Food For The Brain?

Just as music is the food for the soul (or, in the words of a certain bard "food of love", in his "night" comedy), books are the food for the brain and mind. Food we eat get digested into the stomach, we gyrate to the music, but in reading, it enriches our mind and opens our world into other things. A good book is determined by the reader not putting it down and devouring page by page, and when he / she is finally done, close the book and sigh and have all kinds of mixed feelings. That is how I usually feel when I read a real good book.

The common complaint about Singaporeans per se is that they do not read enough. When I was in school, primary through secondary, my classmates and I could actually discuss about books, recommend readings to each other and generally comparing one book to another, one author to another. Yet when I entered tertiary, I could hardly find anyone to discuss books with me. That was really disappointing as I always thought if people could score well enough to enter university, they should be rather well-read, is it not? Later am I to find out that students here are only exam-smart, but when it comes to other things, they have no idea (not all of course).

I attended another lecture earlier on. Needless to say, today's session was only half full. So close to the Chinese New Year, the Chinese themselves have other commitments than attending classes. I would not have gone except the lecture covered philosophy, Shakespeare and poetry, a few of my favourite topics, so I would never miss it for anything!

Just as well I went for classes, as in the end, I managed to get some set books for my course (which is way too advanced reading), as well as some books which are not required for my course but I got them anyway as I like the story and author. I spent close to S$400.00 on books alone! (Note to self : no more splurging for the rest of the month!) One will wonder how in the world I can get so many books, but this is nothing already. Should see me during book fairs when I could grab almost half the stock!

Anyway, here are the books, which I feel make rather good reading :

1. Snow Flower And The Secret Fan (Lisa See)
2. Top Girls (Caryl Churchill)
3. A Doll's House (Henrik Ibsen)
4. Far From The Madding Crowd (Thomas Hardy)
5. The Awakening And Other Stories (Kate Chopin)
6. The Portrait Of A Lady (Henry James)
7. Five Plays (Anton Chekhov)
8. Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen)
9. The Woman In White (Wilkie Collins)
10. Orlando (Virgina Woolf)
11. Life of Galileo (Bertolt Brecht)
12. Waiting For Godot (Samuel Beckett)
13. Prufrock And Other Observations (T. S. Eliot)
14. Table For Three : More Tales Of Saffy And Amanda (Jason Hahn)
15. The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time (Mark Haddon) - the first edition with the small red cover
16. Poirot : The Complete Ariadne Oliver (Volume 2) (Agatha Christie)
17. Poirot : Four Classic Cases (Agatha Christie)
18. The Inheritance Of Loss (Kiran Desai) - finally managed to get a copy!
19. The Diary Of Lady Murasaki (translated by Richard Bowring)
20. The Origin Of Species (Charles Darwin)
21. Animal Farm (George Orwell)
22. At First Sight (Nicholas Sparks)
23. True Believer (Nicholas Sparks)
24. The Wedding (Nicholas Sparks) - a pity I could not find "The Notebook", otherwise the set will be complete!
25. This Thing Of Darkness (Harry Thompson) - a whopping 875 pages, no less!