Have you been reading any books lately?

I am reading a book now after a very, very long time. I'm glad I did too. As it turns out, reading was quite a joy if I'm reading a topic of interest. I had never wanted to touch a proper book in the past (besides comic books). Probably because I was not a studious person.

Now that I have picked up some interest in certain areas that I am really interested in, I find it quite hard to find books for them in Singapore. I had to get mine from Amazon.com. I scratched my head, quite a few times, wondering why. As I found out recently from someone, there might be reasons deeper than simply an economical choice by the major bookstores.

Let us look at some possible reasons that might have caused this. Now, we can always attribute the lack of intellectual fodder to the effects of demand and supply. No demand, no supply by the bookstores. However, looking deeper, where is the demand? Isn't anyone interested in reading in intellectual materials? I believe there are, but they may be few and far between.

The reasons may be further attributed to the education system that we have and the mindset of the people here in Singapore. We are required to do two languages, English and our mother tongue. Most of us are not even fluent in one of them, let alone both. And we do not really bother ourselves with it, arguing that we are too busy to realise, or that we are able to speak or write fluently as and when we want to, easily.

Take my cousin for example, I should just say he is a really educated person and that he should not be having any troubles conversing in London. Just the opposite, he was dumbfounded a few times as he was shocked to find that he was not able to communicate as freely as he would like to be.

We could, and should, give some thoughts about this and may we see more people reading and enjoying more books in the future.