Talk About Books And The Smiles Become A Shout Of Joy

2012  – a lazy year of reading for me, I guess I could count on my fingers the books I have read this year but then I call it the busiest year that I accumulated more books on my shelf than I care to admit. There are still unopened books that I bought more than a year ago with the thought of replacing the ones we have lost a few years back.  A good friend who came home last October gifted me with thirteen books, some of which she brought home with her and the rest via UPS. She says that she  bought more books for me, newly published ones  that are on my wish list.

I love going to bookstores,  I love the scent of the pages of a new book.  National Bookstore, Bestsellers or the ever reliable Booksale, they are my favorite jaunts every time I have enough time to browse. Hopefully by 2013, I could read all of  these, my reading list is getting longer and here are some titles that I would make a priority of.

• Breakfast At Tiffany’s  -Truman Capote …  Just read it a month back and found some videos on YouTube about this much talked about book for decades. Would love to re-read it  sometime  next year and re-acquaint myself with the quirky Holiday Golightly.
• The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde… a thick volume of Wilde’s writings.
• Alone  – Rod McKuen…  I love Rod McKuen, I love his thoughts and Alone is the kind of book that you want to absorb and  gives you that feeling that you can be a poet too, in simple words, that is.
• The Poems and Prayers of Helen Steiner Rice …Who would not be mesmerized  by the words of this poet? Anyway, the poems and prayers of Helen Steiner Rice were a bright beacon to my college years. And I remember some of her beautiful quotes written in scented pens on my notebook. She was considered as  the “unofficial poet laureate of hope and optimism.” I finally have my copy, a new edition.
• Everyday Grace –  Marianne Williamson … This is my first book of Williamson and I am really looking forward to read it this coming year.
• Thoughts in Solitude – Thomas Merton … I’ve long been wanting to have a copy of any Thomas Merton’s books, this is it.
• Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neal Hurston …  Another gift from the same friend who gave me thirteen books this year. It’s included in the 1000 list of books you have to read before you die. Zadie Smith who introduced the book has this to say, “Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of the very greatest American novels of the twentieth century. It is so lyrical it should be sentimental; it is so passionate it should be overwrought; but it is instead a rigorous, convincing and dazzling piece of prose, as emotionally satisfying as it is impressive. There is no novel I love more. Well, what more can I say but just enjoy it.
• A Wild Sheep Chase – Haruki Murakami …Who would not love Murakami?
• Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, Lord John – three  hard-bound books by Diana Gabaldon. I’ve always loved how Diana writes historical novels.
• Irish Linen – Andrew Greeley…  Greeley is a Catholic priest writer. I love his other books, I wonder if this one is worth-reading too.
• Coming Home – Rosamunde Pilcher … She’s one of my favorite authors so I always look for her books every time I visit Booksale.  A year ago, I wrote about her, you can find it here.
• World Without End  – Ken Follett … a sequel to one of my favorite books, The Pillars of the Earth. It’s a birthday gift from my daughter.
• A Change of Altitude, All He Ever Wanted …two books by Anita Shreve, another author that I love.
• More Glimpses of Heaven – Trudy Harris
• Human Traces – Sebastian Faulks …It’ actually my first book of Faulks so I am excited to read it.
• Critical – Robin Cook … I collect Cook’s books, they are all wonderful read about the medical field. Cook is a doctor.
• Exile – Richard North Patterson… had this for years but it is so thick so I keep postponing to get it off the shelf.
• A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving… Really looking forward to reading this one. It has excellent reviews.
• Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems…   Ah, my prized possession this year and it is the first time I ever had a copy of  a Mary Oliver book.

As if these are not enough, Odette (the same friend who gifted me with the thirteen books, three of which are all Richard Paul Evan’s latest) sent me this new year greeting with pictures of another two books that she bought for me, A Thousand Mornings which was just released last October and which inspired  me to make this blog of the same title and the new book of Richard Paul Evans entitled A Winter Dream. Aren’t I lucky?

I promised myself I would read more in 2013.

Read Full Post »

Life Quotes

I remembered Morrie Schwartz in Tuesdays With Morrie while  I was reading Mitch Albom’s book,  Have A Little Faith.  He was Albom’s teacher and mentor. He had his own book which I was lucky to read entitled Letting Go. Some books leave a lifetime impression on us, some books have that ability to entice you to read them over and over again.  I wrote and jotted down so many quotes while reading  Tuesdays  with Morrie.

“Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do”; “Accept the past as past without denying it or discarding it”; “Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others”; “Don’t assume that it’s too late to get involved.”
“Dying, is only one thing to be sad over. Living unhappily is something else. So many of the people who come to visit me are unhappy.”

“Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn’t. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.”“A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.” “A wrestling match. Yes you could describe life that way.” “Which side wins?” “Love wins. Love always wins.”

“Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth. It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die, it’s also the positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.”“You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven’t found meaning. Because if you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can’t wait until sixty-five.”

“Without love, we are birds with broken wings.”

” If you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too–even when you’re in the dark.”

“If you’re always battling against getting older, you’re always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow.”

So many words of wisdom packed in such a small volume, and here’s more from Albom’s other book, Have A Little Faith.

“God sings, we hum along, and there are many melodies, but it’s all one song – one same, wonderful, human song.

“Look.  I know what I believe.  It’s in my soul.  But I constantly tell our people: you should be convinced of the authenticity of what you have, but you must also be humble enough to say that we don’t know everything.  And since we don’t know everything, we must accept that another person may believe something else.”‘

Read Full Post »

My Book Challenge for 2010

I promised myself to read more this year and make a review of some books I have encountered.   Last January, I started making a list of the books I have started  reading  and clearly forgot to update it.  It’s somehow pathetic that I was not able to keep my promise to read at least three or four books a month.  I feel lazy at times  to  hold one, but I still regularly go to bookstores to buy more books. We are slowly replenishing the books we have lost  during the  flood  last year but I still can’t find some good replacements for my collection.  At least now, my daughter and I have become more selective, choosing hard bound copies over mass market read.

1.  The Mermaid Chair –  Sue Monk Kidd  (Midlife crisis and self-awakening)

2.  The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett (historical – 12th century England)

3.  Mr. Write – M.D. Balangue  (local chick lit)

4.  The Breakup Diaries – May Calica (local chick lit)

5.  King of Torts – John Grisham (legal/suspense novel)

6.  The Secret – Rhonda Byrne (the secret to prosperity, health,relationships and happiness)

7.  Candle Creations – arts and crafts

8.  Between Blinks – Jim Paredes ( insights, poetry, stories)

9.  Love Rosie – Cecelia Ahern

10.  The  Thorn Bird – Colleen McCullough  (my third copy, I think, the first two were borrowed and were not returned).

11. Love  the One You’re With – Emily Giffin ( have you ever thought of the one that got away?)

12. Gone Baby Gone – Dennis Lehane (thriller)

13. Sundays at Tiffany’s – James  Patterson

14. Sam’s Letters to Jennifer – James Patterson

15. The Valley of Light – Terry Kay

16. Girl With A  Pearl Earring – Tracy Chevalier

17. Loving Through Heartsongs – Mattie J.T. Stepanek (book of inspirational poems, made a review of this earlier).

18. How Do You Know If Your Pearls Are Real? – Barbara C. Gonzalez (family relationships)

19. Grace – Richard Paul Evans

20. The Interruption of Everything – Terry McMillan

21. Under The Tuscan Sun – Frances Mayes

22. Resistance – Anita Shreve

23.  Cause Celeb – Helen Fielding (read some chapters by candlelight because I could not put it down)

24.  Sail – James Patterson

I will update this from time to time and here’s a list of the unread ones:

1.  Critical – Robin Cook

2.  Coming Home – Rosamund Pilcher

3.  Cell – Stephen King

4.  A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving

5.  Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert

6.  Julie and Julia – Julie Powell (watched the movie but half way through reading it, I got bored)

7.   Atonement – Ian McEwan

8.  Favorite Poems of Emily Dickinson – ( I read the poems at random)

9. If Life Were a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits- Erma Bombeck

10. From Beginning to End – Robert Fulghum

11. It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It – Robert Fulghum

12. Coraline – Neil Gaiman

13. Three Cups of Tea – Greg Mortenson  (can’t wait to read this one)

14. Ilustrado – Miguel Syjuco (and this one too)

15. The Glass Castle – Jeannette Wells ( a memoir of resilience and redemption)

16. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte ( a reread)

17. The Prophet – Kahil Gibran (lost my first copy to flood Ondoy)

18. Irish Linen – Andrew Greeley

19. Judge and Jury – James Patterson

20. Breathing Lessons – Anne Tyler

I’ve meant to update my virtual library at Shelfari.com but just thinking of removing the titles which are now gone sort of depresses me.

Read Full Post »