Hi all.
This is a memoir from our 4th Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. Total pages - 892 and took me over a month to complete it and determined to do so before new semester starts because i learnt a lot in the process. But of course read, pause, grab another book, continue, read, pause and repeat haha. When I first grabbed it, I did not expect the memoir to be so much like a history book. I was amazed. (side story: i went to my student's house & i saw the book on the shelf and teringat, wait i have not read this and i still remember the book was pricey over rm100 i think - balik rumah terus cari yang ebook, lepas tu bila dah best baca cari yang buku fizikal pulak nak beli haih macam2 :p)
The memoir was published over a decade ago, in year 2012. There are altogether 62 chapters. I enjoyed the book and looked for the physical version in the second hand bookstores. I even thought of printing some chapters that i wanted to relate to the class because some of it are so relatable and would be a beneficial addition.
As an avid reader, i always know whether or not the book is a repeat or not. For this one, a very thick memoir - the way i would repeat it is by picking the chapters that i wanna know about because the amount of history and information there are worth it. Because it is quite lengthy, the moment you finished the book you already forgot what was said in the earlier chapters but still as i said, i learnt a lot haha
Here are some things that i wanna mention;
- Tun M lived his teenage years through war, British and Japanese occupation
- He was a doctor in practice and even had a clinic on his own. When he lose the second general election he competed in, he returned to the clinic as a doctor which he first sold to his partner when he won in the previous election
- All three previous prime ministers were lawyers trained in London, but he was a medical doctor from a Singaporean college where he met Tun Dr. Hasmah, one of few Malay female doctors at that time
- Hmm apa lagi eh..
- It has to be noted that he criticized PAS a lot haha in his writing but Tun M now already made peace with TGHH
- Tun M contributed hugely to the development of Malaysia like having our first national car, paving way to create Putrajaya, PETRONAS, Malaysia Airlines, KLCC twin towers a lot more i cant recall now
- He was the prime minister during the 1998 currency crisis, ops lalang, arrest of our current pm :o, reformation etc
- Tun M said on Anwar which was once his deputy - "Anwar was a skilled politician and a persuasive demagogue - always convincing, he also knew how to endear himself to people". Okei saya ulang! (if you know you know)
Never overstay your welcome - his mom said and i recalled one phrase in the paper when he stepped down - berhenti makan sebelum kenyang and he also said that was one of his health tips
formula 1 mentioned :D
Yup. I think that's all.
For more unserious book reviews, feel free to visit my bookish site here. Warning: only for fun people :D
