While waiting for Silver Bullet to get his haircut, today, I strayed. I strayed into a sanctuary of imagination. The next thing I knew, Silver Bullet was done with his hair-cut and appeared right before me with his “I knew you’d done it again” grin. He knew me too well, Silver Bullet. Before parting our ways – him to the hairdresser, me to AsiaBook store, Silver Bullet shouted over his shoulder with a “don’t buy out the bookstore” remark to me. In all honesty, I had only wanted to browse while waiting for him but I walked out of the store with 5 books half an hour later. .

Bookstores are a perennial problem for me. Each time I pass by one, I just need to have a look at what they have. More often than not, I would come out of the store as a proud owner of several new books; even when I don’t have the initial intention of buying any in the first place. I can’t stay away from a bookstore and so far, no forces of nature could have repelled me from its calling. I am a self-confessed book addict.

As far as I remember, my childhood has always been surrounded by books. I would spend hours reading away, oblivious to the world. I would usually bring a book with me…be it visiting a relative or travelling with my parents. That’s also when I discovered to never ever read in a moving vehicle as it made me really, really sick. That happened when I was probably about 11 years old. We were travelling in a van to somewhere in Malaysia and one of my uncles was driving. I started reading the moment we got on board. 3 hours later, I had a massive headache and started throwing up. I’ve never attempted to read while in a moving vehicle again. Well, in truth, I did try several times more, but I recognized the symptoms and it’s just not worth it.

Nowadays, it’s hard to find time for a proper reading. I miss my student days when I was able to have extended book-time to immerse myself for hours on end without having the obligation or responsibilities in tow. I would only care getting to the last page of any book that I was reading at that time. Those were the days.

The only challenge now is for me to find time reading those 5 books plus a couple more which I bought months ago. Haa..haa! Yes..I still have a few new books lying around prior to the ones I bought today. I can smack myself silly for “doing it again”, but hey, at least books are for keeps. I’m only happy to lend it to anyone who wants to read them, as long as they are returned to me. Or at least, I hope they will eventually return it to me.

One other issue with buying books is that we are running out of storage space. But that could just be an excuse to go look for proper bookshelves!