I can't recall the last time I was not reading a book (as in finishing a book, but not holding and reading it 24/7). It seems that at any point in time, I will have at least one, usually 2 and sometimes 3 books that I am reading. Most of the time I will have 2 reading materials that I am in the process of finishing. These are on top of daily newspaper, internet etc.
I just love to read. I find it wasteful, mixed with a sense of emptiness and bored otherwise. Of course, this is on top of another favourite past-time activity of mine which is thinking. My sweetheart always says that I think too much...too much to my own detriment, but it's something that I can't really help. I digressed.
Reading....I love reading all kinds of books. Usually I have a mix of fiction and non-fiction therefore the 2 materials always. For fiction I tend to read by author. If I find an author's work to be good, I tend to look up his/her other works and most of the times ended up reading all of them.
From a small kid, my mum used to tell me that it's very difficult to find me not having something to read, from comics in newspapers to story-books. Authors that I still remember are Othman Puteh, Enid Blyton and Tamar Jalis (specific Genre in the mid-eighties).
Apart from these, my favourite of all was Gila-Gila. I do remember reading Gila-Gila when I was 5 years old and I still remember buying them every fortnight into my teens. Basically from Dan, Din, Don and From Taiping With Love to International Blues Club and Aku Budak Minang.
Apart from Gila-Gila, I started to read English books and especially the Reader's Digest with the honourable intention of improving my English. Very quickly, I started to read English novels and with them I got acquainted with authors like James Clavell, Frederick Forsyth, Sidney Sheldon, Isaac Asimov, Jeffrey Archer, Stephen King, Robert Ludlum, Mario Puzo, Tolkien, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and many more (it was before John Grisham's time then I guess though he was not that far behind too). I still enjoy fiction until now and since then a lot more have been added to the list.
Non-fiction also started to enter my life in the late teen years and amongst these, self-development books are my favourite. I read both popular authors and also islamic books. Foremost amongst these are 'Apa Ertinya Saya Menganut Islam' by Fathi Yakan and 'Petunjuk Sepanjang Jalan' by Syed Qutb. They opened up my eyes and mind to something I had always taken for granted previously and I have to say that they shaped my perception of live quite significantly since. I absorbed Covey's '7 Habits' in early 90's (my 1st copy was in 1991 to be exact) at about the same time I was reading 'Seed of Greatness' and 'Win Win' by Denis Waitley. Thinking back, these are probably the first 3 self-development books that I had read.
From there I started to get interested in business books and business thinkings. From Iacoca to Jack Welch. From One Minute Manager to the 500+ pages Managers Handbook. One of my favourite leadership books is 'The Leadership Engine' by Noel Tichy.
I slowly moved to include biographies and auto-biographies. Read Bill Gates and Richard Branson where after reading them, my perception of the two men changed completely in the opposite (I used to admire one and hate the other; after reading their biographies the subject of my admiration and 'hatred' changed).
The 'hardest' book for me to read is actually 'My Experiment with Truth' by Mahatma Gandhi. It's Gandhi's authobiography and I have to admit that his honesty in the book is so painful that it simply took me months to read it and to date, I have not finished it. I may pick it up again one day.
Lately, I have been picking up the latest must reads and while I enjoyed Tipping Point and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell I am still not convinced and so far haven't felt any strong inclination to pick up Blink. Yup, I read the later books first.
Whenever I am asked to choose my favourite book, I always struggle because most that I've read are great but if I have to choose then 'Taipan' by James Clavell and 'Ar-Raheeq al-Makthum' are my favourites. Books that I've read and re-read many times.
Currently, I am reading the Black Swan and re-reading Apa Ertinya Saya Menganut Islam. This is on top of my daily 2 pages of the translation of the Quran. I remember asking myself - 'When was the last time I've read the Quran cover to cover (a lot) in a language that I understand (never)' a few years ago.......thus the reason for the daily read.
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