Books, or, Procrastination on a Cold Wet Sunday Afternoon

Because I am trying to write a book review at the moment, and because I have been inspired by these other librarians’ pages:

Total number of books I’ve owned:

Not sure exactly. Lots. A count of the bookshelves we have, and a rough estimate of the books (single and double-stacked) on these, plus books floating around the house, brings me to the number 2180. Genres that are significantly represented: science fiction, crime and detective fiction, dictionaries (many languages, especially Chinese), contemporary Indonesian and Malaysian fiction, Chinese fiction, computer science and programming.

Last book I bought: Mandarin Chinese Dictionary: English-Chinese by Fred Fangyu Wang, 1971 (secondhand)

Last book I read: Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford (still reading this)

Last book I finished: Traitor’s Purse by Margery Allingham

Five books that mean a lot to me:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I first read this when I was about 12 and didn’t really ‘get’ it at all, being completely unfamiliar with the American South. Because the whole book intrigued me (the language, cultural references, characters, even the title!), I reread it every year until it made sense, when I was 16.

I Can Jump Puddles by Alan Marshall. This is another book that I read at a young age, and the story of the young boy crippled by polio and how he overcame his disability was both interesting and inspiring. It also gave me a picture of the Australian bush that was, at the time, completely alien to me.

Jia (“Family”) by Ba Jin. As a learner of Chinese, this was (is) the first Chinese language book I ever read. It took me almost a year to read. I still cannot say I have completely read any other books written in the Chinese language – and I have been studying the language for almost 15 years!

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. One of the first ‘adult’ books I ever read.

Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks. This is in the list because I enjoyed it a lot.

Five (more or less) people I’d like to see do this as well: Anyone reading this! Let me know if you do 🙂