Who knew that a book I purchased just a month ago (and grew absolutely wild about!) would land me the opportunity to meet with the author himself? This indeed became a rare reality for me when I came face to face with Daniel Ziv, author of Jakarta Inside Out, a book that I simply raved about in my previous "certifiably mad" JIO book review.

We met recently in Kuala Lumpur after I had written the Indonesian expatriate a congratulatory email for his funny and elucidative masterpiece on Jakarta's everyday city life and pop culture. During the short but precious amount of time of our encounter, I thoroughly enjoyed his company (and I hope he did mine, too), talking about our interests such as traveling, Indonesia, and, of course, my feedback about his work.

Daniel delighted me further when he said "I bet Malaysia doesn't have this, yet," with a twinkle in his eye as he fished out from his back pack a gleaming new copy of Jakarta Inside Out, Second Edition! I was simply bowled over with joy. To add to my growing hysterics I was also given a poster of the book which was mass printed for the official launching of Mr. Ziv's book last September in Jakarta, and also an invite to the aforementioned ceremony. Highly treasured collectibles for me? Most definitely!

JIO poster, hanging bodaciously in my room

JIO invite to official launch, mint in its plastic wrap

There are some differences and improvements in the 2nd edition of JIO, which include corrections of spelling errors from the 1st edition. In all honesty, these alleged spelling mistakes in the first edition went totally undetected by me, despite me pompously declaring to Daniel that I read his book cover to cover. Oh heck, I was so mesmerized by all the cool photos, ok?

In my humble opinion, if you are interested to get Daniel Ziv's book, you may want to wait until the second edition of Jakarta Inside Out becomes available in your local bookstore (if it isnt, already), for one very good reason. Let's take a tour of what's new in the second edition of Jakarta Inside Out, then I'll tell you what that one very good reason is, shall we?

1) A Slight Addition to the Cover

It is quite easy to differentiate the first edition JIO from the second just by a glance at the cover alone. On the cover of JIO (second edition), there is a little blurb from the Far Eastern Economic Review magazine printed on the top left which states: "Ziv expertly weaves city life with the tumultuous politics of the past five years." The first edition pretty much just has the picture of the tukang es man.

2) The Back Covers are Different too...

I personally liked the back cover of the first edition better because of that cleverly taken photo on there of a spion (rear view mirror) reflecting a bajaj driver taking a break from his work. It was decided however that the second edition do without the photo; instead extracts were included from various reviews of the book from the likes of The Jakarta Post, Tempo Magazine, and Asia Observer.

(Hey, if you didn't believe my word that JIO is awesome, you can read the credible testimonies from those publications I just listed out on the back of the second edition.)

3) Clearer Kretek photo!

All photos in the second edition chapters of JIO have stayed true to their predecessors but one: the Kretek photo. The 1st edition Kretek chapter containing a photo of the clove-scented cigarette burning against a blur background has been modified to reflect a sharper photo of a man blissfully inhaling his rokok.

4) The Book Binding is Stronger!

This, dear readers, is the "one very good reason" why I think anyone should buy the second edition of Jakarta Inside Out instead of the first one. Probably the most important quality of JIO, second edition: the binding and glue that hold the pages to its spine is much stronger than the first edition's!

In my JIO 1st edition book review, I had mentioned that my book pages came apart from the melting glue which I thought was due to the hot weather Malaysia was having.

Apparently all the first edition Jakarta Inside Out books are prone to this glue defect. If you already own the first edition of JIO you may want to keep some super glue around handy, especially if you get so engrossed with the book to the point of compulsive page flipping. (Don't feel embarassed, I was suffering from the same disorder myself. I'm over it now. I think.)

I was very overwhelmed when Daniel gave me the second edition to make up for the book binding flaw in the first edition that I bought. Thank you Daniel.

And of course, I sincerely believe that any favorite book of mine becomes especially priceless when the author actually signs it.