Book

Our government used to have this campaign of trying to raise Malaysians' awareness with regards to the importance of reading. Basically, its purpose was to create a reading culture in the fabric of Malaysian society.

Younger readers would remember the implementation of this programme in their schools: the Nilam. Students were given a Nilam handbook and instructed to record any books they have had read, those topping the class or the school given a prize, usually a common file and collateral stationary.

As far as I am concerned, together with my Form 5 brother, this programme has vanished into thin air. Apparently, it could not escape fate, a fate shared by many of our government's policies and brainchilds: a fate of a short life, lackadaisical implementation and subsequent demise.

I was waiting for my parents at Popular bookshop, and while waiting, I took a book whose title has always intrigued me: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. Somehow, I always thought of Chow Yun Fatt's movie, Bulletproof Monk. I read its summary at its back, and was naturally attracted: a story about a successful attorney falling from grace. Seeing as my parents were nowhere in sight, I flipped the first page and started reading.

After exhausting its first chapter, I was immediately ready to buy and finish the story at home. It was not a very thick book, very much alike a typical novel volume. That means its price is typical too, and its price tag read RM34.90 .

At that moment, Dad appeared and we walked off to lunch.

While munching, I thought about the book. It seemed a shame to lose a book the way I did. I thought about the numerous books in Popular, and the stereotype price they share.

This is wrong.

How could the government miss such a glaring fact? The main reason most Malaysians do not read, and why the Nilam failed miserably, is because books are too expensive?

So simple, yet overlooked. Whether it is convenience or negligence is up for conjecture.

If the book was priced at RM10, I would have finished it by now. To be more blunt, I would have finished it on the spot, given adequate time. It is not very thick; it is a novel. Its coverings are not lavish; mere thin paper protect its pages. How could all these amount to RM34.90?

If a middle-class-guy like me would think twice about its purchase, what about the rest?

I feel bad not being able to read the book, whose first chapter I have completed. I feel worse, however, when it is quite plain that the government launched Nilam without tackling this very elementary obstacle, namely book price. To read new and modern stories, we have to pay over RM30 for any average novel. And is it any wonder why Malaysians read so glaringly below the par, as compared to our foreign counterparts?

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