Book Talk Former Aware Singapore president Zaibun Siraj catches up with classics

"Forty years ago, I purchased a set of 50 beautiful leather-bound books, all classics.

- Ong Sor Fern

Who: Ms Zaibun Siraj, 78, social activist, founding member and past president of Aware Singapore. She recently released the audiobook version of her autobiography, Unstoppable: The Woman Driven By Passion And Purpose.

The authors include Charles Dickens, John Donne, Henry James, Homer, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Shakespeare, Virgil, Voltaire and W.B. Yeats. At the time, I told myself I would read them in my retirement days.

Let me share my comments about three books in the set: Vanity Fair (1848) by W. Makepeace Thackeray, Tom Jones (1749) by Henry Fielding and Tess Of The D'Urbervilles (1891) by Thomas Hardy.

Vanity Fair explores the social landscape of 18th-century Britain and human relationships. It describes the lives of two young women, Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley. The themes of the novel are social ambition and social climbing.

Thackeray is a brilliant writer. I like his ability to criticise the pursuit of wealth and status, and to expose the vanity and hypocrisy of the elite. He provokes readers to think about ambition and morality in society.