the vitriolic nads has landed me with a book meme. it couldn’t have arrived at a worse time. book-wise, i’m on a hiatus.

i don’t know what it is. MRCPath exam revision? my anal retentiveness in sorting out the added info (with CD cover to boot) in the hundreds of downloaded music on my iTunes? my still spanking new desktop (which i pay more attention to then the now semi-defunct SKY decoder)? whatever it is, it took me months to finish the last book i read. anyways, no apologies if you think this is the worst meme you’d ever read in a blog. probably because it damn well is!

How many books do I own?
a pitiful 163. i actually did a count of the stuff i have on my bookshelves (and the toilet). and this count includes my pathology text, cookbooks and the odd graphic novels. they are still books in my book (hey!). magazines not included lah.

The last book I bought?
The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & other stories by Tim Burton. yes, that tim burton. this is a collection of simple poems short of a dirty limerick. twisted as the gnarled tree branches in his films, dark as the gotham city he envisaged. i wish i can say more, as i have only read like two chapters (each two pages long) last night. stick boy on fire! stick boy on fire!

oh ya. the murakami in the sidebar? also a book of shorts. residing currently in the laundry basket next to the royal bog.

The last book I read?

Life of Pi by Yann Martel. read about it here. haha.

Five books that mean a lot to me?

aiyo. i just read them lah.

1. Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road by Neil Peart. after a devastating life event that occurred last april (which coincided with the birth of this blog), i started to read this well-written post-death-of-daughter-then-wife-trauma travel memoir by the drummer of rush. it showed me that if you think you have it bad, some people are much worse off. his story had a happy ending. i don’t see mine yet. this review of mine masuk book review blog ooo. hahaha.

2. Mat Som by Lat. okay, by all accounts this isn’t strictly a book, but it is such a good yarn. lat wrote (and drew, obviously) very well on this semi-autobiographical story of a part-time arts columnist for a local newspaper in KL. and this was the book that sparked my interest in sastera melayu moden. i never get tired from re-reading it (i don’t have the english version) to this very day. i love it because i see a lot of myself in som. part dreamer, part realist and trying his very hard to get by.

3. The Three Little Pigs by Joseph Jacobs. this grade 1 ladybird book was my first ever english read as a 5-year old. i learnt to read it with all the different voices (as per mama’s instructions). no, i don’t read like that anymore, if you are wondering.

4. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. i was introduced to murakami by my mate, leQ. like the protagonist, i lead a mundane life peppered with disasters (i better stop opening myself up to you lot now. haha.). it’s bad enough i get through a day in a daze, but reading the bird chronicle on top of it? forget illicit drugs, man. his other book, sputnik sweetheart, was much more sober.

5. Two Faces by Syed Husin Ali. the fastest read i have ever done on a book. this was about detention under the ISA after the student riots in the early 1970’s. way better than raja petra’s books on the same subject matter. scared the bejesus out of me. ’nuff said.

now i am to pass this to five others. i say, why don’t any of you pembaca budiman do the meme on your blogs as i really can’t think of anyone at the moment. yo, lisa o queen of books and all that is kundera 🙂 ! pick yin? idlan? anuarF? have you guys done one? i’ll be surprised if you guys haven’t! satu lagi orang woi!
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footnote: to the avid reader of this blog (if there’s any), this list is different from that seen here. they were good reads but may not mean much to me personally.