In Addition

I genuinely thought that the listing of books to be read in the coming weeks that I posted a couple of days ago was complete, but I'm afraid it already falls short in several respects, partly due to a trip we paid this afternoon to the wilds of Tiong Bahru and the finest small bookshop in these parts, Books Actually. I went there simply to get hold of the latest copy of the literary journal Ceriph, the sixth issue, and was successful in this respect, pleasingly so as this issue features works by two former students that I was keen to read. I am also proud to say I resisted the temptation to buy quite a number of other tasty tomes on offer, but must confess to shelling out for Boey Kim Cheng's Between Stations, a series of essays on the poet's travels. My colleague Aloysius strongly recommended this quite some time ago (as a text we might consider teaching as well as a good read) and ever since my delighted discovery of just how good a collection Boey's Days of No Name is I'm more than happy to read whatever he has to say.

I also forgot to mention that Charles Simic's A Wedding in Hell is my current reading classified under poetry, small collections, now I've put Paterson's inscrutably engaging Nil Nil behind me. Simic is a lot more accessible in his dream-like way. I'm just going with the flow as they once used to say.

So that seems to be it for now - except on the non-reading front I should add there are now quite a few attractive coffee shops in and around Yong Siak Street, which means even more reasons for going back there.