Elizabeth Eng

As I began to put my thoughts together for my “Reading Biography”, I fell into a the question of “which came first?”. Did I dream about being a babysitter and hence read books like “Baby-Sitter’s Club”,  or did I read the book then aspired to be babysitter? After pondering upon that question (for almost 2 hours?!), and going beyond “Baby-Sitter’s Club”, I came to the conclusion that the presence of these books worked in different ways at different phases of my life. While I still can’t put a finger to “which came first?”, I realize that at some point, some books moulded me towards a certain direction, while at some other point, I delved into a particular genre of books to seek the life and adventure that I could only dream of.

As far as I can remember, encyclopaedias were a dominant feature in terms of my childhood reading habits. My parents used to purchase entire sets of encyclopaedias from book fairs and stock them into our home library. These encyclopaedias were filled with colour, pictures and descriptions that were easy to understand, easily capturing the attention of any five to seven year old (at least back then…). As I child, I caught a glimpse of a world that was very very very huge. I saw pictures of animals not found in the Singapore Zoological Gardens, read about their habitat and how the animal chain works, learnt about how Thomas Edison invented the light bulb and how the toilet flush came about. I was introduced to a world beyond the shores of Singapore. I remember my mum pinning a map to the wall, and my siblings and I would pretend to fly there on the first airplane that the Wright brothers invented, then discussing what we would probably discover, according to what we’ve seen in the encyclopaedias. Back then, the world was within reach.

A transition took place soon after, and I found myself reading “girly” books that everyone in my “girly” school was reading. These included the classics of “Baby-Sitter’s Club”, “Sweet Valley High” and, the female detective of all time, “Nancy Drew”. Although my parents bought series after series of encyclopaedias, they didn’t see the point of buying “girly” books for us. So, once a week, we went to the nearest library, which was really tiny, and probably only had ten “Sweet Valley High” books, to stock up on our stash for the week. Although my mother attempted to add some encyclopaedias into our stash, they were now seen to be “books-for-studying”, and hence, thrown out. These girly books opened my imagination to what my life could involve, for instance, becoming part of a baby-sitter’s club, or being the girl with the hot boyfriend, and getting into scandals (not!). At the same time, on my eleventh birthday, I received my first story book (finally something I could call my own!). It was three episodes of Baby-Sitter’s Club put in one book. I re-read the three episodes too many times for my own good.

The girly books phase eventually passed (thankfully!) and proceeding on to Secondary school, girly romance and action took a turn and I got caught in the web of crime and detective fiction. I particularly enjoyed stories that had a twist at the end that left me with reactions such as “What?? Really! It was him all along?”. However, the anticipation of finding out who the killer/rapist/retard was eventually too much for me to bear and I would flip to the ending while being caught in the excitement of the middle section. I remember reading in my room late one night, and because the description of the scene was so vivid and intense, I actually felt my heart racing and I started crying. It was then that I began to see how words in a book could transport me into a dimension that I may not ever experience in reality. In this same period, one of the set text for my O levels was Susan Hill’s “I’m the King of the Castle”. This, I felt, gave me an awareness to the vulnerability of man that exists around me.

For some unknown reason, fiction and novels soon made way for The Straits Times (probably due to the hounding’s of GP lecturers widen our general knowledge). But, I am thankful that this eventually became a habit that I keep till today. I initially started with reading the “more interesting” news such as maid abuse, siblings fighting each other in court over a property, con artists cheating old grannies and the likes. Over the years, I skipped these and became more interested in the forums covering topics and issues such as what an ideal education should consist of. An awareness of, not only the country I live in, but also, the wider community, became the door that brought me back to the same imaginations that I created as a child.

In NIE, my reading habits was split in three directions. Firstly, the literature modules drowned me in classics from the likes of Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Defoe, Goh Poh Seng, more Shakespeare and the list goes on. While there were some that I fell in love with, and continue to re-read today, the rest became text meant to be studied. Perhaps the difference lies in being able to either appreciate the text in its’ context or being able to identify with a particular character or scenario. Academic journals was another feature that took centre place in NIE. Both Literature and Music involved prowling through academic journals in preparation for research and essays, and what I got out most was not only the content, but also their different styles of writing. The third direction was my “personal” reading, which consisted mainly of travel books and websites, Christian articles and books and ironically, but pleasantly, back to romance novels such as that of Danielle Steel.

So, although the question of “which came first?” still lingers, there is a realization, for me, that delving into books, articles, magazines, newspaper, is very much like a cycle that is continuous. On one side, these give me information that I am looking for (about countries, how something was invented, a spiritual understanding etc) on the other, they also bring to me a world that I may or may not experience in reality.