Story from Multiple Eyes

Welcome to the 19th installment of my once-a-month blog post (sorry comrades)

Since Listverse is talking about the famous books, I think I might share a bit about one of my favorite hobby or can I say, ritual; reading books. I came from a mediocre family with low command of English. My dad knew a bit of English, my mum was far worse. My daily staple of reading came from a Malay newspaper (sadly Utusan, my dad's favorite til now).

I remembered my habit of looking the newspapers for its cartoon. I was 6 or 7 at that time. Then, I upgraded myself looking for the Intisari Rancangan where I could plan my daily TV watching. My hobby for reading then expanded to reading sports section and to national news.

Looking at my craziness over a newspaper, my dad took me to the Jitra Public Library, where I signed up as a member. There, I could borrow a maximum of 2 books, 1 week per book. While I was there during weekends, a couple of English books caught my eyes. Those written by Alfred Hitchcock and Enid Blyton. All those simple mystery and investigating team of teenagers, for me, was so awesome judging by my lack of adventures during my childhood.

The public library itself for me was the most interesting place that time. Jitra had nothing to offer yet for a curious boy, so I spend most of my weekends there. From literature, I upgraded again to reading atlas, yeah I 'read' atlas. The world was so big and I was like 'Wow China is so big' and 'England is here, so far away'.

During my primary school years, library was like a third home to me, beside my home and school. Jitra Public Library decided to close down and I was dissapointed at first. They were moving to a much bigger location and it was still there til now. I was happy again. The big library now was a two storey building, with much more reading material. I read documentaries, magic books, war books, military magazines, and borrowed fictions. Those, my friends, were my English teachers.

My high school, I was slowly forgotten the joy of reading. Maybe because I was far away from home. I bought only Dragonball manga and Hong Kong comics as a collection during outing.

Up until I met my Mrs, I rarely read any books. Newspapers and comics were the only exception. I started borrowing books with my Mrs since she was an avid reader. Suddenly, the joy of reading came back to me. Before closing my eyes, I read until it became a necessity, a must, a ritual. Until I just couldn't sleep before I read something.

Fast forward to now. We (Mrs and me) have a huge book rack full of books, mainly fiction, bought mostly during book sale or from second hand book stores. I like action mystery thriller kinda books and Mrs likes her romantic, feminine books. I need book to kill time, so I always bought a book and read during a ride back home on a bus, in an airplane, backseat of a car, waiting at the transit station and even in a toilet.


So there you are guys, my hobby. I'm reading The Road to Gandolfo now, written by Robert Ludlum (Michael Shepherd is his pen name) the master spy storyteller who brought you Jason Bourne.