rechord the melodies

i renovated my room in the early part of the year, which was exciting and yet tiring. but the most mind-boggling task by far is the arranging of my storybooks. how do i do it? my dad started the ball rolling. he thought i was too slow in moving into my new bedroom, and he thought he’d help speed things up. my books went in by size. it looked nice and neat, but it was a bit hard to look for books.

then every time im bored i’d arrange a new section of the shelf, so there were pockets of genres/authors here and there. but it wasn’t good enough. you’d know, you can feel that there’s something not quite right about it.

so i went online for suggestions. there were some really good ones. arrange by cover-price, which will probably turn out with university set texts and box sets on the high end and children’s books/penguin/puffin books on the low end. i wanted to do this, but it looked far too messy in my visualisation, so i skipped it. then a suggestion to arrange by date read. i couldn’t do this even if i wanted to, because half the books in my cupboard are unread. for some odd reason i only read library books. i think this is due to the fact that there’s a due date bugging me so i feel a sense of urgency to finish reading. thus i spend all my time trying to finish reading library books that my own get neglected. that is a sad fact. i have become one of those people i despise, those who buy books for the sake of display and to appear smart and well-read. i am neither, but you wouldn’t guess that merely by looking at my bookshelf. ambitious reading projects line my shelves, all untouched. this makes me disappointed in myself.

back to the topic at hand. there was another suggestion to arrange by colour, which i tried out on one shelf. i thought it looked nice from a distance, but nobody searches for books from a distance, so i gave up. but just imagine a whole bookshelf arranged by colour! it’d look amazing, for sure.

and finally, i just went along with my gut feeling for everything. it’s mostly by genre now, and the two biggest pockets of authors belong to none other than J.K. Rowling and Roald Dahl. i used to have a lot of Enid Blytons, but they have all disappeared save some. sad. i’d really like to read Malory Towers again. i wonder what happened to my series on The Magic Faraway Tree and The Wishing(?) Flying(?) Chair? and not forgetting all those short stories too. i expect i gave them to my nieces and nephews. next time i visit their houses i shall look at their bookshelves. i remember my class girls having a discussion during recess where we all thought that Enid Blyton was a bit too structured and dry, and decided to have Roald Dahl as the author children ought to grow up with (or along those lines). after working at the student care centre, i think i’ve changed my mind. at primary four, half of them required effort, and then help, to read Secret Seven. i was highly irritated at them. in primary four, i remember being made to read Peter Pan, which i think is harder that Secret Seven. perhaps im being too harsh on them. after all, not everybody likes reading. im not sure how to think. on the one hand, giving in to them and letting them read simple books like Enid Blyton is pretty condescending. on the other hand, giving them something challenging might scare them off reading forever, which is the last thing i want to do. i guess this isn’t my problem anymore unless i go back to help out…but i still want to hear opinions, if any.

oh, an announcement. who has my Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Dahl, The Secret on Ararat by Tim LaHaye and Timeline by Crichton? i cannot find these books, and i can’t remember who i lent them to. i quite like those titles, so whoever borrowed please return! thank you!

In 2007, i began keeping a record of the books i read. the inspiration for it was quite silly, really. i stumbled upon a 读后感 from primary school days and thought about reviving it as a hobby. it didn’t quite turn out that way, but at least i kept a list of books that i read.

so at the start of the year, i read science fiction by Michael Crichton. for some reason science fiction is frowned upon by many in the literary world, and i don’t understand why. and then when some brilliant science-fiction comes up, like Brave New World by A. Huxley or Biohazard by K. Alibek or The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells or Frankenstein by Shelley, they are classified as Utopian, Memoirs or Classics. (granted, Biohazard is more a memoir which, while factual, doesn’t quite fit into science non-fiction, nor fiction, because it is so chock-full with facts.) perhaps because science fiction tends to have no literary merit and are too easy to read. before i am too embroiled in the literary arena where everybody shuns science fiction, i am proud to say i read and enjoyed The Andromeda Strain, Sphere, Eaters of the Dead, Jurassic Park and Lost World in the first half of 2007.

i was looking for this series of books i read in primary school about a girl whose wealthy father passed away and she was forced to move out from her exclusive dorm in boarding school to become a school servant so she could pay her way through school. i can’t remember the title nor the author’s name, but i’d honestly like to reread this series. if anyone knows anything about it, do tell me. anyway, while trawling through several libraries’ children’s sections, i emerged with two books- Dancing in Red Shoes Will Kill You by Dorian Cirrone and A Treasury of Ballet Stories chosen by Caroline Plaisted. The Treasury was mostly boring, about girls being determined enough to go through with pointework etc. the only interesting story was about two bitchy cliques in a dance school who kept doing horrible things to each other, like swapping the rosin for detergent powder. that was funny. although if it happened in real life a person’s career might be ruined… Dancing in Red Shoes is hilarious. and the book cover too! super funny. you can see it on my facebook. go read it for yourself, i don’t want to put spoilers here.

a children’s book which should not be read by children is Tunnels by Gordon and Williams. there is simply too much violence and maliciousness in the book. most unfortunately, and thankfully, the plot was slow-moving in the first third of the book, which puts a lot of children off. for once, im grateful for lousy writing. i think children have the rest of their lives to learn about cruelty and hardship, parents ought to keep their childhood happy and innocent. the book works as a political satire, although im not certain whether i read too much into it. really, people should be protesting against the book being marketed as a children’s book. the worst book i read all 2007.

and of all children’s books, who can forget Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? i read, i cried, i reread, and i cried again. i started reading Harry Potter in primary 3, and when it ended, i was ‘j3′. a whole decade of Harry Potter over. and Snape. omg Snape. sigh.
i know there was a lot going on in the Christian world whenever each book was published. but, well, i started reading the book as a non-Christian, and i didn’t turn bad or anything, so i don’t see anything wrong with reading it even as a Christian. there are truly cases of people becoming Satanists after reading the books, but then that’s either lack of discernment on their part, or HP was merely an excuse for what they’d always wanted to do.

did you know that Ethan Hawke is a writer? i didn’t, until i chanced upon The Hottest State in the library. quite a nice book, it talks about first love from a guy’s perspective, so the old love story felt very fresh.

Historical fiction is yet another genre shunned by people, especially after the Dan Brown fiasco. i don’t blame them. it tends to be in a read-one-read-all situation, with the switch in background information being the freshest thing. David Hewson doesn’t quite break out of that mould, but his books can be ‘once you start you can’t stop’, which is thrilling. insert his books after every 4 or 5 others, and it’ll feel fine. i read The Villa of Mysteries and The Seventh Sacrament this year.

one author who does break out of the historical fiction mould is Paul Sussman. i crown The Last Secret of the Temple the best book i read of 2007. oddly enough, i had to force myself to read it because it had a very detailed first quarter to set the book’s tone. but it was worth it. no pain, no gain. it discusses delicate political issues, which is a major plus point. in fact, the uncovering of the ’secret’ was just like icing on the cake after the wonderful narrative on the Palestinian-Israeli issue. simply brilliant.

i tend to shun books on politics, because i am not interested in it at all. i did try though, with In The Lake By The Woods by Tim O’Brien. i had really enjoyed The Things They Carried, and i thought this book would be good because of the many accolades printed on the cover. it was a disappointing read for me, because i am unable to appreciate American politics.

one funny one was Politically-Correct Bedtime Stories by Garner. Garner did a re-write of many popular tales, and it’s pretty good, although it gets boring after the fourth re-write. and then im not sure whether Neil Humphreys count as politics, but haha reading all three of his Notes from Singapore was hilarious. you keep wanting more, but unfortunately, he’s gone over to Australia so, that’s it, i guess. i bought the final book of the trilogy for yenn for christmas, but unfortunately, she had all three already! wasted. hahaha. one consolation is that at least i know yenn well enough to guess what she may like, only that my guess was too accurate. damn. hahaha.

2007 is the first year i began reading romance consciously, egged on by my girlfriends. yet, of all the love stories i read, the only light-hearted and funny one is I Take This Man… by Valerie Frankel. it’s a little black dress book, so i guess it had to be light-hearted and funny. my sister insists that Sophie Kinsella (Madeleine Wickham) is funnier, so i guess i’ll try Kinsella in 2008 or something. Memories of My Melancholy Whores was interesting. it’s my first try on Gabriel Marcia Marquez. i wanted to read something lighter before embarking on the more ambitious Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude. Memories is about a very odd, commitment-less kind of love, and it fits me just right. you don’t usually find these sort of love stories, although Jeanette Winterson matches up quite well, only that the story i read involved lesbian love, which i hadn’t experienced before but it was intense, all the same. i read several short stories in The World and Other Places before it was due, and i never found it again because orchard library closed down.

Love story of the year goes to The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Jurong Regional Library has many new, untouched copies, so go take and read. it takes some effort though, because the author likes to take you slowly through the scenes to savour each and every place. the descriptive writing may put off some people, but it feels very romantic. it isn’t just a love story, mind, it covers family tragedy, crime, cruelty etc., so please do read it for yourself. just that i read it primarily as a love story doesn’t mean it’ll be a love story for you too.

[edit] how could i forget! my favourite skater Sasha Cohen wrote Fire on Ice: Autobiography of a Champion Figure Skater. it’s not of any literary merit, but, you know, fans will be fans.