I'll probably remember this year as the one when Jose Saramago & Christopher Priest were bitter rivals (in my mind, of course) for my literary affections.

Photo from Brigadas internacionales

It started when I read Blindness for the March book discussion. It was a painful but satisfying read, and I liked it so much I'd promptly declared it as my best book for 2011.

Photo from Locus Online

But then, a fellow book blogger, FFP member and friend, Peter, who was a bit concerned of my earlier dismissal of NYRB books, lent me Christopher Priest's The Inverted World (thank you so much!). He was convinced that I won't just like the book but love it. And he was right. It was a mind-bending read but it was very, very good.

When my ardor shifted from Saramago to Priest, I thought, this is a bit unfair of me. I can't easily dismiss someone who won the Nobel Prize in Literature. After all, I can't judge an author by reading just one or two of his creations, right? Thus, I made an imaginary contest between the two authors for the most-coveted prize of all: my best author & book for 2011.

So here's the tally & the plan so far (not that I have these books right now, though I do hope I'll acquire/borrow some of them soon):

Jose Saramago

Blindness (read)

Death with Interruptions (read)

The Double

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

Baltasar & Blimuda

Christopher Priest

The Inverted World (read)

The Prestige

The Separation

The Extremes

The Affirmation

I ought to post reviews for these books, no? I'll do that as I go along, I promise. So what do you think, guys and gals? Is best out of five fair enough? Or should I read more?

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Well okay, as you know, I'm a member of this book club, Flips Flipping Pages. But I realize I'm nowhere as bookish as many of the other Flippers (that's what we call ourselves), who can read five to ten (or more) books per week, while I can barely finish one in a month. That I shrink at challenges is such an understatement.

But here I am, I'm joining this year's FFP 24-Hour Read-A-Thon.

That it's going to be loads of fun is assured. Man, this is an FFP event. If there's one truth in this life, this is it: there is no such thing as a boring FFP event. Coupled that it's going to be held in my friend Triccie's bookshop, Libreria, the prettiest bookstore in town (I'm honestly not exaggerating) - well, I just hope it's not going to be as wild as the last party held there (two words: Mardi Gras). Besides, people are going need to buckle down and do some serious reading, so think of this as your typical book nerds' slumber party. Without much of the pajamas, pillow fights and even slumbering, of course.

I know I won't read as much books as the top hitters of the club, but gosh! I'm just crossing my fingers I won't embarrass myself in front of my friends. At the very least, I hope I won't go to sleep and snore or God forbid, drool on Triccie's nice couch. :P

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High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
Chicklit (or Ladlit, whatever); ISBN 1573228214; Riverhead Trade.

Let's get the premise out of the way first. This is about a guy, Rob Fleming, who had just been dumped by his girlfriend, Laura. This made him reexamine his past relationships, why they failed, as well as his current life, and what made it suck (well, more or less). Oh, and incidentally, he owns a record shop and, along with his two employees, is a music snob.

Okay, I'll repeat my title: it's basically not about music. The 'love' aspect is not even a major part of the story (notice that Hornby, via Rob, pointedly steers away from the 'love' topic whenever it seems to be heading in that direction).

The book is about how we don't really grow up even as we become grown-ups. Laura had not-so-neatly summed it up when she was ranting about the situation Rob and she were in:

"It's no wonder we're all in such a mess is it? We're like Tom Hanks in Big. Little boys and girls trapped in adult bodies and forced to get on with it. And it's much worse in a real life, because it's not just snogging and bunk beds, is it? There's all of this as well."

Or in Rob's own realization:

It's only just beginning to occur to me that it's important to have something going on somewhere, at work or at home, otherwise you're just clinging on... You need as much ballast as possible to stop you from floating away; you need people around you, things going on, otherwise life is like some film where the money ran out... and it's just one bloke on his own staring into the camera with nothing to do and nobody to speak to, and who'd believe in this character then? I've got to get more stuff, more clutter, more detail in here, because at the moment I'm in danger of falling off the edge.

Rob's refusal to 'get on with it' , his failure to gather 'detail' in his life, is the crux of the story. Isn't it easy sometimes to just go along with the flow, to only do the most necessary stuff (get money, get a place, food, etc.), to just take everything as it happens to you, not to expect much from others and situations, or yourself? I know I do.

I'm not a fan of chicklits/ladlits but I liked High Fidelity. I related to story more than, say, Confessions of a Shopaholic or anything made for 'chicks' (what does that say about me, dear reader? hahaha). I liked Laura more than Rob and I want to believe I'm more like her than Rob - but knowing myself, I'm just denying things. I'm in a sorta dead-end job, check. I'm now living alone in the city but goes to my parents' house in the suburbs where they occasionally complain about the direction of my life and the state of my singleness, check. I have two people under me that I'm not sure I handle well, check. I even have a collection (of books, not records) that I reorganize during 'times of emotional stress', check. And yeah, I'm that whiny in my head, check. So okay, I'm Rob. But I'm drawing the line on reassessing my past relationships, so I'm stopping right here.

5 out of 5 stars

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Note: I would've liked to post this info in my book club's forum but Shelfari, for all its nifty gadgets, don't even have the ability to put images & links in the post. Sheesh!

Selection process consists of going to the Random.org site and using their list randomizer program. If you doubt the randomness of their program, I suggest reading their FAQ and explanation of the science of random generation. I personally like the site because the creator (a Dr. Mads Haahr from Trinity College in Dublin) had, at one time, used a cheapo transistor radio and lots of whiskey for generating randomness. The current system phased out the whiskey bottles (reluctantly, I would think) but still have that lovely spirit of cheapness by using a probably old IBM machine with a Pentium III processor. He still uses that cheapo transistor radio though. Combined with the info that his favorite authors are Paul Auster, Haruki Murakami, Jonathan Carroll and Harlan Ellison, I think Dr. Haahr is wonderful.

Okay, back to the exchange gift thing. Here's a screencap of the generated list.

I tried to do it exactly at 12 Noon PST but I think I'm off by a few seconds.

Here's the resulting partners:
Mommy/Daddy - Baby (I know, I know, the labels are sorta embarrassing..)
1. Peter - 8. Blooey
2. Maydayeve - 18. Hannah
3. Cecille -7. Maydiwayatangnawawala
4. Marie -2. Maydayeve
5. Czar -1. Peter
6. Fantaghiro23 -3. Cecille
7. Maydiwayatangnawawala -5. Czar
8. Blooey -14. Sana
9. Islandhopper -12. Kwesifriends
10. Welski -15. Aka Shy
11. Dyoklako -19. Geze
12. Kwesifriends -10. Welski
13. Joel G. -22. Oel
14. Sana -4. Marie
15. Aka Shy -9. Islandhopper
16. Skirmish -21. Ceejay
17. Jan -6. Fantaghiro23
18. Hannah -11. Dyoklako
19. Geze -20. Iyadls
20. Iyadls -16. Skirmish
21. Ceejay -13. Joel G.
22. Oel -17. Jan

Protests? Violent reactions? Make three copies of your formal complaint in the form of a 1000-page essay, have it notarized, and send it to the Comelec. :)

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Dr. Kushner's Personality Type Diet – Robert Kushner
Non-fiction, Diet; ISBN 0312325827; St. Martin's Griffin, USA: 2004.

I found this among my book/TBR piles and read it for my book club's August meet (the topic will be about Health, Fitness and Well-being). I've looked around the web and was a bit surprised that this diet garnered positive reviews from established diet and health sites and was even discussed in peer-reviewed journals.

Despite the hokey title, I found it fun, simple and common-sensical (is that a word?). Plus it has this quiz in chapter two that you answer and then boom, you get to know what your diet, exercise and coping personalities are - it reminded me of those fun quizzes in facebook.

Based on this 66-question quiz, I learned that I'm a "Healthy Portioner" (aka the takaw tingin, who piles too much food on her plate during buffets). But my main problem is that I don't do exercise; in fact I'm both an "All-or-Nothing Doer" (aka the weekend warrior, who's only active in spurts/during the weekdays) and a "No-Time-to-Exercise Protestor" (unless I can exercise while sleeping, of course). It also seems that I'm also suffering from low self-esteem ( "Low-Self-Esteem Sufferer"), not to mention that my life is too fast-paced ("Fast Pacer") and that I have unreasonable expectations ("Overreaching Achiever"). Never realized that I have a lot of issues, so thank you very much Dr. Kushner.

The strength of this book isn't from that gimmicky personality type thing - its the chapters on how to read the ingredient and nutrition labels on the back of products, as well as the few recipes given. They are decent and practical, although the ingredients in the recipes are understandably US-oriented.


2.5 out of 5 stars

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Slow Food: Philippine Culinary Traditions – Erlinda Enriquez Panlilio & Felice Prudente Sta. Maria (editors)
Non-fiction, Food & culture, Filipiniana; ISBN 971-1594-9; Anvil, Manila: 2005.

The slow food movement was first established in Italy as a reaction to the burgeoning rise of fast foods in the 80s. According to the wikipedia, the movement aims to "preserve the cultural cuisine and the associated food plants and seeds, domestic animals, and farming within an ecoregion." It had spread to the Philippines with the help of the esteemed Doreen G. Fernandez, who had sadly died before the first official Manila Convivium (a sosy term for Slow Food organization's local branch) had been established. The book was written to convey to people the need to preserve our traditional culinary culture and heritage - regional dishes fills one with pride and homesickness, heirloom recipes, no-shortcut cooking, and food prepared from scratch and only with the finest ingredients. The book has three parts: the first part, "No Shortcuts" comprise of essays on heirloom recipes and familial culinary heritages; the second is called "True to Traditions" and is about regional customs and food; finally the third part is "Tastes of Times", about seasonal food and the changing food traditions of the old amidst this new era.

In between a hot cup of fruit-infused tea & a bottle of Bugnay wine

I bought the book (fittingly) in the culturally significant Vigan, in between getting myself a taste of their famous empanadas and rushing to join my group in Cafe Leonora. I've read most of the first part in the back of a van in the last leg of our Ilocos trip - thus making me regret not buying some tinubog or sukang Ilocos. In fact, before this book I was blissfully unaware of the culinary heritage that surrounded me all my life. Now, I like to think of myself as a semi-Bulakena and semi-Manilenya, plus some liberal dash of Bisaya (courtesy of my Cebuano dad and Ilonga mom) in the mix.

My favorite part of the book is the second one. It made me conscious of those that I had been taking for granted - for example, those bite-size puto that I love to buy from the lola in the Karuhatan market before traveling back to Makati is actually known as putong Polo (Polo being the former name of my hometown of Valenzuela). An essay on Ilonggo food made me remember my first trip to Iloilo with my mom - one of my best memories was of batchoy, when she brought me to La Paz market for my first taste of the soup (I can honestly say that I haven't found any batchoy within the Metro that can compare with that bowlful). And my favorite essay is on Pangalay food (hmm, shouldn't this be spelled as "Pang-alay"?), because that is MY family's tradition: to make a kakanin dish or two on All Saint's Day as a pang-alay to our dead relatives. It may be the biko of the essay, it can also be palitaw, kalamay, or this ube-colored malagkit that I can't, for the life of me, remember the name, basta I usually get conscripted to be the stirrer (an unwelcome and boring chore for a kid because of the very thick consistency of the kakanin). The cooking takes up the rest of the day. At around 6 o' clock in the evening, after lighting the first two or three candles in the front porch (when one is spent it will be replaced, up until bed time), extra dishes with the kakanins will be placed in the middle of the dining table for the relatives that will be visiting the living for that special day. Spooky? I didn't think so then, and even 'til now.

The third part isn't really that much of our tradition, considering our family don't bake. But considering our proximity to Bulacan, I love hot chocolates and sapin-sapin. And this part had a recipe for Kalamansi cake, a dessert that I fell in love when I went to Baguio last week.

So anyway, I think I'll give this one a 4 and 1/2. It's a great book; it's just that this edition isn't that great (as with any Anvil newsprint editions), with the very thin newsprint paper and the unwieldy textbook size. I guess they'll be reprinting this one into a better (but pricier) edition soon.

4 and 1/2 out of 5

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For you books AND food (who isn't both?) lovers out there, here's something to do on June 20:


Here's the link for those who are lazy to write: http://tinyurl.com/mr2hqu.

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