I am a bookshop addict. I cannot walk past a bookshop without taking a peek inside, especially if it is a second hand shop. Second hand book shops have characters, I find. You will not always find the kinds of books that you are interested in reading, but you will inevitably find the kinds of books that the owner is interested in reading and there is something about walking into a secondhand bookshop and browsing the shelves that makes you feel connected to the owner of the shop as well as to the previous owners and future owners of the books. New bookshops do not have the same kind of warmth and character attached to them, but you can still sense something about the shop by perusing through the shelves and noting what they have and, more specifically, what they don't.

When I walk into a bookshop, I do so with a sense of purpose. There are books that I want to read that I have yet to find, and when I walk into a bookshop and start perusing the shelves, I am looking for specific authors, names that I will recognise. When I don't recognise any names, I immediately write that bookshop off my list of possibilites. When I recognise even a name or two, I start to make myself comfortable and peruse the shelves with more ease - I might only know a few of the authors, but there is a sense of visiting some old friends and being introduced to some of their contemporaries.

You might ask where I got the list of books that I look for from, and this is simple enough - it has been built up from years of English books that I neglected to read when I should have and books that have been recommended by friends, but was added to last year during my creative writing course when we were given a list of books longer than anyone would be able to manage in the mere three months that we had to complete the course. Then there are those that I gouge from the internet pages that I read. Internet pages like the one that I stumbled across this morning: "Thirty Books Everyone Should Read Before They're Thirty" (http://www.divinecaroline.com/22189/98450-thirty-books-everyone-read-they-re).

Looking over this list, I realised that I hadn't heard of most of the books and had only read a grand total of four of them. But most of them, upon reading the short descriptions, were ones that I had no interest in in any case! People's tastes are completely subjective, and I know that mine is no different, but I have decided to put together a list of the books that I want to read before I am thirty, compiled from a combination of that list and the creative writing one (excluding the ones sitting on my bookshelf here waiting to be read). And here it is, in alphabetical order, rather than that of preference:

Lara's List of Book She Wants to Read Before She is Thirty

1. Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
2. Arundhati Roy - God of Small Things
3. Bernard Schlink - The Reader
4. David Cohen - People Who Have Stolen From Me
5. Ernest Hemingway - For Whom The Bell Tolls
6. Franz Kafka - Metamorphosis
7. Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Crime and Punishment
8. Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera
9. Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude
10. Gao Xingjian - Soul Mountain
11. George Orwell - 1984
12. Jack Kerouac - On the Road
13. James Ellmore - The Black Dahlia
14. JM Coetzee - Boyhood
15. John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
16. Jonathon Safran Foer - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
17. Jose Saramago - The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
18. Joseph Heller - Catch 22
19. JRR Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings
20. Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go
21. Kim Stanley Robinson - The Years of Rice and Salt
22. Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace
23. Ma Jian - Red Dust
24. Margaret Atwood - Cat's Eye
25. Michael Ondaatje - In the Skin of a Lion
26. Michael Ondaatje - Running in the Family
27. Milan Kundera - Life is Elsewhere
28. Milan Kundera - The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
29. Paul Theroux - Dark Star Safari
30. Peter Matthiessen - Snow Leopard
31. Plato - The Republic
32. Primo Levi - If This Be A Man
33. Simone de Beauvoir - Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter
34. Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
35. Xiaolu Guo - 20 Fragments of a Revenous Youth
36. Xinran - The Good Women of China

Some of these, like The Lord of the Rings, are ones that I have started reading. Some are ones that are sitting on my shelf back home in South Africa, awaiting my return and itching to be opened. Some I am weary about and some I am confident in. There are many more to be added to this list, but this is just the beginning. You can expect to find it edited over and over again, but never cut down unless one of the books is read. But for now, this is all that I can do. I would like to hear opinions, so feel free to comment!

Books have always been a big part of my life. All you have to do is look at my bookshelf in Cape Town to know this. It is filled with the books that I have accumulated over the years, or at least the favourites. Every so often, my mother insists that I do a thorough Spring Clean which involves the giving away of old clothes and old books to some hospice or another. It's not really that I mind giving things away. It's just that my books hold memories for me. Even the ones that I haven't opened for years and years have a special place in my heart. The ones that are falling apart are particularly special. They might look like trash, but they are the ones that have been thoroughly pored over time and time again.

When I moved from Grahamstown to Cape Town, I came bearing many boxes of clothing, laundry, notes and other things that I had accumulated in four years of studying at Grahamstown. And I came bearing at least one box filled with books. Of course, on trying to unpack all  of my stuff, I realised that it was never all going to fit into my room, and decided for myself that a thorough Spring Clean was in order. I think that it was the most penetrating Spring Clean I had ever done. A good 50% of my clothes were thrown into plastic bags and at least two boxes of books were sent away for donation - books that I had bought with the full intention of reading and had lost interest in; books that I had read but weren't worth a second read; childrens books that were good, but not classics to be kept for the children. When I was finished, I looked at my bookshelf and it felt empty, as though a part of myself had been thrown away in the process. But it wasn't empty for long.

There is an amazing bookstore in Seapoint called Cafda (in fact, there is a second one in Claremont, but I have never been there, so have no clue where it is). It doesn't look anything special from the outside, but make your way in there and you will find yourself lost in a myriad of books - you can find anything ranging from fiction to non- for as little as R5 or as much as R50 (I can't remember ever seeing a book in there for more than that.) It is a charity shop, all the books being donated and all the proceeds going towards AIDS orphans. I would go into the store at least once a week and leave with no less than three books each time. By the time I was ready to leave South Africa, my bookshelf was filled once more, and this time it was filled with books that I wanted to, no... NEEDED to, read. Khaled Hosseini, Salman Rushdie, Lionel Shriver, Milan Kundera, David Eggers and a number of authors I didn't even know, lined my bookshelves and stared me down, begging me to open them up. I had placed them in an order - alternating humorous and serious, alternating authors, alternating themes. I had a plan for how I would read them, and every time a new book was added, my plan was altered accordingly. I wouldn't just put it on the end (though the time of its arrival was included in my decision making process). I would consider how much I wanted to read it, which books I wanted to read more, which ones didn't seem quite as important; which ones Michael would want to read first, which ones I would want to read before Michael; which book I was reading at the moment, and how it fit in line with that book (was the one I was reading humorous? Was the next one serious?) It was a very detailed process.

And then I got the call. I had just over a week left in South Africa. I  looked at the books on my shelf, at least 35 new ones now, and realised that there was no way in hell I was going to finish them all. I only had 30kgs to take with me on the plane. I was going to have to leave most of them behind. Ten, I decided. I  would take ten books with me. I chose the ten carefully and started packing my suitcase around them. But alas, my bag was too heavy. No matter how many frivolous items of clothing and pairs of shoes I removed, it wasn't enough. More of my precious books would have to stay behind. I ended up whittling it down to four.

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
Recipes for a Perfect Marriage - Kate Kerrigan
Shalimar the Clown - Salman Rushdie
The Man Who Ate the 747 - Ben Sherwood

Within the first weekend of arriving in Cheongju, I sailed through the first two books, hardly stopping for air. I had no TV (or at least, no English TV), no computer and I was stuck in a city that I didn't know with no way of contacting the few people that I had already met. I started Shalimar the Clown, but didn't make it far before the Internet arrived in my apartment, and I was able to entertain myself in other ways. The books I still had to read were left to burn a hole in my bookshelf.

About two months after I arrived in Korea, I went with a friend to Seoul, and we found ourselves in a bookshop. I had been avoiding Korean bookshops, having heard that the English selections were pitiful. This was an exception. I sauntered down the aisles and found many of the books that were sitting on my shelf back home, and ones that I had been searching for, but was unable to find. I had to hold myself back and stop myself from spending a small fortune. I only bought three that day, but they were three that I had been wanting to read for years:

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Reading quickly became my bus activity. I realised that the bus trips between cities were the ideal time for reading - I had a couple of hours to spare and reading on the bus didn't make me feel ill. My only other options for entertainment were music (which could often be listened to while reading) and sleeping (how boring!) I thundered through Haddon, sauntered through Salinger, and was just getting into Lee when another friend introduced me to "What the Book" in Itaewon, Seoul. I quickly fell in love with the new and secondhand bookstore. While their filing system for their secondhand books (arranged according to the first letter of the authors surname, but with no order alphabetical or otherwise thereafter) frustrated me to no end, finding a book that you wanted became as exciting as finding a treasure. I ran around the shop, gasping or squeaking on finding a new author that I wanted.
"Rushdie!"
"Ooh, Saramago!"
"They have Hornby!"
"MITCHELL!:" (This particular one was almost certainly followed by a squeal.)
I left that first day, clutching two books:

Number 9 Dream - David Mitchell
The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie (though I had not opened Shalimar the Clown since my first attempt, my faith in Rushdie had not been shaken.)

On my next visit, I managed to keep it down to only one, the last of a series of books that I have, I am slightly embarrassed to admit, been indulging in for years:

Shopaholic and Baby - Sophie Kinsella

This was all, I told myself. This was the last book I was buying for a long while. My small bookshelf was already starting to creek under the weight of my teaching books and lesson plans, and I needn't add any more strain to it with my fetish for fiction. But then I was convinced, a couple of weeks ago, to buy yet another, from a shop in Gwangju this time. Though I was tempted to buy even more, I kept it to a minimum, only buying the one:

Wicked - Gregory Maguire


 It only recently dawned on me the problem that I will have trying to get all of these books home, for they are ones I feel that I cannot abandon. These books will join my bookshelf upon my arrival in Cape Town, and each one will hold a memory for me. I will look at Hosseini and Kerrigan and remember the lonely first weekend spent in bed, wondering why in God's name I had chosen to come here. I will look at Haddon and think of the trip back to Cheongju from Incheon, a freshly bought secondhand guitar lying at my feet. I will look at Salinger and think of sitting on the Busan sand, indulging in his words while the sun set and sipping on an awful vodka and lemonade drink which I believe is called KGB or something along those lines.

Each book, as I make my way through it, will attach itself to a memory in my mind, and whenever I will look at them in passing, I will have a glimpse of my time here. Because books are more than just pages of meaningless words after all.

The Years of Rice and Salt. The sound of it conjures up images of cheap Chinese restaurants – restaurants that try to be authentic, but are filled with red paper lanterns hanging from the roofs, young women speaking in Chinese accents before running off to talk to their Afrikaans boyfriends and food dripping with oil.

I have never been to Asia, so my introduction to eastern culture was through Chinese, Indian and Thai restaurants that horde all the kitsch faux-authentic items onto every surface. Even though I knew that this was not the real Asia, the bold colours and the fragrant spices still enticed me. I wanted to know more! And so I started reading.

I know little about reincarnation, and little about religion. The novels that I have read over the years have provided me with a sense of Asian culture, but not with the details. Kim Stanley Robinson provides that same sense of culture, but mixes it with a web of knowledge. The Years of Rice and Salt is a melting pot of knowledge about eastern religions.

The first book of the novel begins in about 1405 A.D. after most of Europe has been wiped out by the Black Plague. The reader is introduced to six characters, most of Asian decent, and the nine books that follow tell the tales of their reincarnation into different religions and different parts of the world. The reader first meets Kyu, for example, as an African slave aboard a Chinese ship and follows his story as he is reincarnated as Kya, a tiger who decides to help a lost man or Katima, a Sultana who attempts to change the Islamic religion to be more accepting of women.

I found myself relating to the characters in a number of ways because of this constant changing. With each philosophical question that was asked, I found myself questioning my culture and my history. Each time that details of religion were mentioned, I found myself looking at my own religion, and comparing it to that of the characters.

I would often get so involved in the book, that I would forget where I was until some sound or movement brought me out of the fantasy world and back to reality. I could imagine that I lived through those different times in history, that I had those experiences, that perhaps I, myself, was a reincarnated spirit. Maybe that is why, when I go to Chinese, Indian and Thai restaurants, I scorn the decorations that adorn the walls, ceilings and tables. Perhaps it is because I have known the real Asia, far back in my history, and appreciate its true beauty rather than the falsity that these restaurants provide.

Everytime that I go to watch a movie that has been based on a book, I hear hordes of people mumbling about how rubbish they expect the movie is going to be in comparisson. I know that I have heard probably a thousand times that any movie based on a book is going to be absolutely terrible!

Now I admit that Hollywood needs to come up with some more original ideas for movies. And, fair enough, a vast majority of the movies that are based on books don't capture the books the way that we imagined them. But that isn't really the director's fault. He portrayed the book as he saw it, and sometimes that works out amazingly well, while other times it ends up being terrible. For an example of a movie that turned out really badly I just need to look at The Golden Compass.

First off, I really have a problem with the name. I grew up reading the His Dark Materials trilogy, and I always knew the first book as The Northern Lights. I knew that in America, the name of the book had been changed to The Golden Compass, but I expected that the movie would be named according to what the rest of the world know the book by. What annoys me even more is that I saw the book in the bookshop the other day with the new fancy movie cover. In tiny letters at the top of the cover was printed "The Northern Lights", and at the bottom in huge letters it read "RELEASED AS THE GOLDEN COMPASS". It really upset me. Especially since they changed the name to reflect the movie and the movie was truly awful. I loved the books... I couldn't stand to watch the movie again. And it ruined my memory of the book. I haven't read it in years and years, and yet I had such fond memories of it. And now all of those memories have been erased to be replaced by the worst performance I have ever seen Nicole Kidman give and an average performance by Daniel Craig.

On the other hand of the spectrum, however, I recently read Stardust by Neil Gaiman. I watched the movie first and I absolutely adored the movie. I have watched it so many times that I have the scenes saved in my head and when I was reading the book, I could pick out which quotes had been used and which had been altered ever so slightly. I was given the book for Christmas and it has taken me a long while to gather the energy to read it. And it's quite a good thing that I did wait, because I read it in 2 days flat. If I had started reading it before the vacation, I would never have done any of the assignments that I had due for the last couple of days of term.

I was really disappointed with the book though. I found some parts of it really funny, parts that the movie had left out, and I was so sad to find parts of the movie that I had really enjoyed that were left out. I was really disappointed at the fact that Captain Shakespeare wasn't in it. His original character, Captain Alberic, was not nearly as entertaining. Robert De Niro really made that role for me and I think that the movie wouldn't have been the same without him. I was also so disappointed by the ending. It is completely different. In the movie the ending is filled with action and suspense. It almost felt as though Gaiman was rushing to finish the story with the book, and after watching the movie and seeing so much action and drama, I was expecting the same of the book and it let me down slightly.

That isn't to say that the book Stardust isn't absolutely amazing. It is so beautifully written and I suggest that anyone who enjoyed the movie read it. But I think what it comes down to is that movies that are based on books should be looked at as separate entities, separate stories that have very little to do with the book themselves. If everyone went to a movie and viewed it without having the book that it was based on in mind, then they would probably find that the movies were good in their own right. Not as a representation of a book, but as a movie on its own. Books and movies should just stay separate. If you need to go and see a movie that has been based on your favourite book, you should expect that it will not come out the way that you imagined it. But if you go with an open mind, you might find that you enjoy both the movie and the book even though they are completely different.