"If you're going to read a book on while you're on the bus, on the train, or even while standing in line, really, you'd better make it a good book. None of this chick lit stuff", my friend said to me while perusing my meager collection on my bedroom shelves.

"What if I like chick lit? And what if I really, really want to read it and I need to finish it soonest?" I replied indignantly. Time is scarce for a PhD student guilty pleasures like reading-of-a-non-academic-nature must be taken at every possible opportunity.

"Doesn't matter," she replied. "What you read in the privacy of your own bedroom is your own business. What you're seen in public with, now that's a statement." She plucked a book from my top shelf. Catch-22. "I'm taking this," she said with a smile. "It nicely seasoned looking, which says that I am a lover of books in general, and it's a classic, so it says that I am also serious about what I read, and because the book looks old, it looks like I have read this book ten times over."

"Right," I said. "So have you read Catch-22?"

It's all about the look

"Eh? Who said it's about reading? It's all about accessorizing," she replied with a laugh, dragging quite a bemused me out of my bedroom, out of the house and straight into the car.

The mushrooming of book hypermarts ala-Kinokuniya, MPH and now, Borders, in Kuala Lumpur, where you can actually sit and read the books without ever having the intention to buy them, has made books quite an interesting accessory these days. Here in Britain there isn't much difference Brits are voracious readers, and this is reflected in their broad general knowledge. Quiz shows that test general knowledge are in abundance on television screens: ranging from those with a more trivial nature like Who Wants to be a Millionaire, to those with quite a serious tinge to it like Mastermind. Not to mention, the great weekly British pastime ye olde pub quiz.

We all know the great benefits of reading: it was quite a pet project for the government when I was a pre-pubescent kid. I remember being forced to fill in a book report book at primary school there was a prize for the kid who read the most pages within a given period. I thought I'd definitely come out tops after reading 18,000 odd pages: luck would have it some other girl read 27,000 odd pages and came out clear winner.

Nobody vetted what we read, though. Nobody looked through our little notebooks and made sure it 'Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan' and not 'Di Pinggir Sungai Rajang' (or something to that effect: all I remembered was that it wasn't long before that book was taken off the school library shelves) that we read. There were never really, right or wrong books to read. I think teachers were just thankful we chose to read.

Recently though, the British Royal Society of Literature asked key players in the literary scene to choose ten books children should read before leaving school. Taking a peek at the list JK Rowling, Phillip Pullman and Poet Laureate Andrew Motion had their selections published in local newspapers - made for interesting reading in itself mostly because of all the books on that list, there were only two that I have read - ever: and of that, one was as an adult.

Considering myself a 'reader' of quite addictive proportions, I was both amused and bemused. For starters, who really sets the rules, who says to the masses, this is the right book to read, and that is not? Could it be, one suspects, the marketing department at major publishing houses? And secondly, oh goodness, have I really been reading the wrong books, and does this explain my current mental state (or non-state, whichever you please).

What happened to the Famous Five?

None of the classics I loved as a child and teenager and would unreservedly recommend and purchase for future generations of Idlans made the list. Where were the Enid Blytons, the Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys? Where was the magical world of Narnia? Replaced by, believe it or not, the likes of James Joyce's Ulysses , John Milton's Paradise Lost , Shakespeare's Hamlet and even Homer's Odyssey . I struggled with James Joyce when I was 20: I may try it again to celebrate my 30th year which is still quite a way off. If British children are expected to read Paradise Lost before they finish school, which they do at 16 here, then I suppose no amount of book carrying would ever elevate my status in these here parts.

Obviously the list the titles cited above came from Poet Laureate Andrew Motion was widely debated and criticized in the press, and I believe it is quite an ambitious list for the average middle class school leaver. Because reading isn't just about flipping the pages from one end of the book to the other done slowly for maximum swottiness impact. It's also what you get from it. What you take away, and ultimately, what you do with it. These days, noses are more often burrowed into copies of the FHM or Zoo Magazine than in books of any nature; a sign of the times, lamented an elderly man I met on the bus recently.

But does what you read really define who you are? Do reading the right books at a certain age or in the case of my friend, being seen with the right books really make a difference? When you say someone is 'well read', does that mean that he reads a lot, or he reads the right books?

I've always believed that with books; there is a time and a place, and sometimes books wait for you. Ten years ago, had I read a certain book written by a certain Czech author, I would have probably not gotten past the first few pages.. because you know, my world view wasn't ready for all that. I saw the movie 'Remains of the Day' when I was about 20; even then I couldn't get what Ishiguro was trying to say. Last year I read the book and revisited the movie, and only then did the love story in between the lines emerge.

The challenge

Then again some books exist merely as a challenge. Last year I embarked on the journey for a journey it was of reading the 1084 pages that made up Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged . It wasn't for the need of a pick me up or the longing for affirmation of self worth; more so that I saw it on a teenybopper tv show I happen to be quite addicted to. After about page 200, it became the battle of me vs. the book: I was adamant that I would conquer this work of fiction the preachy nature and three page monologues at parties by the key characters had made it an uphill battle. 3 weeks later I won, but I also swore, never again.

As for the list, though however well-read you want your kids to be, I think of childhood with fondness because it lacked one thing: complications. They have the rest of their lives to deal with things that are messed up. I think Enid Blyton is still the way to go, despite some rather leftist leanings and ideals that you may see (but if you read the books at age 10, hopefully the term leftist to you would mean a reference to which hand someone wrote with). Enid Blyton inseminates moral values in such a gentle way, even if in a black and white, right or wrong, without shades of gray, way.. and has perhaps shaped the morality of adults today in more ways than Ayn Rand ever could in her thirty page character speeches.

IDLAN ZAKARIA is lamenting the fact that while she can procure Jack Johnson tickets for his show in Spain, the plane tickets are so uber-expensive it's not funny. Donations are welcomed at idlan@idlanzakaria.com .