UPSR 101, Reading 201….

 

Alhamdulillah. My eldest child completed his UPSR exams. I am not sure how to describe the experience coz it will be premature anyways as the results is not out yet.

 

But one thing for sure … you can see relief and the following day he enjoyed practically the whole day at the public library, …. Reading what he likes.

 

I asked him how many of his friends at the library … one guy …. As most of his friends don't really like to read all that much. Habis kuat pun baca komik dan buku yang pendek-pendek saja. Kind of make me feel sad because through out my life, the most joy I have other than my family is actually reading. Curling up with a good book (macam tenggiling) is my kind of personal time. Macam dengar lagu Afdlin "WARAS" … so appropriate Bro!

 

 I have always been a sucker for a good story. Used to start off with kids investigation. Hardy Boys was okay but kind of geeky. Anyone remembers Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators, those kids were cool with their own "office" and "NAME CARD" that says Private Investigator! I know! At age 10 that was the most amazing thing to have …. Your own name card. Sekarang bersepah … celah bangku office pun ada terselit name card.

 

Moved on to thrillers around 11… I still remember Day Of The Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. Well of course I do…. coz I read it for the 15 ^th time I think last month. After that every single FF books was consumed. I think that happened with good (for me)author I find out about. In the 80's and early 90's … I was consuming incredibly right wing authors like Clancy, Dale Brown. Then I wised up … as I was strating to throw up with new offering by those authors. Found some old books by people like Garrison Keillor that charmed the sock off me. I still read some right wing stuff like W.E.B Griffin's series on the (Marine) Corps. But a lot less.

 

I thought Jeff Archer did quite well for a while but seems to have tapered off. Not as good as he was before. Dan Brown's Angel and Demons was actually the one I prefer compared to Da Vinci's Code. Both improbable as crazy but kind of redefines page turner. Grisham's storyline is okay … most books with exception of Runaway Jury, Rainmaker seems to have fairly flat endings ….. ending that have you saying …. Huh?

 

J. K. Rowling? Read all 6 so far, the favourite is the early ones … the last couple is much more sombre and dark. The early ones were like boarding school books ( i.e. Blyton's Mallory Towers) meeting sorcery stuff. Interesting read and enjoyable. Great endings for the first three so that I end up the endings (last 30 pages or so) reading them again and again. Then the "Rowling death cycle" kicked in from HP4 onwards…. And there goes my escapism.   

 

When I discovered eBooks I was so happy coz then I could bring 3-4 books in the PDA and read anywhere I want. I mean everywhere … NO Limits! Even at night as the PDA light means I don't have to switch on amy other lights. That is …. Until I dropped the PDA and broke it …. Need to buy another one….

 

But seeing my son pick up Timothy Zahn's Star Wars Heir to the Empire kind of remind me of … ME. Discovering my world and various people's imaginay world through these pages. I have 50 plus channels on ASTRO but between those pages is where I get "Waras" … (Afdlin … gua pinjam term you)

 

Anyway … enuf for now … rambling on as usual.