I started reading since I was very young. My parents would bring me to the regional library to borrow books. Whenever we visited Popular bookstore, I would get to pick a book that caught my fancy and they would buy it for me. I enjoyed reading when I was young because books transported me to another world, full of unlimited possibilities and they served as temporal escapes from the mundane happenings in my life.
My childhood reads include books by Enid Blyton. I used to own so many of his books because of their colourful covers, beautiful illustrations and imaginative storylines. I have read Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, and many more. When I was in Primary School, I moved on to the Sweet Valley series by Francine Pascal and the Nancy Drew series. I was fascinated by classic children’s literature such as Little Women, following the lives of the March sisters, and the enchanting tale of The Secret Garden. The Harry Potter craze started then and I read the third novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It was interesting and magical but I was not intrigued enough to pick up another Harry Potter book even though I did watch all of his movies. I was also exposed to cultures closer to home through Totto-Chan, and Adeline Yen Mah’s autobiography, Chinese Cinderella, which I bought in secondary school after my teacher gave us a comprehension passage containing an excerpt from the book.
In my teenage years, books that I read include The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe: the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, my school’s literature text- The Outsiders, and even my brother’s literature text- Red Sky in the Morning. As I took Chinese Literature instead of English Literature in upper secondary, I continued to read English books for pleasure without in-depth analysis. I enjoyed The Little Prince, The Lovely Bones, and The Time Traveler’s Wife. There are many books that should be in the list but I have forgotten their titles and respective authors because I used to borrow random books from the library.
When I was in JC, I decided to take Econs instead of English Literature because it seemed like a safer option at that time so I was not exposed to the kind of Literature books that my peers who have done Literature would have read then. Some of the books that I had time for besides preparing for ‘A’ levels include The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Five People You Meet in Heaven, Tuedays with Morrie, and a number of novels by Jodi Picoult. At that time, I prefer to read novels that allowed me to think and reflect about life and interpersonal relationships.
I have always wanted to take Literature because I enjoy reading and I finally managed to do so in NTU. However, I had to take so many modules and there were so many readings to be done that I had to rush through more than one novel every week in order to keep up with the schedule. Texts that I enjoyed reading include those involving madness such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, and Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Besides Shakespeare’s collection, other works that interested me were Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguo, Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez.
The books that I have read made me understand more about myself and the world around me. They opened doors to different periods, various cultures and new worlds. Reading allows me to explore others’ life experiences as if they were mine and after all, experiences are what make life worthwhile.
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