On Coffeespoons' 3rd Anniversary

It's Coffeespoons' 3rd birthday! Three years ago, on this date, I made the first post of this blog live. I always have a certain fondness for that post whenever I read it. It's not one of those things I write that I cringe at (I have a lot of those), mostly because it was honest and I like the sense of history. I started this blog because I was bored and because I love reading.

Now, I am no longer bored. Haven't been for a long time. And I still love reading.

In my last 2 blogiversaries, it was my custom to outline my advocacies for the year, whether I realized it or not. If you care to check back on my first and second year anniversary posts, you'll see that it was always about reading and the Filipino reader. That hasn't changed yet. So, this year, I hope I can do more to help push reading and readers in this group of islands where I'm from.

This blog, which was meant only to allow me to share my love for reading, has been good to me. I know I often haven't shown it the love that it deserves, but I want to say that, since I started this blog, many things have happened in my life that led me to where I really wanted to go.

Because of this blog, I've met people from the book blogging community, both local and international. I worked up the courage to shift careers so that I could do what I enjoyed and prioritize what I wanted to prioritize. Eventually, this blog allowed me to express what I thought about the way readers are perceived (or not perceived) in my country. I was able to meet the other Filipino book bloggers and count many of them as friends. This blog helped me realize that a readers' conference is an idea that other people could get behind, too, hence the first Filipino ReaderCon. And I do believe this blog has been instrumental in helping me get the job I currently have.

But most of all, this blog allowed me to just geek out as a reader, to be unabashed about my love for or my dislike of certain books. And periodically, it provided me sanity. Come to think of it, I started it to preserve my sanity.

And so, dear blog, thank you for everything you have done for me. I don't know where life and you will lead me as I go into the 4th year of book blogging, but wherever it is, please know that I will forever be grateful for what you've already brought me.

The Ulysses Read-along

Ulysses wordle (img src)

Early this year, during a conversation on Twitter, Jaclyn of a book diary and I decided that we'd have a read-along. I'd never done one before and I thought it might be fun. Besides, I figure that, sometime during the year, I'd need this push in my reading. And so, Jaclyn suggested Ulysses. Perfect, really, since I only went as far as the second page long in my previous readings of the work.

We decided we'd check in on each other every 16th of the month, since Bloomsday, the day in celebration of Joyce and Ulysses, happens on June 16. I do not take credit for this idea. To be honest, I stole it from dovegreyreader who ran a Ulysses read-along almost 3 years ago.

So, this is the first check-in.

Frankly, I'm 6 pages into the text.

However, I did read the introduction and the publication history. Around 3 or 4 years ago, I took a course called History of the Book. One of the most fascinating examples of a book with an intricate publication history was Ulysses. Sadly, I've since lost the reference materials I had showing how involved Joyce was in publishing Ulysses, how he dipped his hand even into the composition and the layouting of the text. Even more sadly, I can't recall which version we talked about. And so, I hedged my bets with the original 1922 version and got myself the OWC edition. And because I am now incapable of going through a book's text without reading all, and I mean all, of the front matters--yes, including the copyright page--I went through the first two sections before I dove into the text.

I will not attempt to go into a discourse about the intro and the composition and publication history. In the first place, I don't think I'm capable. In the second, I have 20 mins. before this day ends and I would really like to post this while it's Jan. 16 in my part of the world. Suffice it to say, however, that my eyes did not glaze over as I read Jeri Johnson's introduction. I often like entering into a book cold, but I don't think anyone who was born in the 20th century onward can enter into Ulysses cold. And so I appreciated the context that Johnson provides, from the initial to the latter readers of Ulysses. Not having read the text completely yet, I like can't say if I'd agree with Ms. Johnson, but I can agree with her when she says,

While every new reader faced with this book addresses it new, this newness is modified by the generations of readers who have come before and whose disseminations of it have seeped into virtually every aspect of high and popular culture.

Like I said, who hasn't heard of Ulysses?

And so, though I shunned this novel before, by virtue of rumors about it being too dense and incomprehensible, I think what consistently brings me back to it is the idea of history--both it's publication history and the history of all the readers who have ever tried to make sense out of it. It is exactly a book like this that keeps reading alive--because people can't agree about it, because it is hard to fully understand, because no matter how long it's been around, people still discover/rediscover things about it and it still has something new to say. I don't know if I will end up liking it, but if only for its history, it earns my great respect.

That said, 6 pages into the text itself, and I wonder why I dropped it at page 2 years ago. Sure, I have no idea yet what exactly Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus are talking about, but I have to say I'm enjoying reading the prose. Reminds me a great deal of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. And therein lies the reason. Except that this is prose, not poetry. I wonder how that will turn out eventually.

Thus goes my first month check-in for our Ulysses read-along. Jaclyn, I hope you're doing much better than I am.:)

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

Summary

"Madeleine Hanna breaks out of her straight-and-narrow mold when she falls in love with charismatic loner Leonard Bankhead, while an old friend resurfaces, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is his destiny." - from NPR.org

The good stuff

• It started with the books. And it went on and on with books. The Marriage Plot is replete with references to books. We catch the three main characters, Madeleine, Leonard, and Mitchell, in college and the first year out of it, and much mention is made of their reading material. In fact, two of the characters fall in love precisely because of books, and the other one in the triangle uses his readings and scholarship as a crutch for his unrequited love. However, it is Madeleine's reading list that speaks the most to me, since she loves the narrative and considers herself a "Victorianist," a specialization I would also love to have. (Just to show how much I enjoyed the books, see the list compiled below.)
• I only planned to browse through the book's first few pages. But Eugenides writes so smoothly that I found I'd already gone through 25% of the book before I looked up.
• I liked that Eugenides gave characters values that seem very archaic today, such as taking the marriage plot (in literature and in life) head-on and searching for faith even in organized religion.
• I enjoyed Mitchell's honesty and Leonard's fight to cope with his condition.

The not-so-good

• Even though I loved her reading list, I did not care for Madeleine at all. She was blind, oftentimes on purpose, to the course her life was taking or the consequences of her choices. She also got progressively whinier through the book. I did not like that she became childish whenever she was with her family, nor that it was the men in her life who made choices that would benefit her, such that she, not them, ends up with a promising life, through little effort of her own.
• This may be because I'm nearly 15 years out of college, but at certain points, I did not see what their fuss was all about. All the pretension from knowledge gained in college, the search for love, the quest for one's self--not that I've got the last of these down pat myself--but really, I was close to losing patience with them. And that's how I realized that I must really be getting old. These are not the issues I would worry about knowing what I know and being where I am now.

Quotes from the book that I highlighted and why

She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she loved to read.

...because the line is counterintuitive.

Madeleine was perfectly happy with the idea of genius. She wanted a book to take her places she couldn't get herself. She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it. When it came to letters and literature, Madeleine championed a virtue that had fallen out of esteem: namely, clarity.

...because we share this belief.

Religious feeling didn't arise from going to church or reading the Bible but from the most private interior experiences, either of great joy or of staggering pain.

...because it makes sense to me.

There were some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things.

...because it reads like a line that'll be in a "best quotes about books" website and will be quoted ad infinitum by book lovers.

It took courage to let things fall apart so beautifully.

...because the line is beautiful and true.


The ending

I still haven't decided whether I like it more than I didn't like it. I liked it because it was witty and right, given everything that happened. I didn't like it because it felt like the whole book was written just to get to that ending...

Over-all

(Errata: The initial version of this paragraph assumed that this book won the Pulitzer. I thought I was that behind on Pulitzer news that I didn't even know the award was given. Apparently, I was misled by the cover. So, it hasn't won the Pulitzer yet and I don't think it will. Thanks for pointing it out, Aldrin!)
In spite of the indulgence in semiotic theory, feminism in Victorian lit, and a deconstruction of the marriage plot itself, all set in the recession of 80's America (or maybe because of it) I wasn't all sold to the book. Though I flipped through the novel quickly and enjoyed reading it to some extent, I still think Middlesex was a stronger and more relevant novel. The female character in The Marriage Plot didn't speak to me and that disappoints me because I like well-drawn female characters, if not strong ones. In the end, I felt that, no matter how much I enjoyed reading the book, it didn't mean much of anything in the face of real life. Which, I think, is highly reflective of most literary theories.

And yet, the books...

The Marriage Plot started with the books, so I'll also end with the books. It may either be geekiness or even pretension on my part, but I did write down the books mentioned in it, along with who was reading them. Not that I intend to read all of them, but I am grateful that it reminded me of other books I still plan to read.

So, whose reading list do you prefer?

Mitchell

• Imitation of Christ by Thomas Kempis
• Confessions by St. Augustine
• Interior Castle by St. Theresa of Avila
• A Confession by Leo Tolstoy
• Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
• The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware
• A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
• Ulysses by James Joyce
• The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James
• The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber
• Auguste Comte and Positivism by John Stuart Mill
• The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich
• Being and Time by Martin Heidegger
• The Drama of Atheist Humanism by Henri de Lubac
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• The Cloud of Unknowing
• The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross
• V by Thomas Pynchon
• A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Madeleine

• Modern Library Set of Henry James
• Love Story by Erich Segal
• Myra Breckinridge by Gore Vidal
• H.M. Pulham, Esquire by John Marquand
• Emma by Jane Austen
• Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
• Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
• Persuasion by Jane Austen
• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
• Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
• Of Grammatology by Jacques Derrida (also read by Leonard)
• The Role of the Reader by Umberto Eco (also read by Leonard)
• Writing and Difference by Jacques Derrida (also read by Leonard)
• On Deconstruction by Jonathan Culler (also read by Leonard)
• The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
• Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
• A Lover's Discourse by Roland Barthes (also read by Leonard)
• Paradise Lost by John Milton
• The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar
• The Oxford Book of English Verse

Leonard

• Writings in General Linguistics by Jacques Derrida
• The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Ontogeny and Phylogeny by Stephen Jay Gould

Other books mentioned

• Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
• Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac
• The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
• New French Feminisms: An Anthology

By the way, this list is by no means exhaustive. And if you find mistakes or things I missed out, feel free to point them out.

A Perk and An Assessment

My new Kindle Touch. Forgive the sucky picture. It was night,
I was using my iPad camera, and I really take sucky pictures.

I work in digital publishing. So, though I have my own trusty Kindle 3, now being rebranded as the Kindle Keyboard, I was issued today with this new office equipment. Yep, the Kindle Touch. Of course, I did a little happy dance inside.:)

I've been giving the Touch a test run, and here's what I found so far...

The Good:

• It's smaller and lighter.
• I can secure it with a numerical code.
• There seem to be more setting options.
• It's easier to transfer books into folders or collections.
• It's touch screen!

The Not-so-good:

• The screen is deep, so there's a slight shadow on whichever side the light comes from, and it's a bit distracting. (In the picture, check out the shadow on the right edge of the screen. Sorry, I'm a nitpicker.)
• The keys on the screen are small. Even if the keys on the Kindle 3 are small, too, at least it's tactile so I make less mistakes in pushing the keys.
• If you have big fingers, the left margin area to move the page back might be too small for you.
• If your library spans more than one page, you'll have to type in the page number to go to the other pages.

Ok, ok, a lot of the not-so-good things really are nitpicky. I can't really say much yet about the battery life since I just charged it. And truth to tell, I haven't explored everything it can do. But for the record, to everyone who asks why I've always said I prefer this over a Kindle Fire or a Nook Tablet, I reply with one answer: e-ink.

I honestly find it hard the stuff I like to read on backlit screens, such as iPads or any of the other tablets. I do, however, love e-ink because there's no glare and it reads like paper. I'm an old curmudgeon that way. The only things I am willing read on a backlit screen tablet are graphic novels and picture books.

So thank you, makers of e-ink, for being kind to my eyes. And thank you, workplace, for the new plaything.

And now, back to regular programming, which means trying to finish The Sisters Brothers.

Keeping It Real (or, My Reading Goals for 2012)

I plan to chill, just like her. (img src)

This year in reading, I'll...

• relinquish my little semblance of control and be entirely honest with myself. Ergo, I opt not to formally join any reading challenge this year.
• let my reading develop organically, while trying to read more of the following:
• African women writers
• Filipino literature (for fun, not just for work. Though work is fun.)
• Graphic novels
• try to limit my book buying to P1000 (around $23) per month.
• try blog more regularly? (I don't think I can commit to anything beyond that question mark, especially with my current schedule. I know people say it's all a matter of scheduling, but I seem to have a medical condition that prevents me from keeping to any concrete schedule. In an ideal world, I woud like to blog at least 3x a week. But I can only promise to try.)
• participate in or organize more read-alongs, either with fellow book club members or fellow bloggers. 
• definitely have a Ulysses read-along with Jaclyn of a book diary. It will last a year and we'll be checking in with each other every 16th of the month. 

So, I declare it a stress-free reading year for me, because Lord knows there's going to be stress elsewhere. And I'll try to make it a better blogging year than last year. I'm already excited to see where this year's reading will take me.

For the record, I don't think the world will end this 2012. I doubt that God/fate/the universe is that predictable.

Best Books I Read in 2011

Of the 69 books I read last year, these were the most memorable. They're ordered according to when I read them.

1. The El Bimbo Variations by Adam David - Adam's a valued co-worker, but before he was a co-worker, I'd already read and loved this poetry collection of his. A year after reading it, I still count it as one of the most memorable books I read last 2011. Its humor, wit, and intelligence haven't faded with time for me.
2. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill - At a time I was looking for satisfying ghost stories after reading a few disappointments, I came across this one. Sadly, I haven't gotten around to watching the movie version with little Danny Radcliffe, but if you're looking for a slow-burn scary read, I highly recommend this.
3. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - This book has been in my TBR for a while, and I picked it up because, well, I don't really know. I think I was looking for a lyrical Oprah book. This one gladly fit the bill. It was beautiful and peopled with strong and highly intelligent female characters. And maybe the fact that I'm a mother also had something to do with my connection to the book. Oh, God. I'm exactly Oprah's audience.
4. The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls - To paraphrase Anna Karenina, every dysfunctional family is dysfunctional in its own way. Walls' memoir of her life with her dysfunctional family could have become maudlin, but she wrote it with such sensitivity and acceptance. Takes a big woman to do that--make us love her highly irresponsible and fucked up parents in spite of all their dysfunction.
5. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness and Siobhan Dowd - You should know that I'm a big fan of Patrick Ness, if you don't already. I have waxed poetic about all of his work. So, yes, I was predisposed to like this. But I have been predisposed to like many things, though didn't. I'm glad Ness still has the same magic for me. It's a simple story, began by Siobhan Dowd. Even the revelation is simple. But, of all the books I read this year or in recent memory, this is the only one that has finally made me cry.
6. The Long Tail by Chris Anderson - Many of my former co-workers had mentioned this book, so I finally decided I should read it. Of course I found it revealing and very logical. And now, very, very relevant to what I do. I haven't gotten to the point that I preach about it, but I do mention it a lot during presentations.
7. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - I read Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad this year, too. Though I liked it, reading Cloud Atlas soon after Goon Squad really made the first book pale in comparison. I like Math. I like order. Naturally, if there are multiple voices and toying around with form, I appreciate a clear structure, which is what I found in Cloud Atlas. Not to mention that the voices were more distinct and compelling for me. If you like literary fugues, read this. I think it counts as my best read this year.
8. A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin - And if I were to judge best reads based on how much I wanted to scream at the book, this would be it. The scream would have been in surprise, anger, and frustration, which are not necessarily bad things when one is reacting to a book. The way I see it, if you do that with a book, it means it has involved you. As long as you don't scream at the author. Anyway, if you've read the book, then you might know the context of the scream. In any case, George R.R. Martin has gotten me hooked.
9. Surgeons Do Not Cry by Ting Tiongco - I read this because it was part of my job, but I ended up loving the book. Ting Tiongco's memoirs of going through med school in the University of the Philippines were funny, touching, and tinged with a bit of rebellion. I feel bad that this book wasn't given as much recognition as it should have. It's not merely meant for people in the medical industry, although I've heard people giving it to med students as a gift. Nevertheless, I honestly think it should get the mainstream recognition it deserves. Help it out?:)
10. The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman - I'd been following the Walking Dead series up until the first few episodes of Season 2 when a friend offered me copies of the comics. So, of course I snapped up the offer. Started reading issue 1 on a Friday. Finished issue 71 or 72 on Sunday. Yes, it's gripping, unputdownable, and all those other cliched words that people use when writing reviews. After reading it, I thought I should have a new goal when it comes to my children's education, and that is to educate them so that I'm sure they'll survive a zombie apocalypse. That'll mess them up for sure, but at least they'll survive.

I've been looking again at the list of books I read last year, and I realized that I seem to have expanded my reading to include more Filipino titles (partly because of my job, partly because I just wanted to) and more comics or graphic novels (thanks to the generosity and thoughtfulness of both Carl Javier and Adam David. And, again, partly because of my job.). And I have decided that this expansion in reading taste trumps failure of meeting my avowed reading goals. Hurray for new frontiers in reading! 

And for Oprah.:P

The Year That Was

This was my reading life in 2011...

On reading goals and challenges:

I'd like to think I started out well. I aimed to go through at least half of my 2010 TBR.  I joined the TBR Dare, which lasted for me until the end of February. I also aimed not to buy more than 12 books in the whole year, unless I had already finished my TBR goal. Sadly, by March, that 12-book buying goal was compromised by one thing--the Kindle. My sister had given me one as a gift, and there went my goal. To be fair, I held out until the middle of the year. To date, though, I do not know how many additional TBR books I've acquired. I can count how many print books I've added, but cannot and do not want to count how many ebooks I have on my TBR.

As for my other goals, well, I barely remember them and I suppose I lost interest in them along the way. Figured that, as long as I'm reading and trying to vary it, I'm ok. In any case, here's my total reading progress for the year.


On book/reading events:

I and other Filipino book bloggers organized the first Filipino ReaderCon, out of a desire to give Filipino readers more of a voice and a presence. It was a small albeit successful (judging from available feedback) event, and we're planning to hold the second one, of course, this 2012.

I also got to attend the 2nd Manila International Literary Festival, graced by two Pulitzer Prize winners: Junot Diaz and Edward P. Jones. Fell in love with Mr. Diaz when he said that readers were his peeps. I, along with blogger Tarie Sabido, was also invited to be one of the panelists in the talk entitled "Getting the Young to Read," where I mostly talked about my experiences as a high school teacher in getting kids more interested in reading. Been telling myself to write a post about that whole talk, and I hope I finally will before this month ends.


On other life-changing things:

Well, not so much life-changing as career-changing. Last August, I wrote a post explaining a change in job, which thereby makes me not just a book blogger, but also part of the publishing industry. So far, am loving my job, but it sadly leaves me little time for book blogging. I'm hoping all that can be explained away by the customary job adjustment period (though that is kind of a long adjustment period). The beginning of a new year is always an optimistic period for me, blogging-wise, so I will keep my hopes.

Working at Flipside has given me the unique opportunity to help other authors publish their own work and help local publishers become more comfortable with the digital era. It's pretty exciting work that I'm glad to be doing. I don't know where it will take me or how things will pan out in the future, but for now, I'm just going to work my ass off and enjoy myself while I'm at it.


So I say goodbye to a year that, for all intents and purposes, has been good to me. Here's to hoping that the coming year will be as good or even better. Soon up--my best reads in 2011.