February 25, 2013 at 3:34 pm (anthologies, Books, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers, Zack)
Tags: Asian American Writers, book lists, essays, Filipino writers, Mondays, novel, poetry, science fiction, short story, speculative fiction, travel
Self still lost in the thickets of son’s room. But the end is in sight!
The number of books on the 2nd shelf above son’s desk: 47
1079 + 47 = 1126 Total Books Counted Thus Far
Some of the titles: The Father, a poetry collection by Sharon Olds; 50 Stories From Israel: An Anthology, edited by Zisi Stavi; The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene; 100 Cases That Every Scots Law Student Needs to Know, edited by W. Green; Drive-By Vigils, by R. Zamora Linmark; Pinoy Capital: The Filipino Nation in Daly City, by Benito M. Vergara, Jr.; The Best American Travel Writing 2011, edited by Sloane Crosley (“Treason only matters when it is committed by trusted men.”); Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively, by Rebecca McClanahan; Winterbirth: The Godless World, Book One, by Brian Ruckley (This one self picked up in a bookstore in Edinburgh); If I Write You This Poem, Will You Make It Fly: Poems, by Simeon Dumdum, Jr.
Here’s a short passage from Winterbirth:
The great column was led by a hundred or more mounted warriors. Many bore wounds, still fresh from the lost battle on the fields by Kan Avor; all bore, in their red-rimmed eyes and wan skin, the marks of exhaustion. Behind them came the multitude: women, children and men, though fewest of the last. Thousands of widows had been made that year.
It was a punishing exodus. Their way was paved with hard rock and sharp stones that cut feet and turned ankles. There could be no pause. Any who fell ill were seized by those who came behind, hauled upright with shouts of encouragement, as if noise alone could put strength back into their legs. If they could not rise, they were left. There were already dozens of buzzards and ravens drifting lazily above the column. Some had followed it all the way up the Glas valley from the south; others were residents of the mountains, drawn from their lofty perches by the promise of carrion.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 15, 2013 at 8:12 am (anthologies, Books, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: book lists, Filipino writers, reviews, science fiction, speculative fiction
As far as the book tallying project, self seems to be lost in the thickets of son’s room. She’s on the shelves above his desk:
1028 + 51 = 1079 Total Books Counted Thus Far
Some of the titles: Handwriting Analysis: The Complete Basic Book, by Karen Amend & Mary S. Ruiz; Against the Shore: The Best of the Pacific Rim Review of Books, edited by Trevor Carolan and Richard Olafson; The Cradle, by Patrick Somerville; Deepening Fiction: A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers, by Sarah Stone and Ron Nyren; Handbook of Prayers: A Complete Treasury of Prayers and Order of Mass, by Charles Belmonte and James Socias; The Lover, by Marguerite Duras; Empire, by Orson Scott Card (“Treason only matters when it is committed by trusted men.”); The Philippines Handbook, by Peter Harper & Laurie Fullerton; Philippine Speculative Fiction III, edited by Dean Francis Alfar & Nikki Alfar; Self Potraits 2: Fourteen Filipina Artists Speak, edited by Thelma B. Kintanar and Sylvia Menendez Ventura; The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 5, 2013 at 6:48 am (anthologies, Books, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Surprises)
Tags: book lists, history, Mondays, science fiction, World War II
Top Shelf Above Son’s Desk: 30 books
998 + 30 = 1028 Total Books Counted Thus Far
Books include: Stone of Tears, by Terry Goodkind; a number of paperbacks by R. A. Salvatore, which self remembers purchasing for son; The Legend of Drizzt, Collector’s Edition, which self knows she did not purchase for son (So when/how did he procure it? It appears to be quite an expensive tome); Into the Rising Sun, by Patrick K. O’Donnell; Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson; The NuyorAsian Anthology: Asian American Writings About New York City, edited by Bino A. Realuyo; Edible: An Illustrated Guide to the World’s Food Plants, by the Editors of National Geographic; Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively, by Rebecca McClanahan; and Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 2, 2013 at 6:44 am (Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Philippine History, Surprises)
Tags: book lists, discoveries, Fridays, Gardens, memories, science fiction
Now, to resume the Humongous Book Counting Project:
898 + 63 = 961 Total Books Counted Thus Far
On this shelf in the bookcase in son’s room, a few selected titles: A Pocket for Corduroy, by Don Freeman; Dune, by Frank Herbert (Hardcover); Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown; Bandila: The Story of the Philippine Flag, by Merci Melchor; Dandelion, by Don Freeman; Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, by Rudyard Kipling (A GREAT children’s book: self read it to son at least a dozen times. She is reminded that lately, when she turns over rocks in her garden, she finds, coiled underneath, brown scaly snakes, looking up at her with still, unblinking eyes. The other day, she decided to give one such nest a poke, and then they uncoiled and thrashed, and – really, self didn’t know whether to run away and scream or what); Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears, by Verna Aardema (“One morning a mosquito saw an iguana drinking at a waterhole. The mosquito said, ‘Iguana, you will never believe what I saw yesterday.’ ‘Try me,’ said the iguana. The mosquito said, ‘I saw a farmer digging yams that were almost as big as I am.’ ” For dear blog readers’ information, son ended up being really really good at chemistry and math, and as far as she knows has never looked at these children’s books after the age of 10 or so); and Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.
Stay tuned.
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January 23, 2013 at 1:21 am (anthologies, Books, Family, Filipino Writers, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended)
Tags: 9/11, book lists, Filipino writers, lists, New York, nonfiction, short story collections, speculative fiction
When will self ever finish this book tabulation project, she wonders?
She is still counting books in the tall bookcase in son’s room.
There are 20 books on the third shelf.
877 + 21 = 898 Total Books Counted Thus Far
Of course, on this shelf, as on the previous ones, there are, in addition to books: an MGM Grand room key; rocks, both shiny and not; corn husk people (obviously, some grade school art project), and many, many video games like Command and Conquer.
So, here are some of the books on this shelf: The Night Angel Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3), by Brent Weeks; Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, by Mark Bowden (Incidentally, his piece on the killing of OBL, in the December Vanity Fair, was more gripping than the Kathryn Bigelow movie, in self’s humble opinion); Before & After: Stories From New York, edited by Thomas Beller (This is a very interesting book: it has two covers, one showing the New York skyline with the WTC towers, and the other showing the day of, with the towers already surrounded by great billowing clouds of smoke. The “Before” contains a piece by Manny Howard called “The Jumper” that begins: “I recently spent an afternoon watching a guy entertaining three of New York’s finest on the eastern parapet of the Brooklyn Bridge.”); Ship Breaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi; The Men Who Play God, a short story collection by the late, great Arturo B. Rotor; and Scunnered: Slices of Scottish Life in Seventeen Gallus Syllables, by Des Dillon (Sample: “Attitude: Treating every time/ like it’s the very last time/ feels like the first time.”)
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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January 22, 2013 at 4:17 am (Books, Personal Bookshelf, Surprises, Women Writers)
Tags: book lists, Filipino writers, lists, Mondays, novel
The second shelf of the tall bookcase in son’s room is so crammed with, among other things: lacquered Japanese rice bowls, Philippine shells, Lego aircraft, slinkies, old Playstation games, and so forth that there is room for only 13 books on this shelf.
844 + 13 = 857 Total Books Counted Thus Far
Among the books here: The Solemn Lantern Maker, by Merlinda Bobis; The Two Towers, by His Eminence Tolkien; The Rush of the River, by Lilia Hernandez Chung; Tai-Pan, by James Clavell (This is a discovery: that son liked James Clavell); and Banana Heart Summer, by Merlinda Bobis.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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January 21, 2013 at 8:07 am (anthologies, Books, Personal Bookshelf, Plays, Recommended, Women Writers, Zack)
Tags: Asian American Writers, book lists, historical fiction, novel, poetry
Still with the book tabulation project. Still counting books, still in son’s room (which she’s filling with her own books, spreading like an amoeba)
The top shelf of a bookcase in son’s room has 45 books.
799 + 45 = 844 Total Books Counted So Far
Books on this self include: Living to Tell the Tale, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing, edited by Shirley Geok-lin Lim and Cheng Lok Chua; The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, by John Boyne; The Evolution of a Sigh, by R. Zamora Linmark; Filipino Woman Writing: Home and Exile in the Autobiographical Narratives of Ten Writers, edited by Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo (Chapter 1: Writing and Re-writing the Self, begins: “In this country, autobiographical writing is not quite recognized as a literary genre.”); When the Elephants Dance, by Tess Uriza Holthe; Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry From the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond, edited by Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal and Ravi Shankar (Browsing through, self really likes a piece by John Yau, In the Fourth Year of the Plague, that begins “Oil began dripping from the black and violet clouds bunched together near the top of the back stairs.” And, as well, a beautiful poem on Baguio: “Hill Station,” by Luisa A. Igloria); The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston; Black Robe, by Brian Moore; Homebody/ Kabul, a play by Tony Kushner.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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January 20, 2013 at 6:33 am (Books, Lists, Personal Bookshelf)
Tags: book lists, Filipino writers, historical novel, novel, Saturdays
And now we are at the first bookcase in son’s room.
On the very top of this bookshelf, along with a number of different trophies (basketball, karate, soccer), and bottles containing jellybeans, and desiccated starfish from at least eight different Philippine beaches, are 9 books.
790 + 9 = 799 Total Books Counted Thus Far
A sampling of the 9: Learn Japanese: New College Text vol. II, by John Young and Kimiko Nakajima-Okano; Kangkong 1896, by Ceres S. C. Alabado; and The Return of the King by, of course, His Eminence Tolkien.
Stay tuned.
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January 19, 2013 at 3:02 pm (anthologies, Books, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: book lists, Calyx Press, novel, poetry, Saturdays
Eight books are on a shelf of drawers.
782 + 8 = 790 Total Books Counted So Far
A few titles: Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, by Mark Juergensmeyer; The Da Vinci Code: A Quest for Answers, by Josh McDowell; A Fierce Brightness: Twenty-Five Years of Women’s Poetry, edited by Margarita Donnelly, Beverly McFarland, and Micki Reaman; The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown (hardback).
What kind of name is Dan Brown? Why did someone with a name like that get rich off a book?
Stay tuned.
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January 15, 2013 at 4:52 am (Books, Family, Lists, Personal Bookshelf)
Tags: book lists, history, Mondays, World War II
There’s a wooden thing-a-ma-jig in son’s room that used to belong to a library: a stack of five cantilevered wooden shelves, each just wide enough to accommodate a very thick periodical. This contraption contains 16 books (and a score of magazines, which do not count)
748 + 18 = 766 Total Books Counted So Far
Sample titles: The Travels of Babar, by Jean de Brunhoff; The Story of Babar, by Jean de Brunhoff; Japanese Warrior Monks AD 949 – 1603, by Stephen Turnbull; Jutland 1916: Clash of the Dreadnoughts, by Charles London; Chancellorsville 1863: Jackson’s Lightning Strike, by Carl Smith; Bagration 1944: The Destruction of Army Group Centre, by Steven Zaloga; Japanese Castles: 1540 – 1640, by Stephen Turnbull; Midway 1942: Turning-Point in the Pacific, by Mark Healy; and The Naval War in the West: The Raiders, by Trevor Nevitt Dupuy, Col. U. S. Army, Ret.
All of the aforementioned, with the exception of the Babar books, were of course purchased for son by The Man. Do not ask self why The Man was so fascinated by military history. Normally a very thrifty sort, he thought nothing of buying son book after book on military history. Self would read to son from Babar, and then The Man would lure son into discussing some military battle with him. No wonder son ended up in Psychology!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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