Books Read

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed…

Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety.

Italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read only an excerpt.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy.
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth.
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville 
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt.
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery 
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare 
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo 

I also have physical copies of the books I read to prove it! :D Those Italicized were ebooks hence, I couldn't finish because I don't like ebooks.

Hit Your Head With This.

Reading the book Messages to Young People by Ellen G. White is like taking a bottle and hitting your head with it. Lots of realizations that could cause you to blink, think at what you're doing and realize that you're making small mistakes. 

Consider the following quotations:

"You will not suffer lovesick sentimentalism to so blind your vision that you cannot discern the high claims that God has upon you as a Christian.--"

in short, being emo is bad.

"Those who love society frequently indulge this trait until it becomes an overruling passion. To dress, to visit places of amusement, to laugh and chat upon subjects altogether lighter than vanity, --this is the object of their lives. They cannot endure to read the Bible and contemplate heavenly things. They are miserable unless there is something to excite. They have not within them the power to be happy; but they depend for happiness upon the company of other youth as thoughtless and reckless as themselves. The powers which might be turned to noble purposes, they give to folly. . . ."

In short, no parties and small time enjoyments, because they do not give you real happiness...

"As disciples of Christ we shall not mingle with the world from a mere love of pleasure, to unite with them in folly. Such associations can result only in harm. We should never give sanction to sin by our words or our deeds, our silence or our presence. Wherever we go, we are to carry Jesus with us, and to reveal to others the preciousness of our Saviour. But those who try to preserve their religion by hiding it within stone walls lose precious opportunities of doing good."

in short, socialize and be friendly but be firm on not crossing the boundaries of your convictions and beliefs.

These are just few quotations from the book. If you wanted to find a straight path to a straight life, this book is a must read.

Read Forever

I posted this on FB as well. I really loved the anthem. I found this from one of the creators of Trese Comics, Budgette Tan. Here's his site: babblingpoint.blogspot.com. He even included the anthem text.

READ FOREVER

Til all the books I read are read
and all the pens are put down
and everything there is to learn is learned

Til tears are no longer shed
and the ziggers have all zigged
and the irony is all ironed out

Til the heroes retire
and the monsters return to their dens
and all the plots are wrapped up

Til there are no more twists and turns
No more guns in drawers
No more shaggy dogs

Til rhymes stop rhyming
and pots stop boiling
and everyone is happy and there’s nothing more say

Til that day

By hook or by crook
By book or by nook
I will read


CREDITS FROM : http://adsoftheworld.com/media/tv/barnes_noble_read_forever_anthem

Looking Back Series

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	History
Author:	Ambeth Ocampo

Browsing through the Filipiniana section of some bookstore in ortigas, I found this seemingly thin book with a curious cover. It was by Ambeth Ocampo so most likely it was history. I was previously taken aback by his "Rizal Without the Overcoat" so this should be as compelling. I was glad that I was right. This mentally stimulating book allows us to look back at the trivial and obscured facts from our history books. The second book in the series "Dirty Dancing" and the third, "Death by Garrote" were bought consecutively. These three books are compilations of his columns with the same name.

The three books bring us back to the land of heroes whose names have become almost legendary if not mythical. Ocampo managed to pull those men and women down to the human realm. Imagine learning that McArthur (yes, the "I shall return" guy) had a Filipina mistress and that Gen. Gregoryo del Pilar could be lined up among the ranks of Rizal for being a playboy. Know who has a greater mastery over the English language: Rizal or Mabini. Learn the histories of our surnames, first names and middle names. The only down side with the book is that you'd want to read more after you've read all three books.

This is a history book that differs from most as the humor and wit of Ocampo has been laid out. It offers a conversational presentation of articles that doesn't bore readers and still produce vital information on our history.

Moldy

Every person needs to pause once in a while from all the regular work he or she has been doing. With the week long Halloween break for me, I found it rather depressing.

Every working person would get a hard time cleaning up the house or the room especially if you work 6 days a week and on your days off, you catch up on sleep. That has already been a routine for me. Whatever short one or two hour breaks I get, I spend buffering all the other outside noises to enjoy a little personal space. Thus, you could easily picture out my room, our house to be in complete disarray. (Ok, disarray IS an understatement.) 

So today, a Thursday and the official start of my week-long Halloween break (I did mention week-long right?), I took the task of cleaning up my room (partially cleaning, that is). I have been pushing this task a long time only to regret it later.

Of all parts of the room I was meticulous about, I highly try to keep my books as clean and safe as possible. So, I couldn't forget the horror when I tried to take all the books out of my closet shelf (You couldn't imagine where else I have been putting all my books). Half of the books were wet and moldy. Ants apparently loved the place and the shelf was smelling of fresh mold.

In a sudden rush of mad panic, I immediately took out ALL the books from the shelves and started examining each one. A lot were still soaking wet, several started to have white squishy molds, but over all, the books were still salvageable if I can keep them dry.

That put all the cleaning effort to a halt and the salvaging of books to a start. I began perusing the web for potential book cleaning efforts only to find some really helpful but difficult to do ways to salvage moldy books or paper.

Here are some ways from museum SOS:

1. Find what is causing the mold growth. In my case it's a broken downspout. The water found its way behind my bookshelf. It caused the wood to warp and the books got wet as well
2. Modify the environment so that is no longer conducive to mold growth. The repair of the downspout would have to wait though. In the mean time, I tried keeping the closet open to let the air circulate. I also tried to blast the area with cold air.
3. Implement safety precautions for all the people working on moldy items. The page suggested things that are alien for me. I didn't follow it so I'll suffer the repercussions later. Great job, Worthy!!
4. Isolate the affected items. I immediately separated the bad books from the good ones.
5. Begin to dry the materials. The step suggested putting the books in an airconditioned space. Since I can't go to the nearest convenience store or fast food, to aircondition the books, I placed them outside in the sun where there's enough air circulation. (screw the sun though, it's a cloudy day today). Oh! and the guide also suggested putting the books out of humid places, but this is the Philippines for crying out loud. Humidity is best here.
6. If drying is not possible, freeze them. I had the idea of stuffing all the books inside our refrigerator but I knew someone would kill me when I do that.
7. Clean the affected items. Do not try to clean the active mold (soft and fuzzy) yourself. This got me really surprised. I just tried to remove all the molds by hand before reading this article. So good bye cruel world.
8. Dry and thoroughly clean the room where the mold outbreak occurred. Have I mentioned that cleaning the room went into a halt? Well, it's still on halt.
9. Return the materials to the affected area. I said everything went on HALT! Seriously though, I still couldn't return the books back since the closet and the downspout still is broken.
10. Continue to monitor conditions to prevent mold growth. Whatever.

Hope this really help. Just follow the instructions to avoid being like me.

Basketball Fever

I once quipped during the height of the World Cup 2010 in South Africa, that if Filipinos embraced football, we could have been contenders for the World Cup. We could be twice as fast as any World cup players. There's no need to measure height since the height isn't a real big deal in football. If we ever decided to join the World Cup, we could probably be at par with the best teams in the World. We're better off playing football.

Yet a few months after, here I am watching old clips from old PBA games particularly the Toyota-Crispa Reunion in 2003 where most of the old guys sweat it out like they were in their mid-20s. It was a fun match full of heart and passion. Those were times when most of the players wore short shorts and could really fly (yes, guys could wear short shorts and get cheered at by beautiful girls). I don't know about now since I never get to watch any of the games.

Moreover, I bought a PSP three weeks ago. I loaded some games. If you'd look at it, you'd definitely laugh. I have two different versions of an NBA game and I get to play those two more than the other games on my device. I just caught myself today, and had a good laugh out of it.

In another note, the book by Rafe Bartholomew is now out in the Philippines. It's called "Pacific Rims." (The author didn't pay me to promote this. I haven't even read the book yet.) As the author put it, this is about the Philippines where basketball is ingrained in every street in each of the 7,107 islands of our country. In an interview, the author even says that the most basic aspects of our society revolves around basketball, politics for one, is also affected by the hard court.

True enough, this country may not boast of tall players, but watching the game of old guys bumping and bruising each other to get an orange ball inside a hoop is exhilarating. Sure, catching the one point lead of one team in football gives you the thrills as well, but the action of basketball seemed to be more appealing to the hearts of every Filipino.

Sure, anyone could enumerate wonderful reasons why Filipinos should take up football instead. Yet once you hear the "swooop" of the ball hitting the net, the reasons fade and the game begins.

Mis mo!

Ode to Light

I'm experiencing a inevitable setback for a few weeks now.

I bought a few books this week to replenish my already dwindling reading list. I was about to start reading one of these books when suddenly someone took my picture. I knew someone did, there was a flash of light. One thought hit me: I HAVE STALKERS IN MY ROOM!!!

Then, it happened again, a flash of light. Then again, and again. Now I felt like my room turned into a dance floor with the flashing lights. These couldn't be stalkers unless they have ultra super fast but super small SLR cameras, which would be very impossible.

The culprit was none other than my reading light. I closed my book and went to sleep. Tomorrow I'll try to find out what's wrong with my light.

That was two weeks ago. My bedroom light had a busted florescent lamp - a 15 Watt lamp. It's still broken. 

When I asked my brother to buy a replacement lamp, he found out that they didn't sell any of those any more. They never ordered one of those for a long time. How convenient! Did I also mention that he tried all of the hardware stores in our vicinity (J.P. Rizal Street in Makati has more or less 10 hardware stores).

What's frustrating is that I could understand why. I received this bedroom reading lamp when I was still in high school. My parents discovered that I was slowly occupying the whole bookshelf with my own books and I was about to exhaust all the books in our school library, so they gave me a reading lamp they won from some promo. I couldn't remember the details. It was that long ago. All I know was that my complaint then was that staying on the lower deck of a double decker, you don't get enough light to read anything.

For the record, the lamp has been replaced less than 5 times in span of almost 9 years. It's that economical. I have used it to read more than a hundred books and has been a great help when I was writing those long articles we used to submit before our journalist teacher. It has seen a lot of action. In fact, it has the battle scars to prove it. It has a busted outlet where I used to plug in my charger. How it got busted was long forgotten.

I like that lamp. I hope to find a replacement lamp or I won't be able to read any book, which is really scary.

All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Nonfiction
Author:	Robert Fulghum

This is really over due.

I was walking around a mall when I spotted this book in a bargain bookstore. It's pages somewhat old. However, I recall a faint memory of receiving an email message with this in the subject heading. I got curious especially when I read the first few pages. I bought the book even though I still had a long reading list.

Never did I regret my decision. It lead me to transcend from the novels to the essays.

The book is the the first of many by American minister and author Robert Fulghum. It's a book of essays on life and ironies of life. The title refers to the list of rules and guidelines taught to kindergarten students and how good it would be for the world if adults follow these simplistic set of rules.

However the book cover more than just those rules. It also features essays on life, death, birth, surprises, washing clothes and dishes among others. No joke, it really has an essay about washing clothes and dishes. There's even one featuring a mermaid.

What's fun about reading this book is it's style. The somewhat simple and and sometimes straight forward way of delivering the essays seem like talking to the readers. It wouldn't even feel like your reading a book, it's more like listening to a good teacher or a having a conversation with a friend.

Howl's Moving Castle

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Childrens Books
Author:	Dianne Wynne Jones

Move over Harry Potter, Howl is here.

This is one great volume packed with magic, mystery and mayhem. The story starts with Sophie Hatter, whose ultimate destiny seemed to be dull and lifeless until she finds herself living in a 90 year old body, thanks or no thanks to the Wicked Witch of the Wastes, the malevolent antagonist. From then on, endless irony followed which would start with who in their right mind would embark on a journey across hills and valleys when you're more than 90 years old? And who would be in their right mind to clean a castle with her bare hands when you're 90ish let alone try to baffle and trick a full-fledged wizard at that?

Ironic, but really hilarious. The meeting of Sophie and Howl and its twist are really page turners. A cat and dog story like no other, Howl's Moving Castle offers a love story with an eccentric twist as well as a mystery that could drive you mad. How could Sophie be freed from her curse and at the same time, free the fire-demon Calcifer? How could Sophie stir up the adamant and cowardly Howl from facing the Wicked Witch? And why would Calcifer obey only Howl and Howl alone until Sophie came? Who is the turnip headed scarecrow? Where is the Prince and the Wizard Jenkins?

As Jones unravels the answers to this questions, it's non stop laughing and surprise. Personally, I really enjoyed the book. It explores love and destiny in an explosive fashion. Cruel love as expressed by Sophie toward Howl as well as Familial love where Sophie's concern for her sisters made her to keep Howl in check.

This book is simply magical. Just read it to get what I mean.

Howl's In Two Days

I borrowed Michi's Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones last thursday. Well, actually she lent it to me while waiting for our friends when we went out on my birthday. That was last week.

For those who seem to have heard the title before, it is where the multi-awarded animated film by Hayao Miyazaki of the same title was based. The one that was nominated in the Academy Awards and won several others in Europe and America. It was that famous.

I managed to get hold of the book after aiding Michi to find the it. It took months but I didn't mind at all. I have a long reading list anyway.

I was excited to read about it. I even planned to read it the next day when I called in sick from work. Apparently, I didn't read it for almost a week. I even brought it to work thinking that maybe I would find time when one of my kids couldn't come in. It turned out that some kids didn't come in, but I completely forgot about the book. I even forgot that I brought it until I came home.

Yesterday, I was too lazy to stand up and manipulate anything digital before going to work. I was up early and didn't want to fall asleep again. I grabbed anything that I thought I could do and that was when I came upon the book again. Why not? I thought to myself. I still have five hours till work.

I read the first few pages only to find out that I made it to the middle of the book and that there was still time. When it was time to go to work, I immediately packed it with me. I had the break that I needed and for two hours I was adrift with Howl and Sophie.

After work, I was not looking forward to the mall and instead went straight home. Although it took quite some time because of the torrential rain, I managed to get home earlier than usual where I resumed reading the book.

Funny but the pages seemed to thin out evey minute or so and the adventure seemed to be more exciting. I only realized that I was through with the book this morning when I got the chance to continue reading it till the end. It was fun till it lasted.

Review of the book will be posted sometime.