Saturday, March 17, 2007

Not a good day to buy books

I thought today was gonna be just fine and dandy; firstly because I didn't wake up with my natural curls shooting out in nineteen different directions, I received all the photos from Naddy, dad took us out for lunch and he gave me some cash to get a few more novels to add to my already busting collection.

I was rejoicing in the car. Cos most of the time when I ask him if I could get a new book, he'd go, "Zhen tian mai shu... shu, shu, shu. Nan guai wo du qiu mei chi shu qian!"

Translated: Always buy book (shu)... book, book, book. No wonder everytime I bet on soccer I lose (shu) money!

So after he alighted me at the shops near our place, I was brisk walking to the bookstore. I especially love this bookstore because it's shelves are clean and well-dusted, and it is air-conditioned! So I can take my time to flip through the pages, read the epilogues or synopsis and stare hard at the washboard abs of the guys on the front cover of those romance novels. =P

It took me forever to get to the bookstore and once I got there, IT WAS CLOSED! I looked at the piece of paper pasted at the side wall and realised that the stall closed at 3pm on Saturdays. I glanced at my watch; it was 4pm. Dammit!

So I decided to go to the ol' bookshop I used to go to when I was living in AMK. I mean, I bought most of my novels from there but their books are really worned out, there are cobwebs at the corners of their shelves and the biggest flaw of all? It is located right smack next to the wet market! Yeah, ew. Imagine having to look around the already unpleasant shop and having to take in the "fragrance" of fresh pig's blood and rotting fish.

Then I realised that I left my wallet at home (EZ-link in in wallet), so I had to walk all the way back, grab my wallet and came out of the lift only to see the bus go off. Great!

The next bus came about 5 minutes later, so no biggie about having to wait for my transport in the sweltering Singapore heat. I reached the stall in AMK Central and guess what?! They were in the midst of renovation so most of their books weren't around. I browsed around for more than an hour but couldn't find any of the latest books written by my favourite authors. No Sandra Brown, no Connie Mason, no Sharon Sala (Dinah McCall), no Rachel Gibson. Can the day get any worse than it already is?!

I then decided to be brave and pick a book by an unknown (to me) writter by the name of Julie Ortolon. It takes great courage to read something written by someone you've never heard of alright! I've done it on two occasions before and the books by these two authors turned out to be major disappointments. My apologies to Hailey North and Millie Criswell, but I just don't fancy their style of writing. It's just not in-depth enough... no kick in reading it lah.