Read Local

I re-started posting on this blog just over a year ago, to list the books I read in 2022 that weren't for the book club. This post is to list (non-exhaustive) the local books I read in 2023.

In late 2022, I started re-reading The Resident Tourist and completed reading the rest of the series in 2023. In late 2023, I laughed and chortled while reading Bricks in the Wall.

At the start of 2023, Ethos Books published Not Without Us: Perspectives on Disability and Inclusion in Singapore. The book features a contribution from Runninghour buddy Tan Siew Ling. In 2023, I attended two NLB events for the book. On 28 February, the Nature Book Club conducted a discussion on the similarities of nature and persons with disabilities (PWDs), in the local context. On 21 July, I visited the newly opened Punggol Regional Library to attend the discussion about inclusion in the workplace for PWDs.

In 2020, I took a free copy of Dharma's Chariot at Bishan Library and never read it 😛 When I attended the SingLit Book Club Squat for Tradition, Sit for Modernity event on 20 April with the writer Cultural Medallion recipient Chia Joo Ming in attendance, I took the other two One Story titles home. Then I finally read all 3 short stories in 2023.

I'd previously saw My Love Is Blind displayed at library@orchard and I finally read it in 2023. As mentioned in the afterword, the author wrote about many places in post-war Singapore which still exist now. Which is amazing considering the pace of development since then.

Since I'm a sucker for comics and award winners, reading the Winner of Book of the Year and Best Literary Work at the 2023 Singapore Book Awards, Work-Life Balance: Malevolent Managers and Folkloric Freelancers was a no-brainer 😁 

On 11 November I attended the Book Event for Becoming Margaret Leng Tan at Esplanade Concourse. I bought a copy of the book then and there cos Margaret Tan & the author Low Lai Chow were signing copies of the book 😊

Book Club Streak Broken

After reading 18 books in a row (& attending the same number of physical meetups) for the book club, I didn't read 2 of the books for this year. I usually don't attend the meetup if I didn't read the book. This year I ended up missing 3 meetups cos was away last month for the last meetup of the year even though I read the book (On The Road by Jack Kerouac).

I only ever read physical copies of books which I usually borrow from the library. I managed to borrow Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih (June) from Uma who'd suggested it last year for book club. I decide that I'm not gonna buy anymore books this year after buying spree in the past 3 years (I bought alot of books for book club). So I didn't read the books in August & October this year cos the physical books aren't available to borrow at local libraries.

V chuffed that 2 of the books this year were my suggestions: The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (July) & To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (September). Rachel (Book Club organiser) kindly held a watch party at her apartment on National Day for the 1992 film adaptation of The Last of the Mohicans (Director: Michael Mann | Lead Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis). Also v pleased to attend the watch party & make the acquaintance of giant Golden Retriever dog that Rachel was dog-sitting.

This year I read 2 books from previous book club meetups:

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (May 2019) & I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (June 2020).

Naturally, I re-watched the 2019 film adaptation of Little Women (Director/Screenplay Adaptation: Greta Gerwig | Lead Actor: Saoirse Ronan) on library dvd after reading the Little Women book. Twas my 1st time to re-watch it after watching it at the cinema in February 2020 with a group of fellow book club members - I co-organised the watch party with Rachel & was in charge of buying the tickets in advance.

Coincidentally this was just around the time publicity for Gerwig's upcoming Barbie film was reaching fever pitch for the cinematic release in July this year, debuting the same week as Christopher Nolan's film Oppenheimer.

In 2020 while watching Little Women in the cinema, I was thinking: "Gerwig is doing a Christopher Nolan!" Cos the film adaptation started in the middle of the book's story and the storyline went back & forth throughout the film. And we all know Nolan's signature non-linear storytelling techniques in Memento (2000) & The Prestige (2005).

Fun fact: I haven't watched Barbie or Oppenheimer 😜 I received email mailer that the newly opened Golden Village x The Projector at Orchard Cineleisure (GV x TP) has $3 Barbie screenings - dunno if I have any chance of watching that?

Making connections

Last year when I was reading Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel, I was re-reading The Resident Tourist (Parts 2 & 3) at the same time.

Besides both titles being graphic memoirs, I noticed the following similarities in their books:

1) Both authors had lived in New York City so both of them drew various NYC neighbourhoods.

2) Both authors were in therapy and depicted their sessions with their respective therapists.

3) Both authors recalled and featured their vivid dreams.

 I just somehow gotta make connections as I plod along in life 😉

Review of 2022 - by books read (others not including Book Club)

This year marks 11 years since I joined The Hungry Hundred Book Club! 

📚I read all 11 books assigned for 2022 🎆

Here's a list of other books I read in 2022:

1) Mabel Cheung Yuen-ting's An Autumn Tale (張婉婷 的《秋天的童話》) by Stacilee Ford

2) Peter Ho-sun Chan's He's a Woman, She's a Man (陳可辛的《金枝玉葉》) by Lisa Odham Stokes

3) Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's Infernal Affairs - The Trilogy (劉偉強、麥兆輝的《無間道》系列) by Gina Marchetti

The above 3 books are part of The New Hong Kong Cinema series published by Hong Kong University Press.

4) No Longer Human by Dazai Osamu 太宰治の「人間失格」(This was assigned for Book Club in July 2020)

5) American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (楊謹倫)

6) Tamamo The Fox Maiden: and Other Asian Stories (Comics Anthology - includes Gene Luen Yang's From the Journal of the Monkey King)

7) Level Up by Gene Luen Yang (Illustrated by Thien Pham)

8) Molly's Game by Molly Bloom

9) Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs (RIP)

10) The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

11) World Record Holders by Guy Delisle

12) Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

13) Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel

14) The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel 

Taking a leaf out of Raymond Briggs's Father Christmas: Happy Blooming New Year!