How I finally understood the joy of having a book signed

TBR (To Be Read)

- Clement Yong Correspondent

As an iconoclastic Aquarius harbouring a lifelong aversion to crowds, I have always considered my most un-Singaporean trait to be an absolute unwillingness to join a line.

You will never catch me dawdling in the queue before the boarding announcement at the airport check-in gate. High demand for a particular hawker stall is not attraction but bane, triggering a flight response to another selling similar fare.

So, despite English author Jeanette Winterson’s writing being one of my gateway texts to reading, I was happy to listen to her scintillating talks at the 2022 Singapore Writers Festival (SWF), then skip straight to the next event rather than join the signing queue, no doubt congratulating myself on my immunity to celebrity.

So, too, with Indian academic and activist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Pulitzer Prizewinning Vietnamese-American author Viet Thanh Nguyen at SWF in 2023, and Australian-American author, Geraldine Brooks and Indonesian author Eka Kurniawan at the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in 2023.