daily journal that their friends, and even people they’ve never met, can read on the Internet. What’s really unique about blogs is that they allow the writer to reach an audience and to get feedback. Feedback is very important to a writer, because it keeps them going. If I were to start-up my personal journal again today, I would consider writing a blog. The downside of a blog is that it’s not private. Some people might not like to have their personal thoughts read by the public.

Question:What the hardest thing about being a writer?

Jeff Kinney:The hardest thing about being a writer is being discriminating about what you put down on paper. It’s very easy to just write everything that comes into your head, and voila! You have a book. But you might not have a very good book.

I had to force myself to exercise discretion when I wroteDiary of a Wimpy Kid. I realized I was writing too quickly, and a lot of material I was writing wasn’t very funny. So I decided that before I started writing the actual book, I was going to come up with 77 “idea pages,” and that I’d only include the best ideas in the book. It ended up taking me four years to fill up my 77 idea pages, but it was worth it. I was able to cut out about 80 percent of the material that wasn’t worth including, and I still had enough ideas for a book that will be 1,800 pages long on the Web.

Question:What’s the best thing about being a writer?

Jeff Kinney:The best thing about being a writer is holding a real, printed book in your hands. When I was in college, I published a book of my cartoons, and I’ll never forget the feeling of thumbing through it. I haven’t yet publishedDiary of a Wimpy Kidin print, but when I do, I expect to feel an enormous sense of satisfaction.

It’s also very fun to receive attention for your work. In college, I was interviewed byThe Washington Postand theBaltimore Sun, and those interviews were highlights of my life.

Interview: Steve Inskeep – Author of Instant City

The NPR Morning Edition host talks about Pakistan, the subject of his new book, Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi, and why some people might find him annoying.

What drew you to Pakistan and Karachi, the country’s booming city of 13 million? It began as a place that I was assigned to go, but I began thinking that Karachi was a place where I could see the future. Because it is this unbelievably quickly growing city—and there are cities like that all around the world. This urban landscape is being created before our eyes, and it feeds on itself.

How stable is the political situation in Pakistan?It is stable in a massively unstable way, if that makes any sense. Obviously it’s a gravely serious political situation, and it’s a country where you think things can’t get any worse, and then there’s a giant flood. And yet there is a resilience in the people. When I’ve been in Karachi, there have been weeks when the entire city will shut down because there’s a massive gunfight, assassinations, people driving around on motorcycles with weapons and killing people. Businesses close, kids can’t get to school. Then the violence abates, and the city just comes to life again.

How is Karachi different from the area where Osama bin Laden was hiding? One remarkable difference is the role of women and the visibility of women. If you go to the far northwest, women almost universally have to cover their hair, and they will not be in positions of authority. In Karachi, there will be women who dress conservatively, but there will also be women who have been allowed to go get an education themselves. Women can make a wider range of choices about their lives.