Books and Me
I have been a book reader ever since I could remember. You could put me in a bookstore, and I would scan every single shelf until whoever brought me there got fed up and pull me kicking and screaming out of the store. I read anything I can put my hands on, books, magazine, brochures, anything.
My childhood is filled with Enid Blyton: Famous Five, Secret Seven, then Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. My favourite activity was to thumb through old copies of Reader’s Digest, even during primary school, Reader’s Digest wasn’t a problem for me.
Mills & Boon/Harlequin romance novels, Sweet Valley High and V.C. Andrews dominated the early part of my secondary schools years. Vampire madness then ensued with Anne Rice and the Vampire Chronicles. It didn’t help that the 1st book was immortalized on film with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. You Twilight fans, I was way ahead of you with Lestat and his ilk.
Somehow, during my university years, I got hooked with Sci-Fi, especially Isaac Asimov. The Foundation series was great, but I really loved his stories on Elijah Baley solving crime with his robot partner. The library’s fiction section became a favourite haunt, and for some reason not many students check out books from there. On a good year, I will go through 30-40 books a year.
Yes, I have bought and read all 7 Harry Potter books. Goblet of Fire is my favourite.
When I have read a book by an author, and loved it, I would seek to read all his other works. This happened to the great Terry Pratchett, Robert Rankin, John Irving, Murakami, Jane Austen, Gaiman, and Anne Rice. An author’s writing style, apart from his stories, must appeal to me. The author’s style must be able to bring me into the world he/she is writing about. When I can understand the mind of the protagonist, I will sacrifice precious sleep to get to the end of the story.
Popular fiction is more my cup of tea, I like to be entertained with good stories. Heavy classics are a bit too ‘heavy’ to go through. Some classics are ok, but even those are deemed ‘popular’ classics, like works from Jane Austen.
I have started to read non-fiction like autobiographies. Some of the lives described in them are larger than life. Maybe that’s why this genre appeals to me too.
To keep track of my reading, I’ll maintain a page here, and list a book each time I finish one. Click here to view the page.
Have not discovered any new authors that catches my eye. Think I’ll get Murakami’s new book, IQ84.
My favourite book of all time?
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”
Tags: books
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