I am an avid reader. It was evident since my school days. Enid Blyton and Virgina Andrews were some of my favourites back then. I was into fairy-tales, fantasy and fiction. The funny thing is I was never as interested to know the author as I did in their work. If any of them were to visit my town, I wouldn’t have bothered getting an autograph. And then I grew up, moved out, started working and got busy living a life of new found freedom in a foreign land. For a while I wasn’t reading anything much. It was in 1999, after my conversion to Christianity, that I started reading again and have managed to keep up ever since. Between then and now, I’ve read in most part, books pertaining to Christianity, religion and spirituality. Then sometime in 2006 my choice of books started to change again. My interest shifted to biographies, history, especially Jewish ones and occasionally some good fiction. There was a shift from the innocent, fantasy filled days of my childhood to a time of self awareness and deep spirituality. My interest now extends towards listening to and understanding the world around me. I am still discovering the complexity and diversity of life that makes it all the more intriguing and spiritually enriching.

Here is a list of books I’ve read recently. Unfortunately I won’t be able to record all my previous reads but at least I start somewhere. It is said that we can tell much about a person by the book he reads. So let’s see what do these say of me. My ratings are in (brackets).

2009

September
Investing for Dummies – (3.5/5)
Estate Planning Made Easy (Law for Layman Series) – Providend (4/5)

August
Smart Guide to Estate Planning – (4/5)
Love As A Way of Life – Gary Chapman (4/5)
Nolo’s Estate Planning Basics (3.5/5)

July
All About ETFs – Archie Richards Jr (4/5)

April
Women & Money – Suze Orman (4/5)

March
Cashflow Quadrant – Robert Kiyosaki (3.5/5)
When Bad Things Happen to Good People – Harold Kushner (3.5/5)

January
Waiter Rant (4/5)

2008

October
Money, Possessions and Eternity – Randy Alcorn (4.5/5)
Thou Shall Prosper – Rabbi Daniel Lapin (4/5)
Live Well, Love Much, Laugh Often – Apelles Poh (2.5/5)
The Road to Wealth – Suze Orman (4/5)
9 Steps to Financial Freedom – Suze Orman (4.5/5)
The Laws of Money – Suze orman (5/5)

July
Radical Reliance – Joe Stowel (4.5/5)
What Buddhist Believe – K. Sri Dhammananda (4/5)

Jun
The Lotus and the Cross: Jesus Talks with Buddha (2nd reading) (3/5)

May
The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the lost religion of Taoist Christianity – Martin Palmer (4.5/5)

January
Renovation of the Heart – Dallas Willard (2nd reading) (3.5/5)

2007

October
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Jewish History and Culture – Rabbi Benjamin Blech (5/5)
Dostoevsky – Richard Freeborn (3.5/5)

September
From Beirut to Jerusalem – Dr Ang Swee Chai (3.5/5)

August
Silence – Shusaku Endo (5/5)
Heroes of the Holocaust – Arnold Geier (4.5/5)

July
Train Man – Nakano Hittori (3/5)
Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary (4.5/5)
God’s Blog – Lanny Donoho (4/5)

June
Eleven Minutes – Paulo Coelho (3.5/5)
The Fifth Mountain- Paulo Coelho (4.5/5)