It’s May and we’re in for another month of circuit breaker/lockdown measures in Singapore. Coincidentally, I finished the last of the library books that I borrowed before the circuit breaker started last week. I did think about checking out new books from Overdrive, but I remembered a C.S. Lewis quote that I read recently:

“Clearly one must read every good book at least once every ten years.”

C.S. Lewis, letter to Arthur Greeves, August 17, 1933

So, I’ve decided that May will be the month that I reread the books I have at home. I haven’t read some of these in years so I’m actually really looking forward to it – at least I’m sure to have a good read. Some of these will be childhood favourites, because there’s no shame in reading children’s books no matter what your age. To quote Lewis again: “A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.”

I’m also planning to be a bit more free-form with the blog this month. I have like 20 drafted book reviews sitting there so the regular posts will definitely continue, but I thought it would be nice to just write one post every day talking about what I’ve read and any on-the-fly thoughts. (Especially since I may not review some of the re-reads).

If a certain tea order of mine arrives during the month (it’s been in transit since the start of April), I’ll also do a tea of the day thing during the daily posts. It’s going to feel a bit more amateur, like in the early days of blogging, but I am excited about it because being an amateur is all about doing something for the love of it and I love reading and writing! I like having nicely written posts as well and I definitely want to try doing some new stuff this month, but I feel like this experiment might be fun. If this works out, you’ll see up to two posts a day – one regular post and one daily roundup of thoughts.

(My WFH workload is also going to pickup this month, so if things become unmanageable I’ll drop it to once a week but for now, I’ll aim for daily posts.)

Without further ado:

Labour Day Reading

I ended up in two video chats today but I managed to reread The Secret Island by Enid Blyton! This was probably the only book that made me wish I could rough it in the wild – no mean feat given that I hate camping and love my creature comforts.

During this rereading, it struck me that the book opens in very bleak conditions: Mike, Peggy, and Nora are essentially orphans who are being abused by their relatives. Jack is a neglected child, not even knowing his birthday, and the four of them run away to an island. Life on the island sounds idyllic, but the four are constantly at risk of being discovered.

I’m amazed that Blyton managed to make this story sound fun and exciting! If you think about it, it’s not a very happy story – not until the end when there’s a huge twist and they all get a happy ending.

Tomorrow: The Secret of Spiggy Holes!