Not the least of which being that my reading glasses are much, much bigger than my literary appetite.

Reading: Pleasure vs. Productivity

Break your reading sessions into books for (1) play and (2) development is key. I could list off books and authors I enjoy the most in each category, but suffice it to say those titles all invoke a sense of curiosity and imagination in my mind. They keep me dreaming.

Books you read to develop yourself can fall into any category, really. Whatever subject it is that you study, the books you read to develop yourself—more precisely, that brain matter—are in a different class. You read them to spark the synapses and evoke thoughts.

Here’s the thing: you can do both!

You can read for pleasure and with purpose.

Internet: The World-Wide Well of Possibility

I’ve recently decided to become an editor and a book reviewer. Much the same in terms of job duties, the two positions require a similar material: a manuscript! Editors usually see a manuscript before it hits the shelves, but book reviewers do not necessarily only see the finished product. In these days of self-publication, error-ridden manuscripts are as rampant as “50 Shades of Grey” fan fiction.

I shudder at the thought.

Self-publication, however, is a trusted medium for newbie authors. They haven’t reached their J.K. Rowling moment (yet), but that doesn’t mean their tales don’t make the cut. Here’s the thing about self-publishing though: how are you going to spread the word about your book?

That’s where book reviewers come in. They’re the avid readers who can’t wait to get their hands on the next “Game of Thrones“. Some of them (like me) might prefer your traditional mode of publication—tangible pages and that inexplicable book smell—but others are comfortable with curling up, Kindle in hand.

So, if you’re a lost literary soul tired of looking at the shelves and seeing your old favorites, here’s a way to find new ones. Find a website that offers free e-books for review, and join!

OnlineBookClub.org

Through this website, I’ve been exposed to authors who have that special flick in their wrist and those who cannot seem to imbibe their words with the necessary literary magic. Unique in that it offers new reviewers the chance to review books for free, while working towards becoming a paid reviewer, OnlineBookClub.org does offer some thought-provoking tomes for the book-starved.

Connecting with Authors

Being a published author in today’s day and age is not necessarily what it used to be. When cars first came out, only the rich and famous could own and/or drive them. To own a car was a privilege. I imagine book-writing started out that way as well. You had to not only know how to write but you had to have something worthwhile to say!

Nowadays, it seems every 1 in 5 people has probably written a book (or at least thought about it). What separates the detritus from the true novelists, however, is a dedication to the art. Readers know intuitively when an author has talent. They flock to their work and praise the prose they so love.

Through OnlineBookClub.org, I was able to connect with a few authors whose works I thoroughly enjoyed. I’ve corresponded with a few of them on another great website, Goodreads.com. Every interaction I’ve had thus far has been rewarding and inviting.

Authors, just like readers, need to assuage that literary tic.

It Never Hurts to Ask (For those Good Reads)

After reading the first in her series, I contacted an author on Goodreads about the next installment. I mentioned I had reviewed her first work on OnlineBookClub.org and that I was interested in reading more. I wasn’t able to purchase her next book due to my budget, but I did offer a review on Goodreads, as well as on Amazon, in exchange for a copy of the sequel. With baited breath, I awaited her response.

Imagine my surprise when she accepted! She was thrilled that I had enjoyed her work and graciously attached a version of her second novel.

Fortified by my interaction with this kind author, I contacted another, this time in regards to his dragon series. He responded with the same enthusiasm and provided me PDFs of his work.

There are authors out there who just want to share their works, without gouging their readers’ pocketbooks.

Give Back, Today

Now, as much as there is scandal around Amazon reviews and being paid for something that should be given only in honesty, I do believe that a paid (non-Amazon) review can be unbiased.

To review books and act as gatekeepers is a reader’s basic duty, if not the very task of serious readers.

My advice, in this world of incredible languages, is to consider new outlets for sourcing books—either for pleasure reading or research—and always act in the manner most suited to giving back to the writing community. Have the integrity to recognize and laud a good book when you read it, and caution others against those who do not quite understand the value of language.

Because while ultimately anyone can write a book, not everyone tells a story the way it should be told. How can you tell the difference?

I’ll let you be the judge.

Rebecca Henderson holds a Master’s in German and a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing. Best expressing herself through the written word, she enjoys the smell of burning rubber and can recite the ABC’s of the automotive world upon command. Rebecca hopes to shift your world perspective through her words, because looking out the same window every day hardly makes for an interesting life.

The post How to Find New Books To Read and Give Back to the Literary Community appeared first on Newfound.

In a recent interview with SG Magazine, Malaysian writer and resident of Singapore, Tash Aw, criticized Singapore’s lack of literary culture. Calling out the country’s educational system, Aw says, “the whole thing about writing requires you to question stuff in general. Not necessarily political things, but from a personal point of view. It needs you to question stuff that’s going on inside yourself. Very basic things, like family. That’s not something the Singaporean educational system encourages.” Aw goes on to point out the Singaporean peoples’ general disregard for literature and self-history, their emphasis on work and social standing, as well as other cultural ideas.

In defense of his country, though, Aw offers this: “I think Singapore is very creative, with great film-makers and visual artists. Literature is the one thing that’s lagging behind. The Great Singapore Novel isn’t going to happen for a long time, because to have any novel, let alone a great one, you need to be able to draw upon reserves of experience. If you’re going to rely on that post-’65 narrative, then Singapore is a young country. Somewhere like Britain has had hundreds of years.”

Singapore’s literary culture is however, budding. Cyril Wong, Simon Tay, Su-Chen Christine Lim, Alvin Pang, and Grace Chia, among others, are at the forefront of Singaporean literature in English, pushing against cultural friction since independence in 1965. Small presses such as Math Paper Press and Ethos Books are iconic in the Singaporean literary landscape. Tiong Bahru, Jalan Besar, Alexandra, and Keong Saik are emerging neighborhoods—with independent bookstores—attracting young artists.

At the foundation of this emerging literary scene is Singapore’s library system. Twenty-six libraries and national archives dot the island. All libraries include collections in all four national languages—English, Tamil, Chinese and Malay. The flagship of the system is the National Library, a sixteen-story tower in the central business district, between the bustling markets of Bugis and the quiet museums of Bras Basah.

The National Library was established in 1844 to educate the local populace. The present-day building was founded in 1960 and expanded outward and upward. It is, in fact, two libraries in one: the Central Public Library beginning in the basement with general reading stacks, and the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library from the seventh to the thirteenth floors.

Other libraries in Singapore’s system of libraries have a similar environment to libraries in the United States. The National Library, however, stands out. The place embodies what defines a public space, integrating the natural and built environment with vaulted ceilings in reading rooms and cozy crannies in courtyards. Patrons sit in the bamboo garden, flipping pages of The Straits Times. They take naps on the sofas in the Central Library. They chitchat in the plaza in front of the library. They study in the expansive ends of the reference library on the seventh through ninth floors, trying to not be distracted by skyline adorned in pastels made alive by the blue sky. They sit on the floor next to elevator doors, creating their own private space. They walk through, around and about installations made by various local artists, attempting to decipher meaning.

The National Library also includes a theater, in which local playwrights showcase their work, and exhibitions examining national history (on one floor, a central space was devoted to the history of literature in Singapore). All in all, the library itself is a cultural and social hub for all Singaporeans.

Singapore thrives in its rigidity—45-hour work weeks, projects finished ahead of schedule—its people are a work-centric people. The country’s first—and arguably most influential—Prime Minister, Lee Kwan Yew, once said, “poetry is a luxury we cannot afford.” The National Library is an oasis as a free-flowing space that bends the rules of purpose and definition. It is the cultural backbone that can lead to the creation of “the Great Singapore Novel” in due time.

Ravi Venkataraman is a Peace Corps Volunteer in Chengdu, China and serves on the editorial board of MaLa: The China Bookworm Literary Journal. When he isn’t teaching, playing ultimate frisbee or binge-watching TV shows, he writes fiction and poetry. His work was previously featured in That Lit Site and Papercuts, and is forthcoming in Journal of Microliterature.

The post Singapore’s Literary Culture and the Power of a National Library appeared first on Newfound.

And yet, access to books and the written word is limited for many South Africans, due to the past law of apartheid and its remnants in daily life. Books are a rare commodity and fiercely guarded in South Africa. I still haven’t worked through what my reading life in Cape Town has meant.

I spent a year as a grad student at the University of Cape Town in 2011, and I adored the main library’s Recreational Reading Room. It was a cozy wood-floored room filled with loveseats and novels by African and British writers, whose books never made it to American circulation desks.

Another gem of UCT was the library at Hiddingh Campus—an enclave of just a few Dutch colonial buildings in Cape Town proper. Hiddingh Campus was the Art School. The art and philosophy library (next to the campus art supply store) was my heaven amidst the madness of Cape Town. Walking there meant being aggressively (and I mean physically) pan-handled by strung-out child beggars.

However, anyone who set foot in either of these libraries without an active university ID would be denied entry by the dogmatic (and armed!) university security guards. The guards might take people to a clandestine location to interrogate them. If you tried to get into one of these libraries and couldn’t produce university ID, you were “renditioned” for a day.

(Do I need to state that this never happened to me, a white American student? But that for a time I was dating a South African student, a Coloured student, an absent-minded student, who once forgot his ID and tried to get into the library and ended up cuffed to a chair in the basement instead? I checked out books for him for the rest of the semester. But that’s not justice, is it?)

And so, books for South Africans who aren’t university students can be hard to come by.  Cape Town had some nice book shops, but the price of new books was prohibitively expensive. $30 USD for a new paperback is steep to me, even by current US standards. But in that world where wages and general standard of living were lower, $30 translated back into South African Rands was a pile of money. I couldn’t see how anyone could afford to read new books. When I last lived in Cape Town, the country also had no broadband infrastructure—so Internet access was prohibitively expensive, too. A world of words is online, but proved too expensive to dive into.

And then, the public library went missing. No, this isn’t a magic realism tale. I lost the Cape Town Public Library.

The Main Collection was at one point located in the City Hall building in Cape Town proper. (On Darling Street. By the taxi rank.) But the last time I lived in Kaapstad, in 2011, no one could tell me where the public library stacks were. THE MAIN COLLECTION OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY WAS MISSING! I was convinced I’d stumbled into a Borges short story, because no one ever cleared this up for me. To this day I have not learned where the main library’s books have been moved.

I read a lot in Cape Town, and I tried to read things that I could only get in South Africa. But the fact that I could do this was a mark of my privilege—as a white person, as a US citizen. The written word isn’t the resource that most Westerners think of exploiting when they think of South Africa. I didn’t want diamonds and I didn’t want gold, I wanted to get to know the works of Alex La Guma, Steve Biko, and Nadine Gordimer.

I still have some ambivalence regarding South Africa, the intractable racism and classism there, and my own compliance with unjust systems. But that isn’t to suggest that there aren’t excellent organizations there, working to make education and access to literature more equitable, or to make South Africa a reading nation.

Laura Eppinger graduated from Marquette University with a degree in Journalism. Her laptop screen got cracked during a year in Cape Town, South Africa, but it never stopped her from writing. Her publications list lives here.

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