Books

I just spent a good 3 hours in Newslink, reading about all sorts of things ranging from Tiger Wood's affair to 'Places to eat in Taiping'. There was this book about 'The Worst Invention of Mankind' and 'Karaoke' was surprisingly in the list. Perhaps I should go back and check out the reason.

These couple of years, I realised that I could potentially spend hours in bookshops. It's like I'm in a zone where almost every type of books appeal to me, be it self-help books, fictions, traveling magazines, etc. I remember telling Ann Bell, "I love buying books but would never finish reading them." She found it pretty weird but that sentence still very much describes me.

You see, I may be interested in a particular book when I first saw it but it may eventually lie untouched in my cupboard after being scanned by the cashier. Perhaps I have the ADD thingy that Barney has. My attention diverges too quickly. Thus, it may be best that I just pay a weekly visit to bookshops and flip through all sorts of books.

All books are interesting in their own way, addressing different aspects of our lives and representing the hard work of their respective authors. Unfortunately, their price usually puts potential buyers off. It may also be impractical to keep buying books due to storage issue and the fact that they may not even be re-read.

Yi Sung showed me his e-book about a week ago. I was really impressed by its features and practicality, though Sung said he would miss the sight of his bookshelves should e-book totally eliminates the need to print books in the future. Perhaps some of us would miss the act of flipping pages, the dog ears, bookmarks, etc. These could be some of the things we like about reading and e-book takes away all that.

I think in the future, I'll end up bringing my children to bookshops and let them discover that there's so much to learn and every book is special in its own way.