The Beaches Book Club (August-September Challenge: Travel)

I had mentioned in a previous post that a few friends and I have formed an informal book club to encourage us to finish our reading piles. We're all readers but we tend to like different genres so it was hard for us to settle on a common title; I think the only thing we agree on is manga, and even that's still subject to further de-classification! In the end, we decided to go with a travel theme because it provided us with a wide range of things to pick -- and besides, we all liked to travel (even taken trips together, both local and abroad). Any book that touched on a form of travel was accepted. We began our books in mid-August and ended in mid-September. We had a list of questions we tried to answer, which focused mostly on the travel and cultural experiences mentioned in our respective books. While I took on Colin Cheong's Tangerine, here's a rundown of the other books the rest of the group had finished reading this month:

Book: How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays
Author: Umberto Eco
Reviewed by: Magnetic Rose
Thoughts:A collection of short articles and essays -- mostly parodies, written by Eco between 1975 and 1991. Includes instructions on How to Travel with a Salmon, How to Eat in Flight, How to Go Through Customs, and How to Deal with the Taxi Driver -- all funny, none real. The book covers places like London, Edinburgh, New York, and Milan, while tackling a number of ways to travel: first class, coach, train, taxi, and lastly bicycle. Funny as hell -- for smart people.
What was the best travel trivia/advice that this book gave you? Airline food will kill you.

Book: You Shall Know Our Velocity!
Author: Dave Eggers
Reviewed by: Oz
Thoughts:Reading this book is like going on a trip with two of your crazy, funny, (and probably cute) guy friends. Will comes into a big amount of money which he feels he doesn't really deserve. He decides to travel around the world with Hand, one of his best friends. Their trip involves visiting obscure countries and giving away Will's money bit by bit to the people they meet along the way. So the time they spend in each obscure country is mostly a mad scramble to find a way to go somewhere else. And all this they've decided to do after losing their best friend Jack to a car accident. Despite the craziness of everything going on here though, there are moments of raw emotion that lend a certain authenticity to everything that's happening.
What was the best travel trivia/advice that this book gave you? I honestly can't think of any decent travel advice I've learned here except probably what NOT to do on a trip. Will and Hand are disorganized, crazy, unprepared, unhygienic, unselfconscious. Their trip is a nightmare for anybody remotely OC.

Book: The Time Cavern
Author: Todd A. Fonseca
Reviewed by: Code Jutsu
Thoughts:When ten-year-old Aaron moved from the big city to the country, he thought it was a boring sleepy town. Then he met Jake, a know-it-all farm girl who said his house was haunted. She claimed an Amish boy disappeared without a trace after hearing the wind call his name. Aaron thought she was just trying to scare him...until the night he heard his own name in the wind. It was interesting, fast-paced and kept me thinking. Being a book targetted for 10 year old boys, explaining things *I* already know was a bit of a drag for me. But hey, I need to remember I am not the target audience. Its strength though lies with it's approach with the young protagonists, they are believable kids thrust into unusual instances. This book helped me understand more of the Amish, their religion and way of life. It was done with respect, and did not become preachy. It may be for kids, but it is interesting enough for kids at heart like me.
What was the best travel trivia/advice that this book gave you?Try anything once :)

Book: The Tattooed Map
Author: Barbara Hodgson
Reviewed by: Kitchen Cow
Thoughts:Lydia and ex-boyfriend Christopher travel to North Africa for entirely different reasons. Lydia because she lives to travel while Chris travels to buy curios and art pieces for clients. After an encounter with a mysterious stranger, Lydia finds a set of flea bites on her arm. Instead of it disappearing though, she discovers that the bites start taking the shape of lines and symbols, eventually turning into a tattooed map that slowly spreads along her arm. The story offers an interesting enough premise that borders on fantasy and realism. Unfortunately, it will forever be compared to Griffin and Sabine. It makes a good attempt to follow in the landmark trilogy's footsteps but it doesn't quite get there. The author fails to introduce story elements that I find important, like Lydia's relationship with Christopher, which was described in the book flap but is never really introduced until much much much much later in the book.
What was the best travel trivia/advice that this book gave you?Don't talk to strangers if you don't want strange tattoos on your body! J/K

Book: French Lessons (Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew)
Author: Peter Mayle
Reviewed by: Otaku Champloo
Thoughts:This is a non-fiction book written somewhere before and during his stay in Provence. This particularly looks into how France has forever changed his palette. Its strength lies in his casual narration of places and faces in France and why they love their food. His descriptions are vivid enough to make you hungry and long for the little villages in France. I also consider his humbling experience a strength. As an Englishman, his culinary experience in France has brought his English arrogance down at least in terms of food. Prior to reading the book, my impression of French food is snooty bistros with either steaks or pommes frites with a splash of French sauces here and there. I thought that French food was all about fine dining with wine to drink however, reading Mayle's culinary explorations, the French were at home with rustic meals and lunches that can go on forever, like Filipinos!
What was the best travel trivia/advice that this book gave you?Don't judge a food by how it looks or where it's from. Don't be afraid of what you don't know. Eventually, what scares you can surprise you and turn out to be the best culinary treat you'll ever have.

Book: Vroom with a View (In Search of Italy's Dolce Vita on a '61 Vespa)
Author: Peter Moore
Reviewed by: Pixel and Ink
Thoughts:Peter Moore chases a boyhood dream -- to go from Milan to Rome on a Vespa. But it couldn't be just any old Vespa. Peter wanted a bike as old as he was and in the same sort of condition. He called the bike Sophia. Peter Moore's tone is very casual, so the book easy to read. It actually reads as though he's talking to you over drinks (or rather, ponce, like did in his book) and telling you about his adventures with Sophia. I love he gave each town/city/village he visits its personality because of his descriptions of them. I also really liked the subplot of him looking for the elusive green Vespa on Kinder Egg Surprise chocolates throughout his trip. He was the kind of traveller who would go see a place beyond its tourist spots. He learned about their histories, and tried to immerse himself in the local culture. He also told a lot about the history of the Vespa and how it impacted the Italians' way of life. I love that Sophia (and the people enamored by her) helped pave the way for Peter and us, the readers, to see what's not written in guidebooks.
What was the best travel trivia/advice that this book gave you? Just do it!

Book: Dark Star Safari (Overland from Cairo to Cape Town)
Author: Paul Theroux
Reviewed by: Just Wandering
Thoughts:Approaching a landmark birthday (60 years), Paul Theoroux decides to go back to Africa and travel from Cairo to Cape Town overland. He travels to Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. The biggest strength of the book is that it's way off the beaten path. Apart from Egypt and South Africa, he features places that nobody would think to visit. He has worked in Africa before and can speak some of the native languages, so he was able to interact with the locals. He gives a brief history of the towns and cities he passes through and gives a pretty straightforward description place of just how much the place has deteriorated from when he was living there several decades prior. He can get pretty serious with the political stuff, but generally, it's not a hard book to read. One of my favorite quotes from the book: The greatest justification for travel is not self improvement but rather performing a vanishing act, disappearing without a trace.
What was the best travel trivia/advice that this book gave you? There are two things that pop to mind when we say Africa: bad news (famine, drought, hunger, war,... etc.) or lions, elephants and zebras. As Paul Theroux describes, taking the African Safari takes you to the "safe" Africa: far and isolated from the locals. If you want to really experience Africa, it's best to do it by going on your own and traveling overland.

Another friend took on The Ladies of Llangollen by Elizabeth Mavor, about two Irish upper-society women who ran away from their families and set up home together in Llangollen, but I'm not sure if she was able to finish it. Still, I think it was a good start for all of us. Not only did it give us that added push we needed to finish these books, but our online discussions made us feel that we've just read eight books in one go. We're about to start on our October challenge (which predictably is anything horror/occult/paranormal/thriller) and I already can't wait!

Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (Patricia C Wrede & Caroline Stevermer)

Fantasy and romance are two of my favorite genres, which find a satisfying balance in the YA title Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia C Wrede & Caroline Stevermer. Taking on the form of an epistolary dialogue between two cousins, the book is a quick and light read that follows cousins Cecelia and Katherine through their many magical and social (mis-)adventures.

In the story, Kate gets to experience her first London season with her sister Georgina, while her cousin and best friend Cecy remains at their home in the country. Though they are apart, the girls' lives still manage to connect: Cecy makes the acquaintance of Dorothea Griscomb, who mysteriously draws men to her like bees to honey, her wizard-mother Miranda, and Dorothea's cousin James, who is quite unsuccessful when it comes to spying. In London, however, Kate is content to follow her prettier sister Georgy around, but unwittingly wanders into a magical trap laid for the Marquis of Schofield. Add to this story a blue chocolate pot, charm-bags, chaperones, falling hairpins, and brothers who get turned into trees and you have a good idea of how much trouble two very stubborn Ladies of Quality can get themselves into.

The book pays homage to Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, and there's a fair amount of romantic tension mixed in with the fantastical elements of the story. The girls do not concern themselves with finding husbands as they do investigating their mystery, but the ending seems inevitable. Fans of Regency romances will be delighted by the mention of familiar places and terms like Almack's, Vauxhall Gardens, and the Elgin Marbles. Even famous people like Sally Jersey, Lord Byron, and Lady Caroline Lamb walk into the story. For all its twists and turns, the story winds down to a rather predictable conclusion, but I still found it very charming and refreshing. Cecy and Kate are both candid in their observations and are quite insistent on solving their own problems despite the conventions and notions of propriety that their society has set.

Ms Wrede and Ms Stevermer both share snippets of this unique writing journey at the end of the book. According to them, the idea started out as a Letter Game introduced to them by Ellen Kushner, where they wrote to each other as two different personas (with Ms Stevermer writing as Kate and Ms Wrede as Cecy). "But we didn't play the Letter Game to publish it," Ms Stevermer confesses. "We played because it was fun." They admit that they didn't discuss plot between them, only timing, encouraging them to work out the details as they went along. As I read the book, I find this quite commendable because I was struck by how similar Kate and Cecy sounded, too similar I thought, as if they had been written by the same hand. Even the male romantic leads seem cut from the same cloth, but that wasn't a deal-breaker for me. Sorcery and Cecelia remains an appealing, enchanting, and well-written read that makes me wonder why I don't see more wholesome Regency romances for a younger audience.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Laini Taylor)

I took this book everywhere until I was done with the last page.

Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone takes place in a richly-imagined, layered, and lyrical universe -- an Elsewhere that exists along with ours -- that makes it difficult to put down. Karou, an art student in Prague, runs strange errands for her family, errands that take her to Paris, Saigon, San Francisco, Marrakesh in the blink of an eye, though there is much she doesn't know about her existence. I understand that that might sound like a tired cliche from the paranormal romance genre, but Daughter of Smoke and Bone was more than I expected. Here, I'll let the blurb do the talking:

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love.
It did not end well.

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.

There are many things to recommend about Daughter of Smoke and Bone, foremost of which is the gradual unfolding of the plot. Though there were twists and elements that are revealed towards the end of the book, I never felt that Ms Taylor had tacked them on superfluously. The novel is well-layered, ambitious, and successful as it takes the reader from one world and one thread of the story to another. The pace allows the narrative to gain much ground. What's also striking about the story is that it carries with it a commentary on war, prejudice, and tolerance. It does not allow the romance aspect to overpower the important themes that the novel contains.

The setting also plays a significant role in perpetuating the fantasy. Most of the earthly activities take place in Prague, with its art schools and historic corners and grand cathedrals -- already a grand playground for the imagination -- so that when the tale moves to a different plane, the change is gradual and not shattering. Ms Taylor's other world comes with a colorful and diverse group of characters that evoke religious imagery without offending my Catholic sensibilities. I think the author was effective enough to use the angelic-demonic archetypes as a jump-off point to create her own characters of myth and legend to populate her world.

Karou herself is a great character: an admirably balanced mix of a heroine who is physically strong and more than capable of taking care of herself and one who has a great capacity for love. When I encounter characters such as this, I notice that one trait often precedes the other: as if love is a 'gentle' feeling that the female-warrior/tough-girl is required to shun at the beginning of the novel. In Karou, however, they exist at the same time, but I don't feel that this diminishes her strength as a character.

And the language! Some of my favorite lines:
'... clock towers across Prague started arguing midnight... (p56)'

'In her belly: a flutter of winged things shaking themselves fervently to life (p195).'

'It is bright within her, like a swallowed star (p311).'

I've used that 'arguing midnight' line on friends who have taken this book from me -- as I mentioned, I brought it everywhere -- and raised an eyebrow at the cover. Like I tell them, it is not every day that you come across a YA fantasy/romance like this. Daughter of Smoke and Bone appeals to readers who would want to be swept off their feet by an epic love story, as well as those eager for a secondary world with a rich mythos and history to accompany it.

---
My Advance Review Copy is courtesy of Hachette Book Group Philippines, through the kindness of Honey and Chachic. Much thanks!

Sideways in Crime (Edited by Lou Anders)

In this compilation of alternate history stories, crime and science fiction meld seamlessly to create a collection that explores two essential questions: 'Whodunnit?' and 'What if?' Science fiction writer, editor, and Hugo and WFA nominee Lou Anders is at the helm of Sideways in Crime. The collection features 15 short stories from authors Kage Baker, John Meaney, Stephen Baxter, Paul Park, Jack McDevitt, Kathryn Rusch, Mary Rosenblum, Paul Di Filippo, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Theodore Judson, Pat Cadigan, SM Stirling, Mike Resnick & Eric Flint, Tobias S Buckwell, and Chris Roberson. When I had first picked the anthology up, I was only familiar with a few names but by the end of it, my interest in most of them had grown significantly.

Each story postulates an alternate reality, letting history fork at certain crossroads so that the world will go on a different path. This is already a daunting challenge in itself; to do so in just a few pages (the stories' length is excellent) is quite admirable. The collection offer glimpses into worlds that have highly deviated from ours (such as an England that has remained longer under the Roman Empire) and into those that are remarkably similar save for one small element (a world where Arthur Conan Doyle never published his famous detective). The results are a mixed bag, with some ultimately appealing to my tastes more than others. I found that some of these stories can intriguingly posit a 'what if' scenario only to stumble into predictable territory once the mystery elements are introduced.

In his Introduction 'Worlds of If,' Mr Anders puts forth that 'every science fiction author is a natural born mystery writer, whether they know it or not.' I won't refute that except to say that some are just more successful at the mystery part than others, while others have an easier time of luring the reader into their richly-imagined worlds. A few of my favorites in the collection were Kristine Kathryn Rusch's 'G-Men,' an investigation into a sensitive crime involving J Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson and certain lifestyle choices, as well as Paul Di Filippo's 'Murder in Geektopia,' which I thought created a believable second world through clever geek and pop culture references. Mike Resnick & Eric Flint's 'Conspiracies: A Very Condensed 937-Page Novel' opens like a hardboiled detective story and combines alien and government conspiracy references (Hoffa and Kennedy, anyone?) with much success. Mystery and science fiction fans won't go wrong with Sideways in Crime.

The 32nd Manila International Book Fair

It's just five days until the 1st Filipino ReaderCon and The 32nd Manila International Book Fair (Words Without Borders)! The MIBF is an annual event that brings local and foreign exhibitors together, all striving to help cultivate a love for reading. It is organized by Primetrade Asia, which is also one of ReaderCon's sponsors.

I've always loved going to the MIBF. It is often held during the first few weeks of September (which is good for me because I get extra shopping money this time of the year). I often start my Christmas shopping here: children's books for my godchildren, recipe books for my aunts, rarer titles for luckier friends. Over the years I've discovered unexpected treasures here. Once I bought a good number of secondhand manga in original Japanese (nearly completing my collection of Hana Yori Dango). Another time I loaded up on Perry Mason mysteries that were being sold at the Goodwill Bookstore booth for about P35 each. Still another I found a booth selling Discworld novels with original Josh Kirby art. Score!

When my favorite uncle was still alive, we would always make a trip to the MIBF. After he passed away, I began visiting it by myself, which is not always such a good thing. Even with the throng of people around the booths, I find that it's always nice to share your finds with someone. Last year, I came with my cousin but we were only able to spend a few hours there. Still, I went home with a few copies of local children's stories (including Palanca winner Irene Sarmiento's Spinning) while my cousin bought an Ambeth Ocampo book. Maybe this time around, I'll be bringing home a larger stash of books.

Aside from being a venue for publishing companies and book distributors, MIBF also plays host to a variety of events, the ReaderCon being just one of many. It's a great place to gather educators, students, publishers, authors, and every size and shape of reader there is. Hope to see you there!

Tangerine (Colin Cheong)

With giant To Be Read piles plaguing us, my friends and I decided to encourage each other to attack these with an informal book club. For starters, we just decided on a general theme (travel) and picked books that we already have (win-win for everyone). Some of my friends chose books from established travel writers like Paul Theroux and Peter Mayle while others went with fiction. A friend even went with time travel -- hey, we're not picky. Mine was Colin Cheong's Tangerine, winner of the 1996 Singapore Literature Prize that chronicles how Nick, a young Singaporean photojournalist, travels by himself from Saigon to Hanoi to meet up with his old friends. Throughout the week-long journey in crowded buses and inexpensive hostels, he reflects on his alone-ness, in relation to his friends, his fellow travellers, and to his world in general.

Although primarily a work of fiction, the narrator's tone feels very realistic and consistent. This novella exudes a personal flavor that I wasn't quite expecting when I first picked it up. Where I was expecting a travelogue that would go into detail about the different places that Nick visits, it focused more on the people that Nick meets instead. Where I was looking for a taste of Vietnamese culture, practices, and traditions, it chose to reflect on the Vietnamese’s post-war sentiments. An example is old Mr Trinh, one of Nick’s cyclo-drivers in Saigon. He and Nick go to the War Crimes Museum and as they look on the harsh remnants of war, Mr Trinh admits that he has been one of the luckier ones. It shows a Vietnam rebuilding itself, a Vietnam slowly opening itself to the world.

It is this connection that gnaws at Nick. On his way to an informal reunion, he is forced to rearrange his plans and travel by himself to avoid tensions with a hinted-at ex. He muses at his life and relationships: his friends are getting married and pairing off. The travelers he meets at each point all have companions. As his thoughts travel inward, he realizes that somewhere he has lost his 'sense of pity' that allows him to connect with others. But if there's anything that this journey teaches him, it's to rediscover that 'sense of pity', that empathy.

Nick, a self-confessed by-the-book traveler, consults his Lonely Planet guidebook for everything. One of the tips he picks up is to bring a pack of Camels along and use it as an icebreaker. Though he is not really a smoker, he follows this advice and finds that it makes for a convenient icebreaker in Saigon. But as he travels north by bus, meeting all sorts of vendors and travelers along the way, he eschews the cigarettes for tangerines. Whether he is buying one or offering one to his fellow travelers, he slowly begins to appreciate that which connects him to others. Maybe it makes feel good to be in a position to help and give, especially in the rural countrysides of post-war Vietnam. In featuring Vietnam, the novella also paints a picture of the Singaporean adult. If we hold Nick up as a model, we are afforded a look into a generation's concerns, fears, and ambitions.

One thing that really resonated with me was his conclusion that he will never be able to see things the way a Vietnamese person sees it. I liked that he didn't try to be judgmental or attempt to give meaning to a culture and an experience that wasn't his in the first place. He actually extends this belief to his friends: that even though he and his friends have the common frames of references, he will never see things the way they do. In the same way, even if Nick's characters has a lot of concerns that are similar to mine, the novella reminds me that I will never be able to see the world as he sees it. Of course, reading his thoughts brings me a step closer to knowing more of his character but in the end, each experience and perspective is a singular one. The best we can do is to allow us to reach out to others despite this singularity, and find empathy, if not understanding. Though I wasn't sure where the novella was going to take me, and though I wasn't a fan at the beginning, I was surprised at how much I came to appreciate it by the time the journey was over.

Interlude: Intoxication.

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish." - Charles Baudelaire, Be Drunk


Five years have officially come and gone. Today's the first day of my sixth blogging year, and yes, I'll keep on drinking.

ReaderCon/Filipino Friday: Reading Filipino Literature

As a countdown to our 1st ReaderCon, I'm joining the other Pinoy bloggers in doing this Filipino Friday meme. Every Friday, we're asked to share our answers on different questions, and last week's question was all about Filipino literature. Again, I'm a little late to the party.

Being a Lit major and a writer for our university's literary folio really broadened my awareness of Philippine literature outside of the stories we discussed in high school (like Maganda Pa ang Daigdig and Without Seeing the Dawn). I guess when we were younger, reading Filipino stories and novels was more an obligation than anything. But a lot changed in college. I was fortunate to have met a few of my literary idols; a number of them have even been my teachers and critics. Slowly I began reading out of genuine curiosity and no longer out of obligation.

One of my favorite Filipino books is Merlinda Bobis' Banana Heart Summer. It has such beautiful descriptions of food and living in the province and growing up and all of them together and I was just really drawn to it. It's been years since I read it (I'm pretty sure my copy's been lost in the black hole residing in my bookshelves) but as far as I remember it didn't have a real climax. But that's how I like my books: quiet slices of life, patient and poetic. And because I'm such a fan girl, there's also Yvette Tan's Waking the Dead, a rich collection of Filipino stories both weird and macabre. Another favorite of mine is a collection of short stories called Catfish arriving in little schools, which features short stories by Gina Apostol, Jaime An Lim, and Clinton Palanca.

I wish I read more Filipino books. This year, I've managed eight: FH Batacan's Smaller and Smaller Circles, Erwin Castillo's The Firewalkers, GM Coronel's Tragic Theater, chick lit books Popped, Fan Girl, and Love Your Frenemies, and Manix Abrera's Kikomachine 5. (Oo, malapit na ang 7. Huli na ako.) These are not enough. I have started reading books by Ambeth Ocampo and Alice Sarmiento but I left them in Manila. Still not enough. I read SFF short stories over at Philippine Genre Stories and I know: it is nowhere near enough. I'm hoping that I can continue discovering more Filipino books that I can enjoy, with the help of fellow bloggers and events like ReaderCon.

PS. I am hopeful that this will be the year that I finally get a copy of Vince Groyon's The Sky Over Dimas.



The ReaderCon is presented together with Vibal Publishing House, Inc, and sponsors Primetrade Asia, Flipside Digital Content, and Scholastic. It is supported by the National Book Development Board.

The Incident Report (Martha Baillie)

The Incident Report was an impulse buy after seeing it mentioned in a copy of Bookmarks Magazine. What first intrigued me was that the story unfolds as a series of incident reports filed in a library. Miriam, one of the librarians employed by the Public Libraries of Toronto, keeps an observant eye on the different violations, threats, and other disruptive behavior that occur within their walls. She gives the offenders and the regulars made-up names (like Suitcase Man and Fainting Man) and details her encounters with them in clear, brief sentences. But the book does not limit itself to the incident report motif; what ultimately kept me reading was the unfolding mystery that accompanied Miriam's seemingly orderly life.

Miriam finds handwritten notes in various places of the library, all referring to Verdi's opera Rigoletto. In case you'd rather not click the link, the opera is, in a nutshell, about a court jester with a father's curse -- he accidentally has his own daughter murdered. Miriam, who names Rigoletto as her first opera, is not bothered by the notes in the beginning but as they grow in frequency and in zeal, she soon shares these with the authorities. The Rigoletto references stir her own memories. Interspersed throughout the incident reports are Miriam's recollections of her own father, done in a more plaintive voice than the detachment she employs when reporting the disturbances in the library. I think that Ms Baillie is most effective as an author here, when she manages to create strong images of Miriam's father without revealing too much at a time, and juxtaposing those with the heightened emotions in the mysterious Rigoletto letters. Their story is told with a gentle and heartbreaking sort of longing which I truly admired.

Along with this mystery is Miriam's budding romance with Janko Prijatelj, a Slovenian artist and cab driver who has a missing finger. Miriam does not believe in love anymore ['I was immune and that I could not fall in love, that I'd done so once before and did not wish to repeat the experience. If someone had asked, I would have said that I was not the sort of person who recovered(p77)']. Yet she lets Janko in, he 'with the quiet oval face and the eager eyes (p182)'. I'm a romantic at heart so I suppose this had a lot to do with my appreciation for that particular plot point but I'm not sure if everyone will enjoy it as much as I had. I thought that all her relationships (with Janko, her absent father, her colleagues in the library and their colorful patrons) give the reader a subtle yet probing understanding of Miriam as a woman: her fears and insecurities, her hidden strengths. Through Ms Baillie's nuanced writing style, I found myself immersed in this refreshing character study.

Anna and the French Kiss (Stephanie Perkins)

For months now, my teenage sister has been trying to get me to read Stephanie Perkins' Anna and the French Kiss. The premise reminded me of the Janet Quin-Harkin titles in the Sweet Dreams series (Exchange of Hearts, Lovebirds, and Ghost of a Chance, to name a few), where the Heroine is forced to go to a new country/state/town for a set period time (anywhere from a summer vacation to a year), where she finds love/independence/self-worth or some variation thereof. From the cover to the title, this book makes no secret of just how close it adheres to that romantic trope. But to my surprise, it's much more layered than I had expected, making me wish that I had listened to my sister a little sooner.

Anna is forced to spend her senior year at an international boarding school in France instead of in her familiar high school in Atlanta. She hates that she has to leave her latest crush behind, especially when they're thisclose to being a couple. Not only does she have to start over as a new kid while in her senior year, she has to do it in a place where she barely speaks the national language. Little does she know that that's only the least of her problems. When she befriends Meredith, Etienne, and the rest of their group, Anna must struggle with the fragile balance between friendship and romance, and stand up for what she wants in the process.

The characters are delightfully nuanced, especially Etienne St Clair, the object of Anna's affections. He is far from perfect -- both physically and emotionally -- and yet he remains a person whom the romantic reader can support. I like the dynamics of their group. All five of them come across as real friends, with their petty fights and their secret fears and their ability to understand each other even when they don't like each other very much. I thought the book captured Anna's precarious position in the group -- not wanting to rock the boat but not knowing where to take her own feelings either.

It would have been so easy to let the setting overwhelm the story. Paris is the city for romance; what more can two hot-blooded teenagers want? But what I admired in Ms Perkins' work was that she let the story tell itself. Paris, for all of Anna's explorations, remains a lovely backdrop, never stealing the attention away from Anna and Etienne.

I also enjoy how gradual this story is. Their relationship clearly moves from stage to stage, taking its time to establish how Anna comes to depend on Etienne as her staunchest friend despite her romantic attraction to him. It is sweet and honest, and it really shows me that a story can have a seemingly light theme but still carry weight. Highly recommended to YA fans and romance readers.

ReaderCon/Filipino Friday: A Book Lover Outside NCR

As a countdown to our 1st ReaderCon, I'm joining the other Pinoy bloggers in doing this Filipino Friday meme. Every Friday, we're asked to share our answers on different questions, and this week, we're taking on what it's like to be a book lover in the Philippines.

I don't usually find new books in Aklan. Yup, I live outside of Manila, where the nearest city is an entire province away. It was only last year when Book Sale opened its first branch at the Gaisano Mall. Imagine how thrilling that was for me! It certainly replaced those days when I'd get my secondhand books from a few shelves at a local bookstore.

Still, I don't find it too hard to get the books I want. It used to be really frustrating when I was younger, but now I just wait for my next trip to Manila or Iloilo to find the latest titles that have caught my eye. If they're unavailable then, I try to shop online through Book Depository. When I visit bookstores outside of the country, I immediately take note of the titles I like that I can't seem to find in Manila. But all things considered, I'm still good with what we have.

Sometimes it's not as easy as it sounds (I once had to wait for a long time for a Ted Chiang title to reach an affordable amount before I could buy it) but with a little patience, good things will still come.


The ReaderCon is presented together with Vibal Publishing House, Inc, and sponsors Primetrade Asia, Flipside Digital Content, and Scholastic.

Little Black Book of Stories (AS Byatt)

It's been years since I last read any of AS Byatt's works, so when a friend handed me Little Black Book of Stories I immediately jumped at the opportunity. My friend claims that the book is actually mine -- something I had lent her many many years ago (probably close to a decade) -- but it had completely slipped my mind. Upon re-reading, only two of the five stories in this collection came back to me; the rest all felt deliciously brand new.

'The Thing in the Forest' is one of those familiar ones, the tale of two girls who meet as evacuees in World War II Britain. During one of their respites, they wander into a nearby forest and briefly witness a strange and terrifying creature that will stay with them through adulthood. Whether the creature is real or imagined, it remains a strong metaphor for the horrors of war, changing the girls' lives even when they choose to go on different paths.

One thing worth noting is that as they travel through the countryside, Primrose and Penny note that hey pass by 'tiny stations whose names have been blacked out' and feel that 'the erasure was because of them, because they were not meant to know where they were going or, like Hansel and Gretel, to find the way back (p6)'. Though this sentiment is voiced in that first story, I feel that it is a common thread throughout the rest of the book. The tales seem to end right after their respective climaxes, leaving the characters in the middle of the tension, often after a pivotal point or decision. Each time I encounter it, I think back on those blacked-out signs, giving the characters no choice but to travel down the paths on which they have found themselves.

My words feel woefully inadequate when trying to capture the essence of Little Black Book of Stories. For such a spartan title, the collection itself is lush with images and descriptions. Consider the other stories: A doctor who encourages a young artist to explore her craft ends up curtailing her freedom in more ways than one ('Body Art'). A woman finds herself slowly turning into stone and journeys to a far corner of the world ('A Stone Woman'). A writer finds a rare tranquil voice among his class of tragedy-crazed students ('Raw Material'). A man encounters the ghost of his living wife ('A Pink Ribbon'). Each tale is populated with Ms Byatt's rich observations ('a necklace of veiled swellings above her collar-bone which broke slowly through the skin like eyes from closed lids, and became opal (p140)' and dark undertones ('the final two arms were crocheting something in an immense tangle of crimson plastic cords (p104)'. Her images pile themselves upon each other in wonderful layers.

I also felt that the stories showed the different ways that a woman's power can be suppressed by history, society, and circumstance. Ms Byatt features a gamut of female characters at various points of their lives and yet they still struggle to free themselves from their oppressors. I suppose this is why the last story, although not my favorite, drives home one of the strongest ideas of the collection (at least, personally): the spirit walking freely. Does it make me, a female reader, feel triumphant in the end? With all the darkness of the book, I'm still not sure. Despite this, I'm glad I re-read Little Black Book of Stories; it would have been such a shame if I had truly forgotten all the painfully chaotic elegance that this book has.

The Anniversary.

Each moment gathers and thickens like awareness between the tips of fingers, explaining how the present can be plausible and lovely, even when later, returning once again to its monastery, the heart sounds the brown notes of its bell-clapper, shaves its head, lies down to sleep with the sorrow of what it will love but cannot keep. - Luisa Igloria, from The Return


Soon it will be five years since I started this blog. I thought it would be a good time to change the look into something a little more mine (in those five years, I've changed the blog look five times, but all of them relied on a pre-existing free template). Not this time though, thanks to my awesome friend, Cla who created the header and the sidebar buttons and fixed the whole look just for me. She did the photography and the calligraphy as well. :)

Five years, wow. This used to be such a private little space that only C, Camille, and Leki read. I'm glad that in those five years, I've met new people online who also enjoy the same interests I do and who have encouraged me to share more of my thoughts. If you're reading this, thank you. Have a virtual sorbet.

Days like this really make me look back on old times and old friends and how things have changed. But the present can be plausible and lovely, Luisa writes. I'll take it.

Once on a Sunday.

Bonsai
Edith L. Tiempo (April 22, 1919—August 21, 2011)

All that I love
I fold over once
And once again
And keep in a box
Or a slit in a hollow post
Or in my shoe.

All that I love?
Why, yes, but for the moment ---
And for all time, both.
Something that folds and keeps easy,
Son’s note or Dad’s one gaudy tie,
A roto picture of a young queen,
A blue Indian shawl, even
A money bill.

It’s utter sublimation
A feat, this heart’s control
Moment to moment
To scale all love down
To a cupped hand’s size,

Till seashells are broken pieces
From God’s own bright teeth.
And life and love are real
Things you can run and
Breathless hand over
To the merest child.


Be at peace, Ma'am/Mommy Edith. Thank you for your passion and your poetry.

The Mischief of the Mistletoe (Lauren Willig)

'In all the annals of romance, it was never the court jester who got the girl. It was always the knight in shining armor, dashing to the rescue in shining breastplate on a snowy white steed,' muses the hero in Lauren Willig's The Mischief of the Mistletoe. He has reason to -- he is more jester than knight, and it will definitely take more than his clashing clothes and social ineptitude to win the girl.

I've always enjoyed the Lauren Willig books for their mix of contemporary romance, historical romance and espionage. I guess after seven books, I've grown used to this mix. A friend pointed out that one of Ms Willig's plots was derivative of a Georgette Heyer title but that hasn't kept me from following her work. Fans of Ms Willig will note the absence of Eloise and Colin in this title but I didn't mind at all since there is still plenty to rave about here.

The Mischief of the Mistletoe is the fifth book in the Pink Carnation series, at least chronologically speaking (it was written after Books 6 and 7). It features Turnip Fitzhugh, a character who turns up in The Masque of the Black Tulip and is finally given a novel of his own. It is the holidays, and Turnip is visiting his sister at Miss Climpson's Select Seminary for Young Ladies, where he literally runs into Arabella Dempsey, the new instructress. In the rush of activity around the school, they come into possession of a Christmas pudding with a mysterious note. Their curiosity gets them embroiled not only in each others' lives, but also in a plot to save the nation's secrets from getting into the wrong hands.

In this book, Jane Austen waltzes in as Arabella's best friend. In fact, it is intimated here that Ms Austen's unfinished work The Watsons is inspired by Arabella's situation. She was expected to be adopted by a rich aunt, but when Aunt Osborne decides to marry someone half her age, Arabella is sent back home to the country. To augment her family's income, she takes a teaching job at Miss Climpson's, not knowing how this is about to change her life. I really enjoyed this device.

But what makes this a winner in my book is Turnip himself, certainly a different kind of romantic lead. He is far from the dark and brooding type, he dresses outlandishly, and he unintentionally creates humorous situations for himself. One of my favorite romance titles, Jude Deveraux's The Raider, features a similarly foppish character, but in that book, the colorful dandy is merely a front for the timeworn dark and brooding stereotype. But Turnip Fitzhugh is really cut from a different cloth. What you see is what you get: a genuinely endearing and guileless romantic lead. His manner of speaking is markedly different from other heroes in the Pink Carnation series. He is also a very learned man, but Ms Willig allows the readers to discover this for themselves, rather than have another character point out how clever he can be. I like that everyone else (except Arabella, of course) tends to dismiss him as a buffoon.

It's lovely to see a hero who can genuinely make a woman laugh and swoon. There were so many times that I smiled throughout the text. Not only did Turnip and Arabella get themselves into a lot of amusing situations, and bumbling through their encounters with French spies and their own feelings. Reading this was a heart-melting experience, not at all far from what I'd feel after seeing a cute dog. Very refreshing.

Arabella's wards at Miss Climpson's are also a delightful addition to the Pink Carnation family (and I do mean family -- a trio of friends here are the younger relatives of old Willig leads). I hope I'll see more from them in latter books, but since there are only two left, this wish might be a longshot.

ReaderCon/Filipino Friday: Reading Influences

As a countdown to our 1st ReaderCon, I'm joining the other Pinoy bloggers in doing this Filipino Friday meme. Every Friday, we're asked to share our answers on different questions, and this week, we're revealing who/what influenced us to read.

I grew up surrounded by books. My mom used to be an English teacher at an all-girls school along Katipunan and she taught me to read at an early age. When I graduated from picture books, my mom would buy me the Ladybird editions of Greek myths and classics like The Wind in the Willows and The Last of the Mohicans. When I was in first grade, she bought me my first Nancy Drew books, a collection which I cannot part with now. Her youngest sister was the one who encouraged me to appreciate literature. Some of my earliest memories are of my aunt reading The Little Prince, Hope for the Flowers, and To Kill a Mockingbird out loud to me (I was about eight or nine when we took on that last book). We still have the battered copies of the first two books, which bear a lot of my doodles. The copy of the Harper Lee classic was eventually lost and replaced, but I recall quite clearly how much I wanted to be Scout and Jem's friend.

My mom and my aunt were very patient with me as they helped me understand what I was reading and appreciate each book. What's funny is that as I write this I realize I don't recall ever thanking them for this amazing gift. I really can't imagine my life without reading and it's all thanks to them. Reading takes me to lives I would never have, places I haven't seen. It makes me see, page by page, how rich the world is.

The ReaderCon is presented together with Vibal Publishing House, Inc, and sponsors Primetrade Asia, Flipside Digital Content, and Scholastic.

The Lions of Al-Rassan (Guy Gavriel Kay)

Friends have always encouraged me to read Guy Gavriel Kay but somehow I haven't gotten around to following their advice until now. I have copies of The Lions of Al-Rassan and Tigana but I always thought that I would start with his latest book Under Heaven, a Tang-dynasty inspired piece. During my last trip to Manila, I couldn't find a handy version of the book so I turned to the ones that were already in my library. I'm glad I did. The Lions of Al-Rassan is one of the richest and most engaging things I have read so far this year.

Mr Kay is known for works set in imagined realms that are loosely based on real places at a particular moment in history. The Lions of Al-Rassan is set in an analogue of the Iberian Peninsula during the Reconquista, a campaign to take back territories from the Muslims. Though Al-Rassan's fictional war does not last hundreds of years as the Reconquista did, it still spans a generation. Armies move under the banner of religion but the war is largely a political one, a reclamation of power and territory and rightful claim. The Lions of Al-Rassan depicts the hardships and consequences of war, its risks and its sacrifices.

It is the story of three peoples: the Kindath, a dispossessed race who revere the twin moons, their lands invaded many generations ago and still ostracized despite their renown for skill and trade; the Asharites who worship the stars, divided into the decadent city-dwellers and the fierce nomadic tribes; and the Jaddites, followers of the sun, the former conquerors who have been embroiled by petty battles and disputes within their own kingdom before one of them decides to turn his gaze towards the entire peninsula.

This is a war told through different eyes. Not new, some might argue. But anyone new to Mr Kay would appreciate that each of his characters are effective and engaging narrators. At the forefront are two of the greatest military minds of their time: Ammar ibn Khairan, the poet-assassin who is responsible for killing the Kaliphs of Al-Rassan, and Rodrigo Belmonte, the fearsome Jaddite captain who commands 150 of the best and most loyal horsemen and warriors. Ammar and Rodrigo are very different in lifestyle, temperament, and beliefs but when they find themselves exiled from their respective kingdoms, they form an unlikely bond. They are well-matched in skill and firm in their principles, which fuels their mutual respect for one another. Caught between these two great men is Jehane, a Kindath physician and the only daughter of the most famous doctor in Al-Rassan.

There are also other characters whose perspectives give us more insight into the brewing war, and it speaks of Mr Kay's skill that even his minor characters are well-developed. You see the impact of war on an orphaned peasant boy, on an idealistic soldier, on a former merchant. You see the passions of a conquering king and a foreign adviser among men whose religion shuns his. You see two boys on the verge of growing up ahead of their time. But what's interesting to note is that although the war is purported to be a religious one and crimes are made in the name of gods, we hear little from the wadjis and clerics, the story's religious zealots and segregationists. They are often mentioned but are largely relegated to the background in an almost one-dimensional depiction. On one hand, it makes us dismiss the extremists' singular purpose as destructive, with few avenues for literary exploration and justification. On another, it may be that the relatively limited exposure of religious figures in this 'religious' war will draw us away from seeing faith as a truly dividing factor; it is how people act in the name of faith that is called into question here.

One of the most important themes of the book is of religious/cultural tolerance and understanding. Mr Kay likes putting his characters in situations where they would have depend on each other, defying the dictates of their cultures. Though I'm not a fan of how every other male in the book seems to fall in love with Jehane, I do recognize that she serves as a link between Rodrigo and Ammar, who symbolize the novel's opposing forces. She herself stands for the open-mindedness, steadfastness, and empathy needed in a world of fear and hate. It then becomes tragic to see how these different characters, who have come to earn each other's trust and respect, have to succumb to the call of war.

If you are looking for a moving epic, then I'd thoroughly recommend The Lions of Al-Rassan. It is epic and sweeping, but more importantly, it is contained in one book. (Fantasy writers, it can be done!) Despite the scope, it also has its moments of restraint and introspection. It digs deeper into the hopes and fears of its individual characters to form a truly rich, thoughtful, and rousing tapestry.

Fan Girl (Marla Miniano)

At first glance, Marla Miniano's Fan Girl has a similar plot to Summit's last book, Popped. They both feature girls who go to another country in pursuit of their celebrity crushes. But in tone and approach, both books cannot be any more different.

When Cosmopolitan Philippines commends Ms Miniano for her 'heart-wrenching angst,' I have to agree. Fan Girl's story begins in college, when Summer falls for Scott, the half-Pinoy frontman of a local band. Over the next few years, we are privy to all the things that Summer does for love -- the open relationship she agrees to, the devoted stalking, and even that momentous decision to leave everything behind and follow him to the US.

Summer's passion for Scott is all-consuming. She often fails to look beyond what she wants to see. She doesn't listen to reason. There were many times that I wanted to hit her in the head, but I think this is testament to how realistically her character is written. I've known plenty of girls who have let their lives revolve around a man; I suppose there were times when I was no exception either. I think that Ms Miniano does a great job of letting Summer's insecurities come to the forefront. She gives us hints of why Summer acts the way she does. After years of being relatively isolated from the world, you can really understand why she clings to any form of affection from Scott. She may not be the kind of girl I would normally root for but I think Fan Girl depicts an intensely vulnerable character with a hidden tenacity, one who is a pretty good mirror for a number of women today. I think that in its own way the book is both a defense and a rebuke of Summer, which can really leave you with something to think about.

Ms Miniano's writing has a very measured pace and an introspective tone. It is almost episodic in the beginning, giving us short chapters of Summer's life throughout college and the kind of relationship she has with Scott. The writing comes across as almost quiet -- there are no frantic celeb chases here, no big dramatic scenes -- and it's the kind of voice that I'm really drawn to when I read.

Fan Girl is a story of self-discovery, of choice and consequence. But it tells us that growing up doesn't happen overnight. Sometimes we really have to keep on repeating our mistakes before we learn, whether we're bright-eyed college freshmen or thirtysomething career professionals. Some truths we are just meant to discover ourselves.

ReaderCon/Filipino Friday: An Introduction

As a countdown to our 1st ReaderCon, I'm joining the other Pinoy bloggers in doing this Filipino Friday meme. Every Friday, we're asked to share our answers on different questions, and this week, it's all about introducing the kind of readers we are.

I read everything. Back when I was a Literature major and fancied myself a writer, a college professor told me that I had to be more discerning with my choices. The rationale behind it was that if I read good books, I was likely to write better. I really didn't listen. I cannot imagine not reading things that interest me. So yeah, now I guess I'm a reader and not a writer, and I'm cool with that!

Fantasy: I read Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsinger when I was about nine or ten. My older cousins, who were into Pern and Terry Brooks' Shannara, thought it was a good idea for me to add some fantasy into my reading choices and I was hooked. I finished most of the Pern series in grade school, was hooked on Dragonlance, checked out every fantasy-related YA book from the school library (mostly Lloyd Alexander, C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, John Bellairs, Susan Cooper, Fay Sampson). In high school, I moved on to JRR Tolkien, Ursula Le Guin, William Goldman, Peter S. Beagle, David Eddings, Mercedes Lackey, Robert Jordan, Frank Herbert, Ray Bradbury, Orson Scott Card (okay, obviously I began reading sci-fi as well). I went through doorstoppers like crazy. Still do. In college, I read George R.R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Terry Pratchett, Stephen R. Donaldson. Post-college: China Mieville, Ellen Kushner, Robin Hobb, Neal Stephenson, Jeff Vandermeer, Jack Vance, H.P. Lovecraft, Iain Banks, David Mitchell, Sergei Lukyanenko. Hay naku, tama na, di ako matatapos. What was the question again? Sorry, I really tend to ramble when it comes to fantasy stuff. Sell me anything and I'd buy it.

And the rest, quickly now.
Asian Literature: I love books by Haruki Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto, Yukio Mishima, Dai Sijie, Ma Jian, Anchee Min. I also enjoy Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy, and Orhan Pamuk. I wish I can read more from Southeast Asian authors (I'm only halfway through my first Indonesian book).

YA: I used to read as many of the American Newbery winners and honor books as I could: The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Johnny Tremain, Strawberry Girl, The Westing Game, and Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. My favorite authors were EL Konigsberg, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, and Katherine Paterson. I still read YA fantasy like Shannon Hale and Patricia McKillip but thanks to my teenage sister, I read more of the contemporary titles now.

Romance: I devour Regency bodice-rippers and chick lit. Recently discovered Julia Quinn and I'm loving her books to bits. This was all thanks to reading Sweet Dreams on the sly in fourth grade and then graduating to Sidney Sheldon by the time I was a freshman in high school.

Poetry: Should that count here? Too late, I'm answering anyway. Luisa Igloria, Eric Gamalinda, Edith Tiempo, Billy Collins, Wislawa Szymborska, William Carpenter, Philip Levine, Ted Kooser, Pablo Neruda, and Rumi.

My favorite authors, in no particular order: Peter S. Beagle, Haruki Murakami, Harper Lee, Ellen Kushner, Kelly Link, George R.R. Martin, Terry Pratchett, Umberto Eco, Banana Yoshimoto, Erle Stanley Gardner, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Georgette Heyer, Elizabeth Hand, Patricia McKillip, Patrick Ness, Lloyd Alexander. I think our Filipino genre writers rock. Yvette Tan and Crystal Koo are among my (many) favorites.

Here are some books I'd read over and over again:
LM Montgomery's Anne of Green Gable series and The Blue Castle
Eva Ibbotson's The Morning Gift
Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Terry Pratchett's Night Watch, The Truth, and Soul Music
Sharon Shinn's Summers at Castle Auburn
Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
Wendy Mass' Every Soul a Star
... and should shoujo manga count?

Finally you'll have to forgive me if not all of these books were released in 2011; they just happen to be a list of fabulous books that I've managed to read this year:
David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas
Peter S. Beagle's Sleight of Hand
Patrick Ness' A Monster Calls
Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others
Sara Zarr's Sweethearts
David Markson's Reader's Block
Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan
Benjamin Tammuz' Minotaur

Whew! Probably my longest post ever (and I'm hoping I don't get too long-winded next time). But if we happen to have common favorites and you'd like to chat, let me know. I hope I'll see you at ReaderCon. :)


The ReaderCon is presented together with Vibal Publishing House, Inc, and sponsors Primetrade Asia, Flipside Digital Content, and Scholastic.

Manazuru (Hiromi Kawakami)

Don't turn your head. Keep looking at
the bandaged place. That's where the
light enters you.

And don't believe for a moment
that you're healing yourself. – Rumi

This short verse from one of my favorite poets kept resonating with me as I read Hiromi Kawakami’s Manazuru, translated from Japanese by Michael Emmerich. Twelve years after Kei’s husband disappeared, she is still haunted by the loss. But that’s not the only thing haunting her. As she makes regular visits to the small seaside town called Manazuru, she finds herself constantly dogged by a mysterious spirit. Kei doesn’t know what is in Manazuru that draws her nor does she know what it is about her that draws the woman. In this restless year, Kei allows the reader a glimpse into the chaotic memories that invade her quiet, contained life.

It is easy to say that Kei is looking for closure. She remains adrift, trying to make sense of why her husband Rei left, uncertain whether to divorce him or have him declared legally dead. She still bears her husband's name though she lives with her mother (both surnames appear on the nameplates in front of their home). She has a long-term affair with a married man. She is unsure of how to deal with the changes in her teenage daughter. Rei lingers in every relationship that Kei has, and thoughts of him still follow her even when she escapes to the secluded fishing town of Manazuru provides a good backdrop for Kei's introspection.

There is an aimlessness to this whole novel. If the prose was meant to have that almost disjointed yet still poetic quality, then Mr Emmerich’s translation succeeds: 'As we were paying at the desk, I suddenly pictured the daybreak tangle of our bodies, and became wet. The rainy season was unusually long that year. We sauntered through a light rain, sharing an umbrella. Nesting dolls were arrayed on a glass shelf in a souvenir shop(p60).' From sex to rain to Russian matryoshka. I actually liked this strange jumble of images, as if I were joining Kei flit from one thought to the other, from the remembered to the tangible. I thought that this seeming incoherence and meandering underscored the surrealism in the text. You tend to ask yourself what is real and what is imagined, almost an echo of Kei's own questions about what had happened to her marriage.

I'm not sure if this is a characteristic that will be well-received by other readers. In the opening scene, Kei stays at an inn run by a family named Suna, which means sand. For me, the image aptly establishes the tenuous links between the events in this story, but I still found myself looking for something to anchor my reading experience. In the end, I found it in Kei's relationship with her daughter Momo. There is something so broken and disconnected and convincingly real about them, apart and together, and I was really invested in what happens to them. Many things are left unanswered (like who the woman is or what really happened to Rei), but then maybe that's not the point. Maybe the point is that closure comes not as door slamming shut, but as a boat disappearing into the horizon, gradually drifting away until you are no longer aware where it is. Or maybe that's just my overly simplistic way of making sense out of a very complex journey.

The 1st Filipino ReaderCon

I've been blogging since 2006, but it was only late last year when I found out that there was an entire community of passionate Filipino book bloggers. I was largely unaware that a number of them even have a healthy international audience. I hope none of the local publishing companies and their marketing departments share my ignorance, but on the off chance that they do, then this would be a great way for Filipino readers, authors, and publishers to get together and forge stronger ties.

Presenting the 1st Filipino Reader Conference: Filipino Readers Make It Social!

The ReaderCon celebrates reading in the Philippines, especially in this digital age. If you're a Pinoy reader, this is a good opportunity to learn the ins and outs of book blogging. Know how to run your own book club. Most importantly, see how you as a reader can help promote Philippine literature. Being so new to this community, I'm really excited to see what will come out of this event. I'll be posting more updates on the ReaderCon soon, but in the meantime, here's the Twitter account that you can follow.

The ReaderCon will be held at SMX Mall of Asia Meeting Room 2 on Sept. 14, Wed, from 1-6 PM. It is presented together with Vibal Publishing House, Inc, and sponsors Primetrade Asia, Flipside Digital Content, and Scholastic. Hope to see you there!

List-erature: This Astronomy Lover's Essentials

August brings much rain and cloudy skies so there is little reason for me to stay outdoors at night. In between waiting for the skies to clear, I've come up with a short list of astronomy-oriented books. Please note that this is not meant to be the definitive guide for any astronomer; these are merely my personal favorites that have helped me embrace the field.


1. The Firefly Encyclopedia of Astronomy (Edited by Paul Murdin and Margaret Peston). This is a really extensive collection of facts about the history of astronomy, phenomena, theories, space missions.... I'm tempted to say everything under the sun but that would be inappropriate -- and hyperbolic. What I love about this encyclopedia is that it contains pages of practical advice on imaging, solar observation, radio astronomy, and other things that would interest an amateur like me. It doesn't have detailed coverage of constellations, but I can forgive that because I know how thick it would be to fit everything in. Good thing I have...

2. Burnham's Celestial Handbook (Robert Burnham Jr). I'll truly be lost without this three-volume set. Not only does it have very, very, very detailed information on the more popular constellations and its stars (variable, multiple and double stars), it also includes the different nebulae and galaxies in each. It has accompanying charts, graphs, and photographs depicting magnitude, celestial coordinates, and nearly everything else you would be interested to know. No wonder Mr Burnham couldn't settle for just one book. If you're into deep-sky astronomy, you really should pick up a set.

3. Sky and Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas (Roger W. Sinnott) . This practical and convenient guide is one of the most important things in my astronomical library. It's easy to use when you're in the field and contains the best viewing months for different objects. It's almost like going on a road trip with the most reliable map around.

4. Cosmicomics (Italo Calvino). A lyrical collection about the origin of the universe. Each tale begins with a brief piece of astronomical interest: information on the moon, the expansion of the universe, early life. Then what Mr Calvino does masterfully is to depict the universe as seen by an early speck of life -- cellular structures but I'd like to imagine the narrator old Qwfwq as a piece of stardust -- and mold it into twelve poetic/philosophical moments. One of my favorite lines is Qwfwq recalling that gradually, living among signs had led us to see signs in countless things that, before, were there, marking nothing but their own presence; they had been transformed into the sign of themselves and had been added to the series of signs made on purpose by those who meant to make a sign (p38)' that would lead to signs like 'fire-streaks against a wall of schistose rock' or 'the badly inked tail of the letter R in an evening newspaper'. The entire book made me shiver with delight and purpose.

5. Every Soul a Star (Wendy Mass). It may have been The Little Prince that first got me gazing upwards, but it was Ms Mass' YA title about how a total solar eclipse changed three kids' lives that really inspired me to take my interest in stargazing a step further. In this wonderfully introspective story, Ally, Jack, and Bree are at the Moon Shadow Campground run by Ally's parents, the only site to view an oncoming solar eclipse. All three have various reasons to be there -- some more reluctantly than others -- but in the end, their encounter changes them profoundly. I can relate to powerful and moving astronomy is. Now I'm a member of the Astronomical League of the Philippines, learning so much more than I could have on my own, and I don't know if I could have done it without this book.

Bottom line? Reading has truly helped me find more loves and more passions, and even in these grey, rainy hours, I cannot be more grateful.

The Child Thief (Brom)

I've always admired works that subvert and twist the classic fairy tale. In The Child Thief, a darker retelling of JM Barrie's beloved Peter Pan, Brom reminds us that the dark elements are already present in the original story. His task is to lay that darkness bare while bringing the story into the twenty-first century. Here, Peter is still stealing kids away but he's now in the New World, choosing instead to lure young teens from abusive families, bullying, and other violent situations in downtown New York. Fourteen-year old Nick is only the latest in this centuries-old game, a boy running away from druggies and dealers who are guaranteed to kill him on sight. The story alternates between Peter and Nick, giving readers a chance to understand the cost and the dangers that come with living in their version of Neverland. The story also adds Celtic and Welsh legends into the retelling, providing a well-anchored backdrop to the more fantastic elements.

As with many fractured fairy tales, it is easy to twist and turn the charismatic Peter into the bad guy. But Brom doesn't do simple role reversal here. I think his characterization of Peter is intuitive and nuanced, and for the most part it gives us a fair understanding of what spurs a boy like Peter on. The Child Thief is rife with moral ambiguity. Brom's Peter is an excellent character, an unreliable narrator perhaps, but that only serves to strengthen the Peter Pan mythos. As a reader, I was convincingly drawn into his struggles and his beliefs. Nick serves as a good foil for Peter, as he sees the world of Avalon with more trustworthy eyes.

Brom does his best work with horror; he certainly makes this nightmarish realm come alive. The gore is satisfying, and Brom's accompanying artwork does a great job of complementing the story.

The story is not without its stumbles. I found the narrative clunky at parts. Not only does the perspective shift between Peter and Nick (that doesn't sound like a bad thing), but it also presents us with Peter's flashbacks. There's the Peter hoping to steal another boy into Neverland (an extraneous element, I feel), a Peter and his life in the world of men, and a Peter in Avalon. The story moves back and forth between all these elements before it settles into the more comfortable Peter-Nick narrations, but at that point it has already taken up a lot of the book.

In this world, however, it seems that the moral ambiguity doesn't extend to Christianity. The fire-and-brimstone antagonists were rather tired and very one-dimensional, doing nothing at all to further The Child Thief's subverted themes. It seems like the takeaway was anyone who trumpets his own goodness is evil; everyone else deserves our understanding. It was this uneven treatment that kept me from fully enjoying the book especially when it makes well-drawn characters lose their edge and revert to their respective roles in the battle between good and evil, old and new, pagan and Christianity. Of course, it could just be the Catholic schoolgirl in me talking; don't let that stop you from picking up a copy of this book and coming to your own deliciously dark conclusions.