Book Mania

Yanqi, you are right.

I do need help from my housemate after all. I know I complained about her in my previous post, but I can’t be more grateful to her now than before.

Why? When boredom descends and she has a stack of The Princess Diaries books, I couldn’t help myself from knocking on her door instead.

She took out a box full of novels (half of them in Chinese) and motioned me to pick whichever book I would like to borrow. And so, in my unkempt room, half of my housemate’s book collection is strewn everywhere – bed, table, chair, rack etc.

***

My book mania started middle of last week. I went to the library to borrow a few books on Thursday. The night before, I checked out Curtin’s library catalogue online and to my surprise, it does have quite a substantial amount of fiction novels. I ended up borrowing “The Inheritance of Loss” by Kiran Desai, “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett, “The Rain Before It Falls” by Jonathan Coe and lastly, “Writing fiction: creative and critical approaches” by Amanda Boulter. I looked high and low for “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini (same person who wrote “The Kite Runner”) and “The White Tiger: a novel” by Aravind Adiga. Both of them are currently on loan. Grrr.

Then, today I went to the city with WH. WH went on job-hunting in Northbridge while I went on book-hunting. Thanks to my housemate for that wonderful tip of hers, now I know that the State Library sells pre-read library books at LOW prices. *Note: Prices vary depending on genre.*

Most novels are being sold at 2 dollars! Very, very low prices... I know but I have to contend with my books having “The Library Board of WA” labels and library cards being permanently stuck to their front covers forever. I went into the bookshop, and was very surprised that all the books are very new. Sure, they have the ‘used’ look but they still look quite good to me. I had such a tough time looking for the books I want to read, because there were so many on the shelves that I just don’t know what to choose. Most of them are cheesy adult romance... eew. The names of the authors hardly ring any bells, save for a few like Danielle Steel or Stephen King (more eew).

Then, I saw “The Rice Mother” by Rani Manicka (a Malaysian author). Woah, it was the very same book I wanted to buy at MPH 2 years back but I couldn’t bring myself to do so because it costs RM69.90. And now it costs 2 dollars. With the current exchange rate, it would cost me RM5.60. What a bargain! I grabbed that and kept on browsing. And things were looking up ever since. I saw 3 other books that appealed to me and hopefully, they are worth my money.

3 other books I picked at the shop are:

1) ‘Silent Playgrounds’ by Danuta Reah. (‘A terrifying novel of psychological suspense’, says the front cover. I hope it lives up to my expectation!)

2) ‘The Nature of Blood’ by Caryl Phillips (‘An unforgettable novel about loss and persecution, about courage and betrayal, and about the pain yet absolute necessity of human memory’, the book proclaims boldly.)

3) An embroidery book. (Go ahead and laugh - I have a penchant to buy craft-sy stuff ala Martha Stewart).

All four books cost me RM26.60. Hehe, not bad at all, huh?

Since WH already went for job-hunting on her own, I went window-shopping alone – for the very first time. It was an unnerving experience. I had to keep on lookout for my personal safety. This means taking care not to bump into anyone, or hanging on tightly onto my bag. And also keep reminding myself of where I should go to next.

I went into Angus & Robertson bookstore on Murray Street. Boy, it was huge! It has an extensive range of books. Kids and adolescent stuffs are a floor below but the ground floor has all the latest books. The store displayed all top 100 books as voted by readers, taking up the space of several shelves. What a clever marketing tool. I almost wanted to grab one novel when I stopped to look at the price. 20-over dollars for a book, which is equivalent to half of my grocery bill for a week! Convert that figure to RM, I would have to say goodbye to approximately RM100! And I thought MPH is sucking up people’s blood. Turns out Aussie bookstores are much BIGGER blood-suckers. I ended up not buying anything, except for a couple of cute greeting cards.

So, note to self: Buy second-hand books in Aussie; new books in Malaysia.