Book Fasting

I am on book fasting now, which means I’m not going to buy any book until the end of this month and hopefully the following month. Ok, I know I don’t sound convincing, but I’m going to do it this time. Too much damage during the last book spree at Atria Big Bookshop Sale and please don’t ask me how much I’d spend.

Well, book fasting doesn’t mean to stay away from bookshop. I’ll go to bookshop though, to browse through books on the shelf, but no more book buying. In fact, I’ll go to Kinokuniya bookstore tomorrow, to meet two of my friends who came back from Australia. We are having a high school reunion.

I have to control my book consumption this year; of course it’s the buying that I must control not the book reading!

I’ve started my TBR challenge, though; I have to spend most of my free time to read books on Malaya People’s Anti Japanese Army, due to the controversial rose after the building of monument in memorial of MPAJA recently. The discussions seemingly focus on whether MPAJA was formed by members of Malaya Communist Party; do we need to erect a monument in memory of MCP member who killed a lot of people during Emergency?

Well, I think the discussion is rather simplistic to mention only the atrocity done by the MCP during Emergency; we are at war then. The MCP killed a lot of people, but their members got killed too . MCP was the enemy of Government during the Emergency, but we can’t ignore their contribution towards anti-Japanese struggle during WWII.

I'm reading Colin Abraham's The Finest hour: The Malaysian-MCP peace Accord in Perspective (Kuala Lumpur, SIRD, 2006). The finding of this book is refreshing and thought provoking, which shows the complexity of the society during that era. I think every Malaysian should read this book in order to know the making of our country.

Well, it is my job to write about it and let the reader know the facts of the history and especially for me as a Malaysian to know the history, as it is missing in the official history of Malaysia.

Oh, do I mention my job? Yeah, you probably already knew, I’m a journalist.