There's a Book Club Meetup tomorrow at Elephant's Cafe!! I hope to be able to make it to this one this time. Well, I know I have to show up as I did promise Gette that I'll pass some books to her. Oh, I also got my 11 year old sister started on The da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. It's a bit much for an 11-year-old to handle but I'm not too worried. Better than all those other Olsen Twins books and Barbie magazines she usually reads. Besides, she's already reached the second chapter. Normally, if anyone makes it past the first chapter, they're more likely to finish the whole book.

I just finished reading The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud. It's the second book in a trilogy. First one was The Amulet of Samarkand. Both pretty good and have a very important moral to be learnt from. As Shook puts it, Both books tell you that you should always cover every possible loophole when negotiating terms.

Talking about books, anyone noticed that the noisiest place in Kuching has got to be in the various bookshops we have here in town? Every bookstore I go to does not seem like a bookshop. Bookstores are supposed to be quiet. Not as quiet as a library but not as noisy as a fish market either. But if you walk into e-smart or Times, you will definitely hear the latest bits of gossip. The person at the counter will yell to the person in the back rows about her latest escapade. The worker at the magazine area will shout out to the friend who is about to take a break and the girls will be gossiping about their favourite movie star, singer, boyfriend, toy boy, lover etc. All in very loud tones and cackling laughter. I discover more about Kuching social life in the bookshops than I do at a coffee shop!! The only quiet bookstore I have come across in Kuching so far is The Leading Bookstore at Saberkas. The workers actually shush each other if they are too loud, which is a very surprising novelty.

While I was at e-smart the other day, I also heard a few Chinese guys making fun of the books on the shelves. Can you tell they don't read much? People who really read hardly ever make fun of books. They make fun of the type of books a person reads but not ever of the books themselves. I also even managed to overhear what the managers were discussing their office. Yes, they were that loud.

So is it any wonder that a huge, beautiful, heavenly bookstore like MPH or Kinokuniya or Barnes & Nobles or Borders will probably never reach Kuching? Our society's sad and pathetic. Readers are a dying breed. My father even says that there's not much business in opening a bookstore. We can do better opening a food place. See what I mean? Sad...