Books for the week

They're none other than our very own Lydia's Honk! and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things.

It was one of my year 2006's resolution to read as many books as possible in order to help change the statistic of Malaysian reading at an average of 2 books a year. So, last year I managed to complete 12 books (fiction) and 2 IT related books. That doesn't include the online books that I downloaded to my laptop and those I read for free at Amazon (yeah, they let you read a few pages and when things get exciting enough you'd realise that you can't click on the next button anymore... heheheheh... marketing strategy maaaa).

I planned to read these 2 books during the next 1 week or so. Honk! will be in my car, so that I can always finish one essay while waiting for the traffic light to turn green. Oh yes, I'm a speed reader and I'm as good as how I speed drive my car... hahahah... Thank god we don't get traffic summons for reading at 100 words/minute.

The God Of Small Things will be for bedtime reading. Well, that is supposed to be for winding down ..... let's see if it could keep me awake. I heard the story is rather intense. So, good luck to me. If you see me having sleep deprivation problem next week, you'll know why.

So, back to Lydia's Honk!, the best part of the book is actually a testimonial at the back cover by none other than Phua Chu Kang (Gurmit Singh) himself. I was reading it at MPH bookstore counter (yes, they displayed the book at the counter, you don't have to search for it at the fiction aisle), and I thought the guys behind the till machine as well as the rest of the customers were giving me a queer look when I laughed until my eyes were teary.

So far I have read about 8 essays and they left me either chuckling or laughing hard rolling on the floor, but later on made me think again about them. Not many anecdotal humours made me think. Some just left me feeling disgusted and then had to fight the urge of throwing the book away (or maybe donate the book to homeless people in cold countries, so that they have more things to get the fire going by the dirty alleys they live in).

Mrs. Lydia Teh's writing made me think hard and suddenly I found myself trying to find a formula or ways to help correct some of the social illnesses in the society or even how I could help to ease some of the Malaysian's burden. Waaa.... don't pray pray.... the book can even help inspire some of the readers to become a politician someday... heheheheh.

Well, if you haven't bought Honk!, please go to the nearest MPH bookstore and get yourself a copy. You cannot borrow mine because I haven't finished reading it... hahahahah.
By the way, the foreword by my favorite-of-all-time-Cikgu-Bedah: Adibah Amin is just marvellous. I'm getting her new novel some time next month :).