Wow. I'm sure that reading a romance novel makes you stupid, brainless and unable to converse in proper sentences. Oh yes, as if toting around a novel that screams "Booker Prize Winner" automatically makes you literate, educated and intelligent. And your opinions sacred commandments. For your information, Miss Snotty Person at the National Library, holding forth at great length on the inferior genres that Singaporeans read, some romance writers hold MBAs and PhDs in diverse fields. Some are lawyers, like your precious Grisham whose book you were expostulating as "good pop culture", or more accurately, a more literary example of "pop culture".

And aren't you Singaporean as well?

Wow. And just because I do not wear a Mango dress or any face powder, but wearing blue sandals, a Tara-panda t-shirt and a rather faded pair of jeans, and carrying horrors! a romance novel, does not make me illiterate, or deaf, for that matter.

Since I am on this topic, I hate Paladin's course-mate. Yes, Singaporeans do read. Does every single person from Hong Kong read as well? I'm sure they do. Do you read as well? I am surprised you had time out of your busy mugging to have any leisure time to read. Wow.