My small books collection was turned upside down during the weekends as I was deciding which books to bring for the Belait BookSwap this coming Sunday, 11th March.

Since I have no idea how book-swapping works (except that this coming one in OGDC Seria will include cupcakes!), I will offer books I liked the least.

And so I pulled a bunch of books, one in particular has been on my shelves for at least 5 years, to be put in my swapping pile. But after a while, I decided to read it first – and I mean for the first time, ever!

Drily-titled “Instructions for visitors“, I think I bought this during my crazy-about-European-countryside-phase, perhaps after I watched “Under The Tuscan Sun” (I have not read the book this movie was based on).

As dry as the title was, the content of this part-travelogue and part-diary, despite being set in France, was even duller in an annoying way. I managed 3 pages before I needed to stop and it was a relief to put it down. Just what it is with some writers who feel like they have to describe every single things in one paragraph that you get all sorts of jumbled-up images and scenarios; unconnected, unnecessary and really quite maddening!

Maybe it gets better further on but this book failed to engage me in one page and when it comes to judging books, this is a sin for me.

On the other hand, I randomly pulled out my read-and-loved copy of “Eat, Pray, Love” earlier today and decided to re-read the first chapter. My mind was literally sighing in pleasure when I reached the last line, “But first…Italy“.

This is a book that will stay on my shelf.

So yes, set-in-France will go to the Belait BookSwap and hopefully someone will enjoy it because it won’t be me.

I am determined to finish reading Elizabeth Gilbert‘s “Eat, Pray, Love” – before I get swept away by the movie and what would surely be a feast of colours, culture and food of Italy, India and Indonesia.

So far, it has been worth it – every 104 pages of it, which is where I am currently and which in her setting, is Italy.

Imagine, hankering for a taste of an Italian dessert that does not even sounds that amazing – but if she is willing to forgo heaven for it, it must be that good. Or wishing that I too could meet divine Italian men who will teach me to say Attraversiamo or learn L’arte D’arrangiarsi.

But in the midst of elegant Italian phrases, cultural quirks (Italian men hung out at bakeries after football games – to eat cream puffs…) and the delightful food, she spoke about something equally captivating – personal and profound.

Depression and Suicide.

That she was severely depressed for years and at one point succumbed to taking antidepressants and sleep aid to stop her suicidal thoughts. She didn’t know what caused her despair, what triggered the endless sobbings, the urge to take her life to end her sufferings.

And if even her – someone so accomplished, so privileged, talented and in many ways, blessed – could fall under depression, it shows that this is not something that happens to only that sort of people.

And if you read the way she tried to rise above her misery, it is also clear that this is not something people could just snap out of it if only they would try harder.

But serious subject aside, it is now on to Naples – where she experienced Italy’s best margherita pizza with double mozzarella —->

The roads of the interior towns of Ranau-Tambunan-Keningau-Kota Kinabalu in the mid-70s were nothing like they are today.

Gravel and filled with potholes, plenty of muddy spots to get stuck at during rainy seasons, chokeful of dusts to inhale during dry periods and riverbed crossing subject to water level – but they are still proper roads.

Nothing like the bridle paths across thick jungles and mountain terrains of my grandfather’s era in the not-so-long-ago 1950s and 60s when they would trekked for a few days for what is now an hour drive.

A scenario not even my fertile imagination could conjure convincingly.

Thus, it helped to read books such as the Borneo – The Stealer Of Hearts written by Oscar Cook, who lived in various parts of Sabah (Keningau, Semporna, Tuaran, Kota Belud, Labuk and etc) from 1911-1919 as a North Borneo Civil Service officer.

Personal, insightful and very amusing, “It is customary for Muruts to show respect to the white man by producing their very best tapai, and pitting the oldest and ugliest women of the village against him in a drinking competition“.

Many interesting narrative of incidents of his dealings and involvement with the locals which on many occasions, he spoke fondly of, “Morality and clean living such as I saw and experienced while in Semporna make me wonder at the audacity of those whose one idea is to Christianise the native“.

When this book was published in 1924, it was the most authoritative book on North Borneo – and despite not having read many books on North Borneo, this is certainly one which deserve a read by anyone keen on the history of our state.

Get a copy of “Borneo – The Stealer of Hearts” from Kadaiku in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.