Today’s Sunday. And what a nice Sunday it is to spend at home. Am supposed to be reviewing right now for my technical certification exam by Sun Microsystems and yet, what am I doing? Here I am, updating my blog. Hehe. Will do my review after. ;)
Recently, so many things have entered my thoughts. Stuff to do, things to learn, etc. I also thought about this blog of mine and how I haven’t managed to really keep it up to date. Blogging is a great outlet for when you have so many things going on around you that is worth mentioning in a blog. However, when you are fully employed Monday to Friday, I suppose you really can’t expect to keep one’s blog updated regularly and would rather pass the time much more enjoyably by reading, going out with friends, and reviewing for certification (not! :P). Even shopping has become a chore. It has been for a long time. Would rather stay home than do shopping. I’m the sort who shops more for necessity rather than leisure. Especially when the malls are always packed with people and even to window-shop has become too stressful an exercise. Haha. Would be better, and less stressful to do the shopping overseas.
I have not even had my Europe photos printed, but I have developed a website of my photography of at least two of the places. There are just so many photos that choosing which ones alone to print is quite an exercise and made it seem that to develop the website is a far easier task. Needless to say, the sites are already developed but are not yet published online. I look forward to the day when I can get to do all the sites for each location and publish them. One site alone is a project in itself. But other pressing matters beckon. One would think that to have 2 days off weekly will allow me the time to do the things I need and want to do. But no.
So this morning, it was a pleasure that I was able to finish a book I just recently bought. By Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafón. A Barcelonense. The title being the Shadow of the Wind or “La Sombra del Viento”. And I only bought it because when I saw it at the bookseller’s, I was attracted by the cover. It reminded me of the kinds of books I saw at the Casa del Libro in Madrid. And when I picked it up, well, indeed, it is by a Spanish writer and it‘s a bestseller in Europe. And it’s set in Barcelona. I suppose no other reason would have enticed me to buy the book other than the fact that I like Spain, have been there, saw the kind of bookstores that they have and how I found the bestselling books on display there to seem to be far more interesting than the English ones marketed here that seem to lack substance and are published more for commercial reasons than anything else. Plus, that I also stayed for a while in Barcelona before I left. It helps to have been to the city and I guess help me reminisce. Hehe! So seeing this book was a joy. It was like a find. And it’s translated into English too. Doesn’t cost too much as well. I wasn’t expecting anything else other than it’s set in Spain and the novel might not turn out to be so good after all. But after the first two chapters, I changed my mind. It was an engrossing read.
I hardly buy nor am interested in reading popular, mass-market, bestseller books (like the Shopoholic novels, and others whose titles I don’t even bother to remember). Just a select few which I’d rather borrow than buy. The few being lighthearted novels or thrillers. I was never one of those people who promptly went gaga over Harry Potter (and still am not but I have read four of it), or the Shopoholic series, or the Mitch Alblom books, etc… Those are the sorts of books that seem to be popular in Manila among those who regularly buy books. Which I find a bit of a pity. I’m kind of on the extreme ends of book-buying. I guess I lean more towards buying and reading fiction that is like non-fiction (i.e., books by Albert Camus, stories with medieval history or art thrown in), modern classics, and trashy love stories, etc… Hehe; not exactly thrillers and such. Am not fond of Anne Proulx either. Despite her Brokeback Mountain. I think American publishing houses, just like its counterpart in Hollywood, are too great at marketing their books and most people here who buy books regularly tend to be the sort to more easily fall for it. But that’s just my opinion. I hope to get to read at least one good book each month.
But this book by Ruiz Zafón is worth it. The London press reviews of this book are quite right in this regard. Am glad I bought and read this book. This quote from one of the more interesting characters – Fermin Romero de Torres – I found quite funny but a food for thought nonetheless: “Like the good ape he is, man is a social animal, characterized by cronyism, nepotism, corruption, and gossip. That’s the intrinsic blueprint for our “ethical behaviour”, it’s pure biology”. Right. Haha!
The novel’s ending alone, made me wish I had the Spanish version and read it in Spanish. Hehe. I certainly look forward to it. Oh well. I’ll next probably be getting the Alatriste series or any other novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte as well as by Ruiz Zafón. Saw an Alatriste novel by Pérez-Reverte at the bookseller’s once, went back for it but didn’t see any copy again. I hope that there will be when I go back to check and buy.
So now, my meager book collection consists of the following:
The Pilgrimage by Paolo Coelho
The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho (not exactly my favorite)
The Plague by Albert Camus (my favorite author)
The Stranger (L’Estranger in French) by Albert Camus
Iberia by James A. Michener
Siddharta by Hermann Hesse
Microserf by Douglas Coupland
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (an interesting read on how a cathedral was designed and built amidst church and state/royal politics during the medieval times)
Etc.
I’m currently interested in the following books:
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
A bio or history of : the Medicis, da Vinci, or Michelangelo (after being in Florence, one wants to know more about these people)
Stories set during the Renaissance in Italy
Stories set in Medieval England/France/Spain
In the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Bandolino by Umberto Eco
books by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Night by Eli Wiesel
Etc.
But now it’s back to my certification review. And enough about books. ☺ I wonder when I’ll be able to update this blog again.
