I don't really remember the titles that I read that year, but I do remember that I managed to reach my target of 20 books in the end (it was a close call -- I had to include my 'Basic Themes of the Quran' textbook just to reach said target lol).
But that was it. I didn't repeat the challenge again the next year, or the year after that. I guess knowing that I could reach whatever targets I set up for myself was enough back then -- and so I moved on with my life. I didn't think about the reading challenge again until last year -- 2019.
Eight years had gone by since I last did the challenge, and I started to wonder if I had grown at all as a reader within that period of time. To be very frank, I used to only read fiction, and nothing else. What's worse, I've noticed that I've started to lose interest in reading altogether (except for the occasional cheesy fanfics). I used to get all excited whenever I encountered a bookstore, but nowadays, while I'd still browse through the titles, I find myself leaving the store empty-handed more often than not. I've even noticed that whenever I did purchase a book, I did so just to appease the nagging voice in my head that's yelling, "But you're a BOOK NERD, you HAVE to buy SOMETHING!"
I'd become someone who'd buy books just because I wanted to live up to some sort of expectation that I'd set up for myself. In truth, there wasn't much left of that book-lover in me.
And so with this realisation, and a couple of perfectly-timed events, I decided to challenge myself to read 20 books in 2019. Here's what happened!
~*~
IIUM Kuantan Library Open Day 2018
This was how it all started, really -- with a bit of spring-cleaning!
I saw an ad for the Library Open Day on Facebook and thought, well, why not take part? The Open Day included a book drive, where you can donate and even exchange books with others.
Our bookshelves at home were filled with books that we've been meaning to donate for years; we just hadn't found the right time to do it, or the proper place to donate them. So this was more than perfect! While I was at home, I went through our bookshelves and picked out titles that I felt were no longer of interest to any of us.
I ended up donating 38 titles to the library, and got 5 books in exchange -- which wasn't all that bad!
~*~
Big Bad Wolf KL 2018
Now that I've freed up some space on the bookshelves at home, it was time to stock up on some new books! Coincidentally, in December 2018, the Big Bad Wolf himself rolled into a nearby town~ so my brother and I went to check it out.
This was it, really, the event that pushed me to finally starting my reading challenge. I've got new books that I was actually excited to read, so I decided to really commit to it. I should also mention that I've got quite a number of unread books lying around at home -- I was determined to read at least one or two of these abandoned titles, just to clear my conscience lol
~*~
January 2019:
The reading challenge begins!
I kicked things off with a re-read of one of my favourite book series as a kid: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. This title may be familiar to you, because it has been adapted into a movie in 2004 and a Netflix series more recently in 2017.
I can't remember exactly what year I discovered the series, but I did remember where I bought the first volume (The Bad Beginning): it was at a gift shop at the Seremban R&R (South Bound). It came as a surprise to the whole family that a gift shop at an R&R had a book section!
The reason this particular book caught my eye was the warning on its back cover. The author warns the reader not to read his books, because they contain nothing but misery.
Dear Reader,
I am sorry to say that the book you are holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant. It tells an unhappy tale about three very unlucky children. Even though they are charming and clever, the Baudelaire siblings lead lives filled with misery and woe.
...It is my sad duty to write down these unpleasant tales, but there is nothing stopping you from putting this book down at once and reading something happy, if you prefer that sort of thing.
The story follows Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire, who lost their parents and home in a tragic fire. At a glance, it all seemed like an accident, but several books into the series, it became apparent that something dark and mysterious was going on -- the Baudelaire parents seemed to have been a part of a secret organization, and had enemies that wanted them dead.
And if you want to avoid a world of confusion and hurt, I'm telling you now to NOT READ THE BOOKS, I swear to God. Don't be like me. Just, don't even start. You'll be happier, trust me. I thought his warnings were a joke, but look who's sad and confused and unhappy now?? Yep...this gal! D:
Sadness and confusion aside, this series did introduce me to one of the most wonderful online communities ever back when I was an adolescent. We exchanged theories about the plot of the books (back when it was still on-going), sent birthday wishes to the author, and wrote our own fanfictions about what happened After.
I don't frequent the forum anymore these days, but I did visit again after the Netflix adaptation aired. I was shocked and saddened to learn of the death of one of the OG members of the forums, but I was also pleased to know that the members of the forum and her family managed to contact the Netflix people, and in the end, her name was sneaked into one of the Netflix episodes as a tribute (M. Howarth, on the top right).
Now if that isn't an awesome community, I don't know what is.
(P/S: If you were thinking of going to the gift shop with the book section at the Seremban R&R...well, there's no need. It is now a Ramly Burger shop!)
The next book I read was World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks. I think I bought this at a thrift store at home, and just never got around to reading it. It was good and I love how the story jumps from one country to another.
As the title suggests, it's an oral history of the zombie war, so the main character goes around interviewing survivors of the war. The book is therefore made up of several short stories, to be precise -- some parts were interesting as HECK (like North/South Korea part and the South African part of the story), while some parts were like 'meh' and I ended up skipping them lol
I also read A Glimpse of the Past: my life before Parkinson's by Susie Chandy. This is one of the books I got from the Library Open Day. It was okay, I guess. It's one of my 'filler books' for this challenge -- short books that I decided to read in order to achieve my targets quicker lol
And with that, our tally is 3 books in January 2019!
~*~
February 2019:
the month I got terribly sick
I remember February 2019 quite vividly, because I got really sick at the start of the month and had to spend a lot of time resting at home. As a result, I managed to finish some of the heavier books during this resting period.
I started with the book that I bought in 2018 at Phnom Penh airport, on the way back from a humanitarian mission in Cambodia.
If there's one thing you should know about me, it's the fact that I am mildly fascinated by tragic stuff. I mean, I guess that's not really a unique thing or anything, but it is part of who I am. I just find it interesting, and I'd usually try to find documentaries, books, or articles online about these things. Whenever I encounter these things, there's just this overwhelming sense of, "I must know exactly what happened, what led to the stuff actually happening, and what consequences it had on people/places afterwards!"
Some examples of these events include: the assassination of the last royal family of Russia, and the consequent rumours of possible survivors; the sinking of the Titanic; the Chernobyl nuclear disaster; and the formation of North and South Korea, and the on-going war between them.
Having said all this, I was of course fascinated by the history that Cambodia has. I admit that I knew very little of the Khmer Rouge and the terror that they'd brought upon their own country and people before I went to this humanitarian mission. A visit to the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center managed to fix that.
I purchased two books at the airport, and I've only finished one of them. Master of Confessions: The Making of the Khmer Rouge Torturer by journalist Thierry Cruvellier details the trial of Duch, the Chief Prison Officer of S-21 (the central prison for the communist Khmer Rouge).
The book includes accounts from survivors of the S-21 prison, the relatives of the Khmer Rouge victims, and, of course, accounts from Duch, the Chief Prison Officer who denied ever torturing any of the prisoners, despite mounting evidence against him.
This book was followed by another heavy title, this time focusing on North Korea. Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee -- A Look Inside North Korea is a book by a North Korean defector, Jang Jin-sung, who used to work in the propaganda division (among others) of North Korea.
The author used to have access to forbidden books in his office back in North Korea -- books from the outside world, with certain things blacked out with permanent markers -- to help him write propaganda aimed to gain sympathy from the South Korean government.
These books weren't meant to be taken out of the office -- but Jang Jin-sung lend said book to his friend, who lost it by accident on the Pyonyang train. As the book would undoubtedly be traced back to Jang Jin-sung (they kept track of who was the last one to check out the book, if I'm not mistaken) once it was found, the two friends decided to flee North Korea.
The author, Jang Jin-sung, managed to defect to South Korea in 2004, and still lives there today.
February was also the month during which I managed to finish one of the thickest books in my collection: Under the Dome by Stephen King. I bought this books way back in 2015-2016, during a Popular Bookstore sale in Kuantan, I think. Stephen King has quickly become one of my favourite authors nowadays, and if you're not into horror stories, you might want to try some of the thrillers that he's written.
Under the Dome tells the story of a town that suddenly gets trapped under an invisible dome. Anything or anyone that gets too close to it would be zapped to death/destruction. With depleting fresh air and food supplies, dirty politics start to rear its ugly head in the small town. A war starts between the corrupted mayor (backed up by the police department) and the underdogs of the town, which included an ex-army diner chef, the lady who ran the local newspaper business, and a bunch of local kids, to name a few. I was at the edge of my seat the whole time, and let me remind you, this book has over 1,000 pages lol! Definitely give it a read if you're into thriller books!
Another Stephen King book followed this one, which was Finders Keepers. This is the second book in a trilogy about a retired detective. In the first book (Mr. Mercedes), the main character, a retired detective, gets taunted by a killer who drove a Mercedes car into a crowd of people lining up for a job fair -- it's the one case that he's never managed to solve. Finders Keepers follows the detective and his newly-found private detective agency. It's not bad -- I haven't read the final installment of the trilogy yet, and I'm hoping the library carries the title so I can do just that!
Our tally so far: 4 books in February; 7 books in total!
~*~
March 2019:
the Wolf returns!
Yep! In March, the Big Bag Wolf travelled to Pahang, and I had the chance to visit the book fair (again!) with one of my friends~
I picked up some more titles, this time focusing on history books and biographies, having discovered that I don't quite mind them and that I actually enjoyed reading them!
One book that got me hooked was Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie. It is a biography about one of Russia's most prominent monarchs. She was wronged by the former queen (her husband's aunt, Elizabeth Petrovna, who basically stole her firstborn) and her own husband (who became an incompetent king after the death of his aunt -- not to mention he also openly talked about divorce in front of his ministers and had an affair with one of Catherine's ladies-in-waiting). Despite all the odds being against her, Catherine managed to capture the hearts of the Russian people and even managed to overthrow her useless husband. She ruled as the Empress of Russia for 34 years -- the longest of any Russian female leader! You can't help but root for her as you read this book, seriously~
I also picked up a Regency-era romance book at the Big Bad Wolf, called The Vicar's Daughter by Josi S. Kilpack. I had high hopes for it, but the plot turned out to be typical and the characters very disappointing. I've read better fanfictions than this, really. 0/10, would not recommend!
Our tally so far: 2 books in March, 9 books in total!
~*~
April 2019:
more North Korea & Stephen King
By April of 2019, I think I've pretty much figured out what kind of books I prefer nowadays: biographies, history books, and Stephen King books~
I've picked up not one, but two books on North Korea at the Pahang Big Bad Wolf (alongside one book about Hitler and another on RMS Lusitania, a British ocean liner that was sunk by a German U-boat during World War I -- I haven't made much progress with both of these books so far, whoops!).
One book, The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea's Abduction Project by Robert S. Boynton, details the experience of a Japanese man, Hasuike Kaoru, who was kidnapped alongside his girlfriend, Okudo Yukiko, by North Korean spies in 1978. It turns out that this is a common thing in North Korea; lots of Japanese citizens were kidnapped along the shorelines, but North Korea denied this for the longest time, up until 2002. Reading this made me extra paranoid, because the North Korean government not only kidnaps Japanese citizens, but foreigners from all over the world. The Kim Jong-nam episode in KLIA reeeaaally adds to the paranoia in me! It's SO close to home -- no scratch that, IT HAPPENED AT HOME!!!
The other book, The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot: The True Story of the Tyrant Who Created North Korea and the Young Lieutenant Who Stole His Way to Freedom (PHEWH that was a mouthful!! A...handful? To type?? It's a long title, is what I'm getting at!) by Blaine Harden, details the story of No Kum Sok, a fighter pilot who flew across the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) from North Korea into South Korea during a routine military flight. He is 88 years old today, and lives in Florida, USA.
Hasuike (left) and his girlfriend Okudo,
victims of the kidnapping project by the North Korean government.
No Kum Sok, the fighter pilot who defected to South Korea
by flying his place across the Korean DMZ -- like a total badass.
And the last Stephen King book I read in 2019 was Pet Sematary (yes, it's misspelled on purpose). Let me tell ya... It's super creepy, okay. I decided to read it because the film adaptation was about to be released at that time (starring John Lithgow, no less!!!!) -- whenever I could, I try to read the books first before seeing any movie adaptations, so this was me doing just that.
King tends to drag things out in his books sometimes, and more often than not, you'd find yourself wishing that he'd 'just get to the point already!!!' -- but all that aside, this book just gets under your skin...I mean, REALLY gets under your skin... The most recent movie adaptation made some key changes to the plot, which I totally understand, but I think the original plot is better. Seriously...!!
I don't own a copy of Pet Sematary, by the way -- I borrowed a copy from the university's library; the cover was seriously falling apart...come to think of it, I should've patched it up a bit with some tapes while I had it... Ah well.
Anyway! The tally now is 3 books in April, with a total of 12 books overall!
~*~
May-August 2019:
the long pause
Yeah...You read that right. With 12 books under my belt by April 2019, I stopped reading from May till August. I'm not even sure why, but I'm pretty sure some Real Life stuff kicked in, so I abandoned my reading challenge temporarily.
After this long break, I found it kind of hard to start reading again, and you'll soon see that I ended up reading a lot of 'filler books' just to reach my target of 20 books lol
Your interest just comes and goes when it comes to reading -- just like everything else, I suppose. This especially applies to me at the moment (I'm attempting another reading challenge in 2020) -- all my interest in biography and history books is gone in 2020. Instead, I'm in the mood for children's books, short and delightful ones like Enid Blyton's works. I've been in this mood since December, and you'll see this reflected in the last few books that I read in 2019!
~*~
September-November 2019:
gotta go fast!!!!
Having slacked for 4 months, I started to pick up several filler books and read through them as fast as I could. I started with a YouTuber book that I found in a thrift store -- a very lucky find, considering I had actually gone to Kinokuniya looking for it; I decided to not buy it because it costs RM80!!! It doesn't matter how big of a fan you are -- if the merchandise is worth how many months' worth of lunch and dinner, I ain't buying it!!
Anyway -- I think I bought Dan and Phil's The Amazing Book is Not on Fire for only RM12 at the thrift store! A total bargain!
Zen Cho's Spirits Abroad quickly followed. The book consisted of witty short stories about hantu and langsuir and other local spirits mingling with modern-day people. And yes, the author is a Malaysian~
Another filler book followed this one: M is for Magic by Neil Gaiman is a collection of short fantasy stories. The first story is definitely the strongest, in my opinion. The rest was okay, but not memorable.
So the tally is 3 books for September-November, bringing the overall total to 15 books!!
~*~
December 2019:
we're on the home stretch now!
As I approached December, I really tried my best to finish whatever books I had in mind, but some things are just not meant to be. I was reading two biographies, but I knew realistically that I was going to finish only one of them at the end of the month.
But that's not a reason for me to quit! Oh no!! So I really sprinted through the one biography that I'm more interested in, and looked for other more manageable books to read in order to reach my target of 20 books.
Remember how I told you that I was (and still am!) in the mood for short and fun children's books? Well, it all began with my third Big Bad Wolf trip since starting this reading challenge (yep, I went AGAIN, this time in KL -- same place as the last time -- and it was fruitful, as always!). I found a delightful book called The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry.
Set in the Victorian era, it tells the story of the girls at St. Etheldreda's School for Young Ladies, whose Headmistress died suddenly at breakfast. Instead of reporting the death to the authorities, the girls decided to bury the Headmistress in the garden so that they didn't have to go back home (they each had family conflicts at home) and continued living at the school. The summary on the back cover was just too delightful for me to resist, so I bought it and finished reading it in one night~
Now that I was in the mood for adventurous/witty young adult books, I decided to actually finish reading my copy of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. I bought this book a while ago, and even managed to read several chapters of the book, only to abandon it because the plot was too slow for me. This time though, I decided to soldier on. It's the first book in the series -- there's like, five or six books in total. I forget.
I thought the first book had a lot of potential, especially The Thing regarding the main character's grandfather -- but I dunno, it just fell flat. The main character is a spoiled brat -- which I don't actually mind, for once! -- but yeah, it's a real shame. I ended up just reading the Wikipedia to know what happens in the other books lol...
I know the first book got turned into a movie -- I might just watch that to see what they changed in the plot to make it more interesting for Hollywood~ hahahaha...
I also managed to quickly read The Terrible Terror Book by M.D. Spenser. This is also one of the books that I got from the Library Open Day back in 2018~ Haven't got much to say about it... It's not as creepy as some of the Goosebumps books I've read in my childhood... It's just -- another filler book, I guess? Yeah~
Moving on... The one biography book that I managed to finish in December was Diana: Her True Story -- In Her Own Words by Adrew Morton. I've always believed that the British Royal Family had something to do with her death... I dunno... Just seems fishy, ya know?
Anyway~ I felt deeply for Diana when I read the book -- the things she had to go through, the treatment she got from Charles... Ugh. I just don't get how people are just OK with the fact that Camilla is married to Charles today. How are William and Harry OK with that?? The stuff she's done to their mother, though! UGH!!
Speaking of the British Royal Family... Things are getting interesting now, no? With the whole Prince Andrew sex (rape) scandal and the whole Harry-Meghan leaving the Family thing, I can't wait to see what happens next and how it affects the dynamics and the structure of the royal family!
Anyway~ I digress!
With the book about Diana, the current total is 19 out of 20 books! I just need one more to reach my target for my reading challenge -- and I was reading Nicholas II: The Last Tsar by Michael Patterson. It's a title that I picked up at the most recent Big Bad Wolf -- it's a book about something I'm really interested in (the last royal family of Russia), it's not a very long book, and the author uses simple language... I should be able to finish it by the end of December...except that my interest in biography and history books have started to wane by this time.
So instead, I decided that the last book should be another re-read -- since I started the whole challenge with the re-read of The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket, the last book should also be a re-read~
The book I ended up choosing to close this challenge was J.K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard. I had fun re-reading it, especially when it came to Dumbledore's forewords for each story, and also his footnotes lol
And with that, we've reached the end of my 2019 Reading Challenge~~~!!
As I've mentioned earlier, I'm currently attempting another reading challenge for the year 2020. My target is still the same (20 books), and I've got one book down (an Enid Blyton book, lol!! -- told you I'm still in the mood for simple stories!). I'm also slowly reading the Tsar Nicholas book each night (well, almost) before bed~
I'm looking forward to the next KL Big Bad Wolf, whenever that will be, hehe. But of course, I still have TONS of unfinished books lying around, so I shouldn't have any problem finding something to read for this year's challenge!
~*~
Stats for Nerd
(because I can lol)
I thought it'd be fun for me to plot some graphs to find out about my reading habits from my 2019 reading challenge. While it's not much, I think it'd be fascinating to compare it to this year's books (if I managed to finish the 2020 reading challenge, that is!) just to see how/if my reading habits have changed.
I guess the logical place to start is by charting how many books I read per month in 2019, so here it is:
With the amount of 'filler books' that I read in December while I sprint towards the finishing line, it's no surprise that December becomes the month during which I read the most books, LOL!! We'll see if this becomes a trend this year, eh~
The next thing I could think of is plotting the books by genres. Let's see, shall we~~
Again, with the amount of 'filler books' that I squeezed into my list in the end, I'm not surprised that my reading list is dominated by children's books hahaha~
I also find it hard to categorise some of these books -- the ones whose genres are not immediately given by a simple Google search reeeaaally got me scratching my head... Mainly because the books I've read tend to fall somewhere between history/biography. Ah well -- I got there in the end~
~*~
Aaaaaand that concludes this long-ass blog post LOL!!
If I had to pick my favourite book(s) for this challenge, it would be Catherine The Great for non-fiction, and Under the Dome for fiction~
My hope for this year's reading challenge is to find some Malay history books -- wish me luck! (I am a naturally slow reader, but for some reason, I am an ever slower reader when it comes to Malay books!!!)
I also gotta say that if you've got the chance to go to Big Bad Wolf, go for it!! Books are (sadly) quite expensive here in Malaysia, so book fairs such as BBW is a really good opportunity for you to grab as many titles as your budget allows! For real, though!
If you've got kids, introduce them to books as early as you can! (My own lovely Mak introduced me and my sister to books at a very young age by telling us bedtime stories~) Buy them as many books as you can, and with any luck, they'll grow fond of books as they grow older!!
Okay, I think that's all for me... (Seriously, this has been a REALLY long one...)
Till next time!!
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
