Cylee Thoughts

Remnants from a mentally confused mind

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Getting Bookish

It's almost hundred percent certain that I can stave off going to the library in the next 6 months, unless I need to do some reference research. Given my line of work and reports I sometimes need to write, I doubt very much that those books in libraries can help much in this sense.

There shouldn't be a question of why I won't be needing to go to the library. The answer is obvious just by looking at the new stack of books that appeared in my room over the past one month.

When I went Cambodia, I bought no souvenir back but instead five books :-

1. Life of Pi

2. The Five People You Meet in Heaven

3. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

4. The Geography of Thought

5. The Simpsons and Philosophy

I'd completed the first two books and a third through the Simpsons book. Prior to Cambodia, I had borrowed '50 Psychology Classics' from the library and like it so much though I yet to finished reading it that I shot off to Kinokuniya and bought one. I'm now three quarter through it.

Back home, when I visited the neighbourhood comic shop, I noticed that the detective comic 'Kindaichi' has made a comeback with five books. Being a fan of this smart comic series, I picked all five up with haste.

Then came the Bookfest two weekends ago. Walking along rows upon rows of books, my itchy hands picked up 'Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook' and 'Raise Your Fist (Chinese)'. Subsequently last week, my workplace held our quarterly internal flea market. Don't have to be Einstein to know what I picked up.

Yes, books. Two novels by Lee Child, one by Dean Koontz, 'The God Delusion' and 'The 3 Signs of a Miserable Job'. For Christmas, my Department Head gave each of us assistant managers 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad', and my senior assistant manager gave me a travelouge 'Lost Japan' (well, better than the gifts some received from her).

Tallying up, I have 20 new books in my possession. Ignoring the comics which I'd consumed (read, not eaten), I've 11 full and 2 partial books to go through. That's going to take up a mightly load of time, if I may say.

To make things worse, I haven't got a hint why, but I'm having a persistent urge to run to the major bookstores and swipe more books off the shelves still. While I used to be contented with just borrowing from the library, now I seems to be suffering from a compulsion to not only read, but own books.

Am I having a neurological addiction to books? A underlying syndrome that I long to escape from reality? Hmm...maybe I need to buy more books to find out.
PS: Photos from Siem Reap uploaded at myFlickr.
posted by Cylee at 10:16 pm I