Books, books, books...

I'm a bookworm. I love books. I read everyday, whenever I can. In the LRT to work, from work, during breakfast, before sleeping, while doing nothing.. In short, I can't live without books. Reading is no longer a hobby. It has become a habit.



I have around 300 books in my collection, the majority of them of fantasy genre and a few science fiction. My favourite authors include Raymond E Feist, R A Salvatore, Robert Jordan, Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, Margaret Weiss, Tracy Hickman, Melanie Rawn, David Eddings, Trudy Canavan and some others I can't remember. Great authors, and great stories too. I highly recommend reading their books, if you haven't read one.

The thing about fantasy and science fiction is.. it's not very popular in Malaysia. I started reading fantasy books when I was 15. I can't remember the title of the first book I read, but it was by a Malay author and the main character was named Artakus. When I was 17, I managed to get my hands on my very first English fantasy book by David Eddings, titled Enchanter's End Game, book 5 of The Belgariad series. Whose book it was, I can't remember anymore. My cousin, probably.

After SPM, I continued my study in Sydney, Australia. Unsurprisingly, some of the first shops I entered were the bookstores, where I found the first book of The Belgariad. And the second, and the third, and the fourth. And the series after The Belgariad. And I never looked back since. I was totally hooked with fantasy and science fiction, resulting in a huge portion of my monthly scholarship allowance going into buying books. By the time I finished my study, I have collected a respectable number of books, which I brought home with me in several boxes.

Note: I only read fantasy and science fiction books. I don't read other genre, except when I don't have anything else to read. And fantasy and science fiction is getting to be a mouthful. I'll call it FSF, in short.

I still continue buying books after I started working in 1997. One thing I noticed at that time was that the bookstores in KL (MPH, Times and a small Kinokuniya inside Isetan KLCC) did not have large collections of FSF books. So it was quite hard for me to get reading materials. After I got my first credit card, I started buying books online via Amazon.com where I usually ordered 2 to 4 books a month. The price was slightly more expensive but well worth it, all things considered. Now that there are several big bookstores in the Klang valley which have good collections of FSF books, I don't have to order online anymore.

After the release of The Lord of The Rings movie trilogy, it seems that the number of FSF readers has increased. There are more people at the FSF section now. But of course, I'm referring to Kinokuniya since I mostly buy my books there. I'm not sure about MPH or Borders, though. I did not see very many people browsing around in the FSF section the last time I was there.

Anyway, whenever I see these people, I suddenly felt very knowledgeable about FSF and it was my duty to guide them on which books they should read. Talk about show-off eh.. hehehehe.. I used to carry around a list of all the books in my collection and referred to it everytime I wanted to buy new books. No, I was not showing off my great FSF books collection :Þ It was to avoid buying the same book twice :) Well, I don't have that list anymore. Too lazy to update it. Besides, there aren't very many exciting new books on the shelves anymore. Mostly I'm waiting for my favourite authors to come out with their latest books.

Now that's one thing I'd like to comment. I understand that it takes time for the authors to come out with a new book. And the publishers would produce the hard cover version first. Ok.. that's acceptable.. But what I don't understand is why does it take one year for the paperback version to be published? Don't you guys know that one year is a very long time to wait and it's torture for us mere mortals who could not afford to buy hardcover??!! Kindly do something, please.

Another thing I noticed is that, over the years, the prices of books have gone up considerably. Most paperbacks were priced below RM30 then but now, on average, they cost around RM35. Some are even selling at over RM40. I'm not going to dwell on the reasons for this price increase but it's definitely not getting any easier on my wallet. Oh, I will continue buying books but I don't think it will be as many as before.

Sucks, isn't it?