Saturday, February 12, 2011

My Reading Habit


Rite. Still about me having problem in reading one book at a time.
Okay let’s see? What was the last book I managed to finish reading? I guess it was The Historian, like almost 10 months ago.
Ok, I had trouble keeping up reading The Historian.
The book is so full of dates and places and historical events and landmarks. Am never really good with history, except for my own. So it took me extra effort to keep up with the story time line (it uses flashback and third person narrative sometime).
And to complicate matter, the whole details about historical dates and events, were perfectly blended in to the core of the story. Good for the writer. Not for me.
Most of the events recounted in the book were unintelligible to me.  All of the places that they mentioned in the book, I’ve never been there. I’ve never seen the building. Not even the replica.  So I  could not fully grab the feeling.
But I still think it is a great book that everyone should read.
Yes of course, I know, the look of the book itself is already intimidating. A book that thick (around 650 pages if I’m not mistaken), with so many ‘obstacles’ (haha) in it. If you’re not someone majoring in ancient history you’ll probably end up with the same problem as I did.
But I think it’s a good start to learn something about that ancient history subject, even though you might think it’s not important. I think it’s good to know and learn about things that had influenced and formed the world we live in now, as ancient as they might be.
And if such a mystical figure in the story can be a historian, then I shouldn’t be so surprised with the recent news about Sir Keith Richards, the guitarist of Rolling Stone, who wants to be a librarian.
Anyway, it took the writer 10 years of research to write the book. So I suppose I can forgive my self for not being so smart and ignorant of all the details
I’m reading the Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things. Still in the first pages, brief explanation of each story in the book. That’s when I started to see a clearer picture.
Fragile Things is a collection of short stories. Reading it gives me the soothing and dreamy feeling. It’s a book to be read while sitting alone (on the train, or in the café, by the window, sipping a coffee or tea, rainy days, ok enough with that).
But I started to understand what has been happening with all the books I read and haven’t finished for  like years. It’s because we tend to read a book that suits our mood. At least that’s the case for me.
I just couldn’t force myself to keep reading The King of Torts, or The Lost Symbol, or Akhenaten. Because they just don’t match the mood I’m in now. (well I might go with Lima Menara, but I just keep forgetting that it’s in my bag). Forcing my self to read them would make the whole reading activity pointless. It is against my principle of reading (*oh so noble), which is to experience the journey, instead of merely finishing what I have started.
Which got me thinking, it must be a very hard work for a Libra to finish one book at a time, considering their massive mood swing…
But of course I always have a little dose of Hercule Poirot every now and then. Never fails me
So, yeah, I guess I’ll continue with the Fragile Things.
Let’s see how long I’d stay with it haha

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