Friday, June 10, 2005
Read any good books lately?
by venitha
One of my happiest days while I was laid up waiting for my knee to heal was when I discovered that I could read while I was riding my recumbent stationary bike. I was frustrated with my inability to prepare for Singapore, and this opened up a whole new world. Thanks to the excellent Colorado library system (which I'm going to sorely miss in Singapore), I read novels and short stories by Singaporean authors, political essays about Singapore, novels by American authors that are set in Singapore, and memoirs by expats and world travelers.
I finally made an Amazon list of what I read. I wished desperately that I could find such a list when I first started trying to find books to read about Singapore.
The three main authors missing from my list (all three are mentioned again and again in anything I found regarding literature about Southeast Asia) are V.S. Naipaul, W. Somerset Maugham, and Graham Greene. So I guess I've still got some biking to do. Hopefully the library here in Singapore will stock some of these, though I suspect Naipaul may be a bit controversial for the censors' tastes, so maybe I'll have an excuse to explore how Amazon delivery to Singapore works.
venitha
I finally made an Amazon list of what I read. I wished desperately that I could find such a list when I first started trying to find books to read about Singapore.
The three main authors missing from my list (all three are mentioned again and again in anything I found regarding literature about Southeast Asia) are V.S. Naipaul, W. Somerset Maugham, and Graham Greene. So I guess I've still got some biking to do. Hopefully the library here in Singapore will stock some of these, though I suspect Naipaul may be a bit controversial for the censors' tastes, so maybe I'll have an excuse to explore how Amazon delivery to Singapore works.
venitha
