Paul at the Bookstore

Seems like I'm spending lots of time in the bookstore waiting for my cherie amour these days - which unfortunately isn't terribly good for my straining wallet since I can't resist piling on various books in my shopping basket. Yes! I really do carry a basket in the bookstore which gives you an idea of you how many books I buy. Don't even tell me about the tax break since I usually go above and beyond that pathetically limited amount of RM 1000 ( with books being extortionately priced, that's only averaging 30 books a year! ). God knows a freakish spendthrift like me probably splurges all that on books in less than a month.

And that's not even counting my shopping for books online.

Easy enough for Charming Calvin to find me in the bookstore - at least I think its easy! - snce I usually veer from the popular fiction titles to some of the more serious stuff for a quick browse before popping over for a look at the graphic novels. And then if he's a bit late, I'll usually be found going through the various interior design hardcovers.


Reading books is sexy!
Since my niece has started recognizing alphabets and numbers though ( and muttering far more intelligible gibberish ), I've been dropping by the children's section on a semi-regular basis. Just like any sad expectant gay uncle with insanely high hopes, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she'll turn out to be an interior design savant with an eye for high fashion and fabulous books. Doubt her traditionalist father would be pleased with that ambition though.

Or at the very least I hope that she'll inherit my family's love for books ( although I have a sinking feeling that she's leaning the way of her internet-savvy, MTV generation mother who oddly enough eschews the written word - at least in paperback form ). Still hopefully ( fingers crossed again! ) with all the books cramming up the house, hopefully she'll develop the reading habit by sheer osmosis. After all from my mother's taste for angsty Ayn Rand and literary classics to my brother's dreadfully dull self-help books to my increasingly varied tastes running the gamut from gory crime fiction / thrillers to bodice-ripping romances, there has to be something that the lil girl favours :)

Still it's amazing how varied children's stories are these days. From modern takes on old classics such as the Monkey God and the Magic Paintbrush to the anniversary of my sassy Eloise and Skipperdee at the Plaza, I think it's great to be a child reader now. Swear it never was like this when I was a kid - when I used to stare longingly at the colourful books and wish that I could afford them. Seriously. Possibly that's one of the reasons my insanely throbbing subconscious is buying them like crazy now to make up for lost time. Positively Freudian.

Before you get the idea that I'm a sadly deprived Dickensian orphan, let me tell ya that one of the things my parents have always granted me leeway to buy is books :) As a kid though, I usually balked at the price of the books since my allowance back then was paltry at best. Not so much of a problem now though.

Let me leave you with one of my favourite quotes.

When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes. - Desiderius Erasmus

I must have said that in a past life.