I have just finished reading a book.

If there’s a “So what?” lingering on the edge of your lips, remember that I have since forgotten how to enjoy fiction. I did mention once before that I preferred the medium of the motion picture over the written word. I now realise that it was a most unfounded statement to make, as, at the point of mentioning the above phrase, I had simply not completed reading as many books as I had watched movies.

Note the qualification: Despite having done two literature modules in the past year, I had not completed reading any of the prescibed texts. To this day, I doubt I can describe how the Creature learnt to speak in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or quote from The Time Machine by HG Wells, or how goes the ending of Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfeld Hall. If not for watching the BBC production of The Moonstone, I might not have bothered to read Wilke Collins’ novel further in depth, yet I have not completed reading the book from cover to cover.

This semester, however, one of the prescribed readings is Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. After purchasing the book yesterday, I voraciously delved into it and like remembering a special encounter from a distant past, found the desire to see it through till the end. It has now been little over an hour since I read the book, including the Appendix.

What an enormous sensation! Such absolute joy! It has, as is apparent to all, driven me to type this very post so soon after my previous one despite having averaged only one blogpost per week in the past two months or so. No recent movie has ever done that for me, and between The Chronicles of Narnia and Wallace and Gromit, I like to think that I have watched a slew of inspiring and impressive movies over the holiday period.

But for a book, one single work of fiction, to move me so! It just proves beyond a shadow of doubt how much I miss the joy of reading.

As an afterthought: I visited the rather chic Italian cafe in Raffles City today, the Menotti. Brilliant ambience and an affordable Set Lunch at $19.90 that can really keep you filled for the rest of the day! What topped off a most underrated linguine for me, was their selection of deserts - from which I selected the Catalina, which was the best introduction to Creme Brulée that I could have ever asked for. Mmmmm! Heck, even their Earl Grey tasted divine. So drop by the Menotti for lunch if you can. It’s on the outside of Raffles City, at the junction facing CHIJMES and Raffles Hotel.