Friday, March 2, 2007

Aloha!

I have always wanted to write a book. I've been writing technical reports, conference proceedings, and journal papers, but not a book. I started this blog to comment about the books that I have read in the past, in the hope that it will motivate me to write my own book, eventually. I've got a backlog of past reviews which I will put up shortly.

A lot of the books in my little collection were bought when I was in KL, Singapore and now in Japan. Borders was my favorite joint in Singapore, as was Kinokuniya in KL. Bookstores in Japan (especially in a small city like Nara where I'm staying) is not so well known to carry foreign titles, so my main source of English materials I got from Amazon.co.jp.

I remember very well what got me into this reading habit. It was the famous Famous Five series from Enid Blyton. I used to frequent the school library back in my primary school years. Maybe a little old-fashioned by today's standard, the Famous Five books made very exciting reading to an impressionable 10 year old. The very first books that I actually bought were the Fighting Fantasy series from Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. They were really captivating with fantasy themes not dissimilar to the popular Lords of the Ring. Plus, the books are actually role-playing games that tell a story. Very neat, indeed.

Of late, I have been reading a lot of non-fiction books. Truth can be stranger than fiction, they say. So, without further a due. Let's start the ball rolling.

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