I used to love reading. I still do but it’s different nowadays. Now, I read mostly out of necessity or when I actually have the time. Which is a real tragedy because when I was younger, I used to have a real love affair with books. Give me a book any day and forget about seeing me for breakfast, lunch and/or dinner. I would lie on my bed, transfixed until I was done reading it from cover to cover. I remember one Christmas when my Dad asked me what present I wanted Santa to give me that year and I said excitedly, ‘Ten new Enid Blytons please!’
I got fifteen new Enids that year. God, I loved Santa.
It all started one fine day when my mom sat me down on her lap, spread out a book in front of me and began reading, taking pains to point out each and every word being enunciated. I was about six (I think). It took me about three days to get the hang of it and once I did, I was unstoppable. I raged through the second tier of my family’s bookshelf within a week and by the end of the month, I began demanding for a collection of my own.
To save on money (and trees), my folks began dumping me in the old Marine Parade Library on weekends while they did their grocery shopping at Parkway. I couldn’t be happier. I always went home maxed out on the number of books I could borrow on my library card (and occasionally my mom and dad as well). To be honest I don’t really remember what I read. I vaguely recall a few wizards and gnomes, talking rabbits stick out as well for some reason, alongside Cheshire cats and... oh wait. I’m getting my wonderlands mixed up now.
Moving on.
I remember the first real ‘series’ that got me ‘serialised’ and I am proud to say that I still have them displayed prominently (albeit very much tattered and horribly taped-up) on my shelf. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. I think I must have read all seven of them about a dozen times over. I even went so far as to bang against the back of my wardrobe once (okay twice), praying and hoping to God that I would tumble out into some fantastic world where an ancient prophecy would reveal me as the not-so-reluctant heroine slash future queen of those lands. My reign would have been called ‘The Golden Age’.
Needless to say, it never happened.
By the time I entered my teenage years, I was done with fantastic stories. Twelve years of living taught me that life isn’t fantastic, rabbits have really sharp teeth (and they hurt!), Nancy Drew got it lucky and, most importantly, fantastic stories were for uncool, childish people. If you wanted to fit in an all-girls school, you had to:
- Have really nice hair.
- Be seen carrying around the latest ‘It’ bag.
- Stay on top of gossip.
No. 3 also meant spending less time reading and more time yakking away in class. Not forgetting those late-night three/four/five-way conversations over the phone, which sounds shallow enough now but hey, those were the essential rules in life for any girl who wanted to ‘fit in’. And what can I say? I wanted to fit in. Desperately.
So I stopped reading for a while as my superficial, socially-awkward teenage life took over. My library card got buried beneath stacks of shopping receipts and before I knew it, the library at Marine Parade had morphed into NTUC Fairprice.
And then something amazing happened. The new Marine Parade library became the ‘It’ place to hang out after school, thanks by and large to the Starbucks outlet located just beside it. I began studying there with my friends, blowing away hundreds of dollars on Green Tea Frappachinos and more mindless gossip sessions. But like sailors drawn to the elusive call of a mermaid, I found myself wandering into the library in between toilet brakes and slowly but wonderfully, I found myself browsing through the shelves again.
You know, it’s true what they say: you never forget your first love. It was like performing CPR on my old library card. Once fully resuscitated, it began swiping strong and proud. I tore through the romance, mystery and thriller sections. Philips, King, Patterson, Gibson... you name em’, I read em’.
And then something even more amazing happened.
My shrieking, boy-oogling, Cleo-loving girlfriends jumped onto the bandwagon as well. Sure we still gossiped, but every now and then, we would interject it with a couple of book recommendations/personal thoughts about the plot, characters and themes/which book from which author was his or her best... and et cetera.
In the years since, I’ve grown up quite a bit, both as a person and in terms of my relationship with ‘reading’ in general. I've moved house a couple of times, gone onto university and the libraries I do visit nowadays tend to lie smack in the middle of whichever school I’m in. I’ve since lost the time to visit public libraries and where I do get a chance to read, its mostly been chosen for me by some professor or another. Which isn’t too bad. Some of the readings I’ve done over the years have been really enlightening. I’m definitely a lot more interested in real-world issues and this has influenced my choice of reading material nowadays. I tend to favour biographies and over fiction and war accounts over wand-flicking wizards.
But like good wine, it gets better with age. The Chronicles of Narnia still sits proudly alongside my Hot Shot by Susan Elizabeth Philips. Poe’s Selected Tales does seem a bit out of place in between the two but I’m sure Othello doesn’t mind keeping him company. Likewise for Nabokov’s Lolita and, of course, Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. I could go on but I doubt anyone who reads this is really interested what I have on my shelf.
The point is, I’m grateful to all the books I’ve read. I’ve never come out of a book thinking, ‘what a waste of time!’ Each new story has always taught me something new, no matter how small or trivial. Sure, they do lie to you sometimes and make you feel depressed about your own life but still, they are always there for you when you need them, offering up a quote or two (or a page to cry on).
And the best part? Well... who am I to say? It’s different for everybody, right? You won’t know until you start reading.
And on that bombshell, cheers!
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