Last week I had a conversation with my dad and I told him that if I choose to live somewhere else in future, there is one thing I’ll miss here: the local public library system. The collection of books in the catalogue is so extensive that most of the English books I want to read are available for loan. The reference section too is nothing to sneeze at, housing books that would cost me over a hundred dollars, were I to buy them.

Before I could read, my parents used to read me bedtime stories. Even when I could read, they still did because my younger sister asked them to, and I listened happily. My grandmother used to tell us stories; the fairytales that she could remember. I always listened to stories with great fascination. Some were real as adults related to me how their childhoods were like. Others were fictional, either from books, or stories passed on from one person to the next.

Over the past couple of days, news has surfaced that the Singapore National Library Board (NLB) has banned children’s books that feature LGBT themes. The books in question were Who’s In My Family? by Robie H. Harris, The White Swan Express: A Story About Adoption by Jean Davis Okimoto and Elaine M. Aoki, and And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. The former two books feature families with same sex couples, while the latter features a pair of male penguins who raise a baby penguin.

As some of you know, I’ve been book blogging for just a little over a year now. In the grand scheme of things, that isn’t very long but a lot of things can happen in a year. Change is inevitable during this time, so it’s always good to reflect upon where we are, where we’ve come from and where we’re going. I think that that’s an important part of personal development, so today I thought I’d consider how blogging has impacted me as a reader.

Last week I talked about books as objects of cultural consumption, where I considered the commodification, consumption and material culture of books. It was a general survey of how we treat books as consumer objects. Then Asti commented that what interested her the most was my discussion of reading as a social endeavour. She views reading as a personal activity, which I largely do too. Yet I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to explore the notion that reading is a social activity? Thus here we are, contemplating if indeed, reading is social.