18.May.2008 Sunday Salon Week #2: Bookish Weekend
Friday night
Went to library near my house. Spent a couple of hours checking out the fiction shelves, resisting not to borrow any books, since I still have very high piles everywhere at home. At the end I couldn’t resist to borrow A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo. Thought it’s just a funny light book I’ll read in between other books.
I also browsed through the real 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die book. Since it’s freakishly heavy, I decided to just read it there a bit instead of taking it home. Got a couple of ideas for the 10 out 100 out of 1001 Books YMRBYD Challenge that I’m doing. Decided to read #40 Platform – Michael Houellebecq for group [31-40] and #51 An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma for group [51-60]. As I remember, Platform is a translated from French book about a sad guy and Thai prostitute, An Obedient Father is about a woman who was raped by her father as a child. What grim books. I feel depressed already. I might change my mind later. Just that among the other ones, there wasn’t really any that jumped out at me.
Saturday
Dropped by my local library in the morning to return 2 books: Never Let Me Go and Kabul Beauty School. The latter I haven’t finished. Will continue again later. Then went to gym. After lunch, went to my favorite used bookstore at Bras Basah. Bought The Gathering – Anne Enright for a buck. I don’t really want to read the book, but it’s still in good condition. So what the heck, if I don’t read it at the end, I could give it to someone who would, or wild-release it.
Dropped by the National Library. It’s always creepy full in the weekend. I guess it’s a good thing. Showing how much interest people have in books. I think The National Library is fuller these days because they’ve closed down the library@Orchard. They really should have more libraries in city areas. Seriously, the whole floor is so full you have to walk carefully otherwise you’d step on all these people sitting on the sofas, on the grounds, between the shelves, etc etc.
I suddenly had a strong urge to check out Japanese authors. So I was torn between Junichiro Tanizaki, Yasuri Kawabata, Banana Yoshimoto, and Natsume Soseki. The latter 3 I’ve never read their books. Decided on Tanizaki’s Naomi. I’m worried with the older translated books since I read Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe. It was dry and it wasn’t pleasant. I’m guessing that the more recent translations should be better. So the books that look too old put me off a bit.
Dropped by Kinokuniya after that. The biggest Japanese bookstore in Singapore, full of variety of English, Chinese, and Japanese books. I always find it interesting that the books put on the front shelves in Kino are vastly different than those of Borders. The interesting one is this memoir about a cult society in central of USA, where they did the most ridiculous things like polygamy and marrying underage girls. You’d think that’s something that happened in uncivilized society in a jungle far far away, but nooo. I’ve read articles on it before, but never got around to read any book on it. I wanna read it! It’s Escape by Carolyn Jessop.
I was also reminded by Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which according to my dad the second most-read book in the whole world after Bible. I don’t know where he got the fact, but I’ve been told the stories since I was small, playing various games on it, and so on. I reckon I need to read them one day. It’s three very thick books though, so I don’t know when I will have the extra energy to start it. Maybe I should ask around if people want to read along.
Sunday
What a bookish weekend. I spent my Sunday morning reading The Kite Runner. I’m third through the book. Already teary on the first dozen of pages or so.
The weather is extremely hot these days. It’s hard for me to read in the afternoon because it can get really hot. I wish rainy season will come again soon.
