MOVING ON

When you're younger, you usually would receive strong suggestions from people around you on what you ought to do later when you grow older. They include parents, elders, and friends. Most of them don't really know what they're talking about except they just think they know you that well, mainly because they've taken part in rearing and taking care of you from childhood, one way or another. But their suggestions are most probably projections of their own dreams that they have missed out in pursuing most relentlessly; each one of us face so many, grueling distractions as we go through the many phases in life.  Even authors, including James Joyce (who's one of my favorites), experienced something similar. And he wrote a book about it, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," which is considered by critics and readers as among the top English-novels of the 20th century. With this note in mind, I ventured to read the book and have found out it's among

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris My rating: 4 of 5 stars I realized before re-posting this here from my Goodreads.com account that David Sedaris must have been wanting to share his moving on experience on giving up smoking, which he did for at least 3 decades. This story dominates much of my reading memories of this book, which remains as humorous as ever and as what I expected prior to reading it. I'm sure he's still missing smoking, every once in a while. Smoking contributed a lot to killing my Father who smoked for at 45 years. I'm not advising anyone to stop smoking --- we're all given free choice and we know better what to do next with the remaining moments of our lives.  You'd feel weird right away when you read and try to make sense of the book's title, which is usually expressed as 'When you're on fire' or 'When you are getting burned' by most. The title apparently's a flaming reference to one of those weird

I've read Carlos Bulosan's ' America Is In The Heart ' in the original English lately, after I picked up a copy from one of my favorite thrift stores in Brooklyn months ago. I actually read it first many years ago in Tagalog (Nasa Puso Ang Amerika), and I don't recall much about the book (it reads very polemical in Tagalog). I even thought of it as a novel by this venerable writer from the Philippines, which, obviously, was a wrong assumption. It's a memoir; actually one of the best and most touching books of the genre I've read written in English. He should have been a US Citizen but because there were dominant bigots in power and in influential circles then (from both the US and the Philippines), he and other Philippine-born nationals were denied the basic right (think of it: the Philippines was a commonwealth of the US then, just like Puerto Rico, or even like Massachusetts---and draw your own conclusion). You got to spare time to read this book, not be

Unless you've been aware of businesses known for their leadership and creativity, you may not find this book much of help. Read it because you're ready to admit you're weird yourself. And you're not afraid of it being known, and would even want to highlight your weird traits, and get to attract others who share similarities with you. With this book, you may probably get ideas on how to gain some help in marketing what's unusual with you, your products or services. You build your business with those who have weird traits, too, and there's no need to seek out for customers who are on the lookout for the ordinary, the regular, and the usual. Leave these people to their own commonalities. Perhaps, before you know it, you'll find yourself in a profitable business situation for all regular business folks to learn from :-D We Are All Weird by Seth Godin My rating: 4 of 5 stars I'm weird myself, & that's why I enjoyed reading this book! And people

I happened to discover again a copy of this book recently, which got me into thinking about my experience when I read it when I was still in high school. Those periods were certainly made up of heady days for me. And I recall now how one of the protagonists of this novel has gone on coming into terms with the unexpected death of his student-lover (if I recall it right, he was shot by someone who's against gay people who bravely out themselves in public---correct me if I'm wrong with this). But I still remember that this book definitely made a strong impression on me during those years. I recall that someone who I know these days to be a known medical practitioner in the Philippines read this when we were in high school. He was my senior and surprised me by seeing this book in his hands as he read them during those years. That certainly got me thinking a lot of things about him. But it doesn't matter anymore; a lot of events have passed by, which would mean 'we've a

Notes: This is also a moving on book mainly because it talks about a transitioning period that happens when one's grown up child gets murdered in the Lower East Side (LES) of Manhattan. You deal with it the best way you can, given the grim circumstances. And others are always involved, as nobody's death is considered a vacuum when it happens - each one of us is connected with others. We don't die in a void. Stylish characterizations, well-crafted descriptions, lots of good research ---these are all can be found in this book, which got me into thinking about a lot of happenings taking place in the LES when I used to live there. I think I met again a lot of the characters I met when as lived on East Broadway when I read this book.  Lush Life by Richard Price My rating: 4 of 5 stars I took some time thinking what to say about this book, which intrigued me because of the feedback I read from others. On the surface it's not exactly among the many books I'd be readi

I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir by Josh Kilmer-Purcell My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is a wonderful 'moving on' book for readers who are forever in major transitions in their respective lives. Well, that's a pretty loaded line there but reading this book gives you ideas on how to go about moving on from one major situation in your life to another without totally damaging but actually creating your best self given resources on hand. Having gotten my copy from one of the brownstone stoops in Park Slope, Brooklyn, I thought the cover was funny looking with a goldfish pictured somewhere on the tattered page. Surely, the former owner must have wanted another reader to enjoy perusing this book. Finishing it in less than 3 days, I read how fabulously it was written as a memoir by someone who does advertisements these days and who was doing drag shows many years ago. I'm pretty familiar (which is an understatement) with such characters, having been involved myself w

When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold S. Kushner My rating: 5 of 5 stars A very good friend remarked on my Facebook profile about this book: An extremely flawed book. It asks all the right questions, which is very thought provoking. But it comes up with all the wrong answers and conclusions. The author is unable to accept that idea of a God who is all powerful and all knowing and settles on some touchy/feely non-distinct spiritual essence within us. So disappointing. Read the book and share your thoughts, too, in the comments section of this posting. Below are my thoughts on the book after I finished reading it: I finished this book while on the background I could hear the reading of the names of those who perished in the 9/11 horrific events on TV during its 10th anniversary. I was also wondering why this book has remained to be among my bestsellers in my online bookstore via Amazon.com (I must have sold 3 copies of this book, which got me curious and made me sta

The Story of French by Jean-Benoit Nadeau My rating: 4 of 5 stars I got this book from my favorite thrift store, thinking I'd be able to read it soon, but I didn't start doing so until I decided I could learn a thing or two from its espousal on making French one of the leading international languages (based on it's brief review on its back cover) even in these times when Mandarin is actually spoken by more people than English (considered by most as the international language of business). Who actually reads a book that presents a political treatise on the "French" language except perhaps readers like myself who's into freelance writing work most times, and academicians who are paid to read and share their knowledge to their captive market (their students)? I mean, I'm not exactly reading nor studying French at all---it does not appeal to me at all personally (except upon remembering that one of my favorite modern day saints, St. Therese of the Child Je

Dubliners by James Joyce My rating: 5 of 5 stars i got my copy of this book from the book collection left by a friend who suddenly died this year. having kept the copy for months now, i decided i could read this thin volume of a book (that was made up of several short stories, it turned out surprise-singly) while in transit between trips from home to my many destinations. the book's actually a relatively easy, fast read, which i did by just going through it without much care about the analysis (i.e. what's it all about, actually? did i get his point?); i was out to read it just to experience reading well-written short stories (hopefully to improve one's craft of writing - perhaps?, or learn a trick or two from the writer's style). the stories have that strange personal appeal to me, though all of them have relatively-difficult structure crafted into them by Joyce. shifting between time and situations on most of them has got me enmeshed such that i must have got lost i

Surreality by Carissa Villacorta My rating: 3 of 5 stars I got to finish reading this book while at the ferry crossing to Manhattan; it's an easy read such that you can breeze through its pages. I found great essays included in it, most specially "The Prodigal Daughter," "The Largest Rollercoaster in the World," and "Time is Gold, Money is Paper," such that they got me into pondering over my own existence as a transported individual who has lived the first 40 years of his life back in the Philippines. This book's actually a gift from a long time friend (from high school days) who thought I'd appreciate reading this one - it could very well be an indirect message that could have been clipped together with the book, on how he's got me in his thoughts, particularly of me eventually landing the headlines here in NYC. Do I really want that? Honestly, yes! but I'd certainly like to know the price I need to dole out, so that I can prepare ac

China: Empire of Living Symbols by Cecilia Lindqvist My rating: 5 of 5 stars Lindqvist's book, as translated by Joan Tate, is a superb learning book on Chinese characters. After having read it, I was reminded by a remark of a friend, who is Filipino Chinese, who snobbishly told me, "being able to write those characters would not actually mean much -- and that it's more important to be able to speak the language (he spoke Fookien, and I learned in subsequent talks that he really had to struggle learning to draw Chinese characters, as he was also studying Mandarin)." He was in a way, after some thinking, discouraging me, as doing so may gradually allow me to gain more access to a powerful language like that of Chinese, that's used by easily over a billion people. I was actually dumbfounded by his remark, as I was then studying Chinese character writing. I thought he would be excited hearing me talk about Chinese characters. I soon learned that there's an inhe

Fong and the Indians by Paul Theroux My rating: 3 of 5 stars I read this because it was written by one of my fave authors. It's really light reading, having finished the book while in transit to & fro my usual destinations. Its narrative's dated (though not much, as there are very relevant sections up to now), having been published first in 1968, when I was still 2 years old. A lot of sociopolitical upheavals and changes happened worldwide since then. The book covered the western world's fears then about communism, corruption, coup d'etats in Africa, plus post colonialism issues among other things (some of which still rage up to now). But still I enjoyed Theroux's satire -- I always learn from him. It's a good introduction for me about Africa, particularly East Africa, which apparently is also inhabited by immigrants from Asia, including Indians (those from the country India), Greeks, Persians (now Iranians), Chinese, among other countries that we don'