My favourite pastime

I once mentioned in my earlier post that I need a good reading book to find and re-gain my sense of literacy that seems to have lost since I completed my post-graduate studies. Well, last Saturday my hubby took me and the boys to the public library in our little town to register us as members of the library. After completing the necessary registration forms and providing the document needed to support our application, we were given the official membership cards. Truth to tell, the last time I ever set foot in a library was when I was struggling to finish writing my final project paper which was approximately half a year ago. I loan three books, two of them were taken from the literature section and the last one was from the feminism shelve. Some of you may probably wonder, “Why literature?” Like I’ve stated in my last couple of post, I am in dire need of getting a book that could help me rekindle my magic touch in my journal-writing. I thought to myself what better way to revive one’s sense of literacy than reading a literature book. One of the literature books that I borrowed which interest me the most is called “A Novel in a Year” by Louise Doughty. Honestly, I’ve never even heard of her name before I found this book. While reading her book, I soon found out that she’s a novelist with an MA in literature who had written a few novels. Intrigued by the way the bolts and nuts of novel-writing is encapsulated in honest, frank words that made her writing seems effortless, I googled up her name to learn more about this novelist who appears alien to me. The google search result indicated that Louise Doughty is a British novelist and best of all one of her novels was internationally acclaimed. Like most of my Malaysian friends, I am more familiar with American novelists like John Grisham, Stephen King, Julie Garwood, Jude Deveraux and Danielle Steel, to name a few. Well, there are some non-American novelists who made it to stardom once their books were adopted into box-office movies, JRR Tolkien and JK Rowling for instance. I guess the Americans have succeeded in Americanising most nations of the world not only through the vast promotion of their movies, television series and goods but novels as well. The Americanisation of the world’s nations; now that’s something interesting that I should blog about in my next post. (or could it be me who's been blissfully ignorant of the existance of famous writers from other part of the world?)

Let’s go back to my recent book reading. As I progressively read the chapters of Doughty’s book, I begun to recall all the books that I had read, the impact that each books left and the wonderful memories that I could somehow relate with the narration. Reading this book made me feel as though reading is an endless process. I used to have a friend who claimed that he’d be a ‘nucking fut’ if he ever comes across books that he really likes. Unlike that particular friend of mine, reading has always been my favourite pastime since I was young. My interest in reading English novels however only commenced in my early teenage years which was a little later compared to most of my classmates back then. I could distinctly remember having my very first English novel at the age of 13, the most precious birthday gift my father had ever bought me. It was one of Nancy Drew’s infamous series of investigation novel. As far as I can remember, I was really hooked on to the novel that I found it hard to put it down. That always happened to me whenever I started to read a good novel. I love novel-reading primarily because well-written novels had constantly drifted me into the fantasy world as narrated by the novelist. That wonderful feeling of for once being taken away from reality has always been a good remedy for a bad gloomy day in my real life. Whenever I come to the final page of the novel, I’d found myself thinking that no matter how hopeless things may seem in reality, there is always a golden hope for good things to happen in my life, provided that I don’t get tired and bored of trying to work things out. My point is; get yourself a good book to read. You’ll be amazed at how the fantasy world created by those brilliant novelists could lift up your spirit. It may not be of any relevant to you, but it’ll do you good.