Yati's Reading Biography

Take a Trip with Me

I have always loved reading. It was the only thing I did best. I was the best librarian the school ever had! (The teacher told me so!) It was actually the only thing I could do. I couldn't make many friends, nor could I keep any I already had. I wasn't even able to stop getting myself being bullied. So I that girl who had to wear glasses in Primary 2 that stayed back in the library until school closed to read. I read Enid Blyton, Bookworm Short Stories and The Boxcar Children mystery series and the abridged version of some of Shakespeare works.

Then in Secondary School, I read Reader Digest's book editions and many many love stories (too many lovey-dovey chick flicks that I can't stand reading one now anymore!). For English Literature classes, I read E. B White's Charlotte's Web, R. K. Narayan's The English Teacher and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. It was during Lit lessons that I realized I should expand the type of books I read. I read works from Neil Gaiman and Anne Rice. And then it was Junior College aka Hell. Apart from reading anything on the required reading list, I had no time to read anything else (or at least I told myself that *insert ain't got no time for that meme*).

It was not until I finished Junior College that I had time and went back to reading again. I read voraciously and read anything and everything I could borrow. This was also when I discovered I was one those people who judge a book by its cover. I can't help it! I don't think it is a bad thing though - at least I would have a pretty bookshelf. It was only in University that I finally understood what type of books I preferred and why I love reading. 

Reading is a way I escape reality. I hold the author's hands and say "So where are we going today?" and the author smiles and whisks me away to another world. Just by his words, he guides me on this wonderful trip. I experience this other world in different ways - sometimes I become the very world, just watching other characters and watch as the story unfolds and other times, I am the very person, the people and even the animal in the story. Of course until he says "okay, it's time for you to go back now" and I close the book and I return to the real world. After, it always feels like I returned from somewhere faraway and sometimes I end up thinking of how similar or different things are in that world to my own reality. It's like returning from a holiday and going "the locals there are like the people here after all...".

This is why I really do not enjoy fiction or local literature (and most mysteries for some reason) but love fantasy, science fiction, adventure, gothic, children's literature and romance. I love owning pretty books with beautiful stories to tell and I can't wait to read (and especially) own even more.

Some of my favourite books are Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, George Orwell's 1984, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, Anthony Burgess' Clockwork Orange, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Susan Hill's The Woman in Black, Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, C,S Lewis' Alice in Wonderland and Patrick Suskind's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. 

So many more trips so little time! 

Ps: Add me on Goodreads if you have an account so we can stalk each other's reading lists! Zoom zoom