Read this first: The following article is a rant - there is no order, no flow, no rationale for it being written. You are warned!

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I don't know what came over me this past few weeks but I am going through this crazy reading phase - I just have this craving to just sit down or lie down somewhere and read. It might have something to do with being down with flu for the past week or so - I alternate amongst being in a drugged sleep, in a semi-drugged consciousness or coughing and sneezing myself into unconsciousness. I know I am a bookworm, but even bookish old me had not had such a strong craving to read for a very long time - my reading materials for the past few months were quite pathetic - the daily newspapers, the weekly Economist, monthly National Geographic, Style and all the other work-related readings. Substantial perhaps, but they are not books. Real wonderful books that you can feel the comforting weight in your hands and just can't wait to sink your teeth into, shutting out everything else as the words work their magic and create a world which for all purposes at that point in time, is real. To laugh, to dream, to cry.

I actually read quite a number of my old books over the course of the past two weeks - some are re-readings - The Christmas Mystery, Imperial Woman, The Rough Guide to Singapore, Destiny of Souls  - others are books that I have partially finished or haven't even looked at since I bought them - The Sane Society, Arts of Southeast Asia, Trading Up, International History of the Twentieth Century, The Un-domestic Goddess.

This evening was quite spectacular too - instead of leaving office early since it is Friday, I actually was going through my wish-list at the Amazon website and copying down the titles so that I can go seek out the books at MPH. I realised that over the years (I started the list in 1999) I have accumulated 65 titles on my wish list! The sad part is, when I went to MPH at Raffles City this evening, only one title was available (The Other Boleyn Girl), and that is not even one of the ones I really wanted. I particularly want to get my hands on Wolf Totem (there is a fascinating review of it as well as an interview with the author in The New York Times recently) and the Left Behind series (I've heard so much about it!). I am still too tired out with all that sneezing and coughing to make my way down to Kinokuniya at Orchard, where hopefully there is a better selection. At least I think I had previously spotted His Dark Materials series, The Jane Austen Book Club, Sex and the City, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design there!

But I think there may quite a number of books I can't get here - like The Legal Lampoon: A Biased Unfair and Completely Accurate Law Review from Non Sequitur, Dead Lawyers and Other Pleasant Thoughts and Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare. One reason why I always fantasize about going to the US - I can order books from Amazon without the horrendous delivery charges (I am already using vPost USA to try to minimise the damage to my pocket). The last time I ordered books from Amazon must be more than a year ago - my friends and I combined our orders to bring the cost down. I remembered that the box was delivered to my office, and those of us who placed orders all gathered in my room - the anticipation and excited chatter as we happily tore through the packaging to get our books - it was like Christmas come early!

To be honest though, I still have quite a number of books at home that I haven't touched since I bought them, and even more that are partially read. That's what been keeping me from buying more books for the longest time - A History of God, The 9/11 Commission Report, Long Walk to Freedom, Essays in Singapore Legal History, The Origins of Thai Art .... - they are all sitting on my desk looking at me accusingly as I type. It is almost as if they were screaming - "Me! Me! What about me? Have you forgotten about me?". Spooky I tell you.

I know I sound mad in this entry, but books does that to me - whether I am reading one of them, or simply browsing through the bookshops or online. When I was a kid, my parents would drop me off at a book-store while they go shopping on Sundays. When I was in  secondary school, my favourite Friday afternoon outing was to visit the bookstores in town while I make my way to my parent's shop in the Bugis area - in those days I remembered there wasn't that great a selection of bookshops - my route usually takes me to EPB at Plaza Singapura (which I recalled wasn't that great), MPH at Stamford Road (where I spent most of my time) and finally Brash Basah which had many bookshops with the most interesting books on all kinds of stuff. During JC, I discovered Tower Books (which had lovely editions of classics), and Borders set up in Singapore in my second year of JC, and by the time I reached university Kinokuniya at Ngee Ann City was also on the scene. And of course, Amazon. I just love Amazon - when I was there earlier this evening, I was happily looking through all those Foundation series novels, recalling the times I read the books, and looking out for those other SF titles by Asimov that I might have missed - Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke are my favourite SF authors. Nobody, but nobody write better SF than those two! Oh and how can I forget - the NUS Co-op has a small but wonderful collection of books that are also quite competitively priced.

I always feel that throwing books away, however, tattered or old, is a sin. They should be passed on and on and on and on until they disintegrate. When I was in secondary school, I helped the librarians and teachers-in-charge throwing out the old books when we shifted to the current premises at Tanjong Rhu, and I picked up so many so many old and tattered books that were being thrown away. I remembered that my mum was speechless when she opened the door one evening to see me carrying a whole carton of old tattered books in my arms, grinning like I won the lottery. I did - I got almost the full collection of SF works by Arthur C Clark from those throw-aways and at least one-third of SF works by Isaac Asimov, not to mention many other books. Some of them are still with me. Others have been passed on - to friends, to my brother, to younger relatives, and of course, some have literally dis-integrated.