A Library at SA,SA

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested". Bacon, Of Studies

I have, over the years, collected books of all the above types. Let me take you on a journey through the bookshelves of our library. In all we only have about 2,000 books and a fair number of magazines. I would love to have more, but our little terraced home really has no space to accomodate anything anymore. (Time for weeding out!). Actually there are already bookshelves in all the rooms in the house. The books are not classified according to any library system (e.g. the Dewey Decimal) although I was a librarian for a long time. I prefer to classify our books according to OUR system (get my drift?)

The main bookshelves in the Library cum Guest room carries the books on Biography, Food & Cookery, Graphic art/Cartoon, Health & Wellbeing, Interior decoration (ID), Malaysiana, Philosophy & Religion, and the oversized books on everything. (Some oversized books have also spilled out onto chairs and tables in the lounge). The children's book collection here consist of B & A's picture books from their childhood years, all Roald Dahl's books, and some of Judy Blume's. The main fiction collection is also here. Magazines here are of the National Geographic and The Naturalist (Malaysian Nature Society)



The Library downstairs (CNB 2011)

The family lounge library upstairs also incorporate our CD/DVD movie collection. The books are on Botany & Gardening, Criminology (don't ask me why), Iraniana, Language & Literature, Self-help, Travel (plus History & Geography), and more fiction (including the classics). The magazines here are mostly on ID (Anjung Seri, Homes & Gardens, Homes & Living, House & Garden, Impiana, Vogue Living), Travel (Going places, Lonely Planet, Traverama) and Women's affairs (Cosmopolitan, Glam, Her World, Jelita).



The Library upstairs (CNB 2011)

The main lounge has more children's books, sharing a cupboard with more movie CD/DVDs. The dry kitchen has a shelf of the overflow from the Food & Cookery shelves in the Library. My room has the overflow of the Philosophy & Religion shelves. A's room has all the Law literature, while B's has the overflow of the Language & Literature, including many novels. I think books furnish a room quite well, don't you?

So what are my favourite reads? I love biographies, especially autobiographies, because I am interested to find out how a person has lived his/her life. (Being kaypoh, perhaps?). The most recent I have read are Cliff Richard's My Life, My Way, Sheila Hancock's Just Me, Michael Gill's How Starbucks saved my Life, and a Manga biography of Che Guevara by Chie Shimano & Kiyoshi Konno. I am in the midst of reading The Tom Hanks Enigma by David Gardner, and will embark on Tun Dr Mahathir's A Doctor in the House after this. I know, I know, I should have read it in March when I bought it at the MPH Bookstore in SACC Mall, Shah Alam.



My 'Travel' bookshelf (CNB 2011)

Travel books have a special bookshelf, now quite overflowing onto the floor! (Any librarian would chide me for this; the floor, not the special bookshelf, of course). I mostly read Food & Cookery books, not cook recipes from them! My latest acquisition, Where flavor was Born by Andreas Viestad, is about 'recipes and culinary travels along the Indian Ocean spice route'. I got this (2 in 1) food and travel book for a steal at the Borders bargain bin. Nowadays I mostly get my books from Book Xcess in PJ. But then again, I will buy books anywhere I can find what I like. And like Thomas Jefferson, "I cannot live without books". In future postings, I will share with you the books I love.

"I cannot live without books" on a T-shirt B gave me (CNB 2011)