I’ve always been in love with reading.. for as long as I can remember.
yeah baybeh, books make me drool..
Cool poser shots eh? (You can’t possibly think that I started reading at that age?? haha!) Honestly though, I have no-one but my parents to thank for my reading habits back when I was younger.
I guess it was out of my inquisitiveness, curiosity and barrage of unanswerable questions, that they had to resort to buying me encyclopedia sets when I was:
- 6 years old - Childcraft (14 vols + Dictionary)
- 9 years old - The World Book (22 massive volumes + extras)
- 10 years old - The Young Scientist (20 volumes)
I referred to all 3 sets (predominantly the World Book as I could never really finish reading it) for many of my growing years. You must understand - all this was wayyyyy before Google or Wikipedia even existed. They were my lifeline to all the questions I had running around in my head. They introduced me to the world of science & logic, they opened my eyes to a realm of amazing possibilities. English became my language of choice.
But it was double edged.. Along with all the self taught knowledge at that age, certain things happened (which I regret to a certain extent now)
1. I REFUSED to learn Chinese. I couldn’t. My first 6 months in a primary school was in a Chinese school, and I had to be pulled out and relocated to a government school because I was simply ‘not getting it’. I’m still a Banana now.
2. I REFUSED to believe in the spiritual. I could never bring myself to put faith in the traditional Chinese customs, of praying, or in religion of any sort.
3. I grew an over-inflated ego. I thought I was ALWAYS right. I was a stubborn fool, always coming up with logical explanations for any situations, refusing to take other people’s perspective into context. It was also born from a certain amount of pride that people around me at that time found it hard to argue with me on anything.
It’s a good thing I have enough self awareness to notice these influences now, and I’m still trying to change what weak links that I have in my character. What sucks is that as you get older, people tend to NOT tell you your flaws (they’d rather bitch about it to someone else).
Anyway, I’m digressing..
If my early 3 Encyclopedia sets made me the cynical, knowledgeable <– this is a clickable link, smart alec I am now, I have Gamebooks to thank for my overactive imagination and love of all things sci-fi and fantasy related.
I remember that fateful day, coming out of the dentist (I must have been around 10), sulking with a blood soaked wad in my mouth, when I dragged my dad into a bookshop to get a ‘consolation gift’.
I took a chance, and picked a book with a cover and title that no sane parent would ever buy for their kid:
My dad bought it anyway. I never looked back.
It sparked off a crazy gamebook craze that lasted till my mid-teenage years, and I wasn’t the only one. Friends in both primary and secondary school were equally hooked on them. What we couldn’t buy from bookstores, we scoured second hand bookshops for them.
Many of them are out of print now, and I have almost forgotten about them, until I found this online TREASURE TROVE where you could download these books FOC!
http://www.the-underdogs.info/gamebook.php - EVERYTHING from ‘The Way of The Tiger‘ collection to the ultrarare ‘Blood Sword‘ series for download (both of which I only knew 2 sets in existence in Malaysia, and even then Blood Sword was incomplete)!
On TOP of that, here is an ongoing project to make available online the entire Joe Dever - Lone Wolf series! - http://www.projectaon.org
Now all I need is just one of those Japanese LCD tablets meant for reading e-books and I’m SET. (Reading an e-book on a PDA just doesn’t work - I’ve tried)
It was only a short step from there onwards that I moved on to the more contemporary ‘adult’ stuff. I’ll be writing a review section for my favourite books of all time soon. Perhaps you can help recommend me some too. I’m always on the lookout for good stuff to read. Right now however, I just have the final installment of Harry Potter to finish. 
