Manifesto 14

Be Fair.
Even if Life is not.

2012 in a nutshell

The Mayan prediction may or may not be wrong, but one thing remains:

I'm still reading books at the end of the World!
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It's that time of the year again when I need to do another roundup of my book reads this year:

January 2012 
The Sketching Backpacker (non fiction)
KOKOLOGY: The Game of Self Discovery (non fiction)

February 2012 
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys

April 2012
Legend
Super Panalo Sounds!

May 2012
Skyworld Vol. 1
Skyworld Vol. 2
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Magic Circle

June 2012
Looking Back 1 (non fiction)
When the Elephants Dance

July 2012
Bringing Down the House

August 2012
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Slaughterhouse Five

September 2012
Pugad Baboy 24

October 2012
Trainspotting
November 2012
Preacher issue # 1

December 2012
The Hobbit

BEST FICTION: 
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut

BEST NON FICTION: 
Looking Back 1 - Ambeth Ocampo

BEST PINOY READ: 
Super Panalo Sounds! - Lourd De Veyra

BEST SHORT FICTION: 
The Magic Circle - Gilda Cordero-Fernando

MOST UNDERRATED: 
Skyworld Vol. 1-2 - Mervin Ignacio & Ian Sta Maria

BEST GRAPHIC FICTION: 
Skyworld Vol. 1-2 - Mervin Ignacio & Ian Sta Maria

BEST ACQUISITIONS(TBR): 
Cloud Atlas, Gates of Fire, Kokology, The Tales of Genji, The Hundred Year Old Man...

BOOK HERO of THE YEAR: 
Druss the Legend (Legend - David Gemmell)

BOOK HEROINE of THE YEAR: 
Margie (The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys - Chris Fuhrman)

AUTHOR of the YEAR: 
Kurt Vonnegut Jr

QUICKIE/FLASH READ: 
none

WORST READ: 
none

BEST BOOK COVER: 
Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh

QUOTE of the YEAR: 
"The ancient tribal musicians knew how percussions and chants evoked the sense of ritual. This is the spirit of the jam: from simple E chord, you slink into fifths and minor sevenths then float into strange combinations that you once thought never made any sense... When this goes on for a significant length of time, telepathy begins---the shared sensitivity to every little shift in temper and groove, without eye contact or hand gestures. To jam is to search, a groping for a shape. 
And before you know it, a song is born. A sound heard like nothing else in the world."

----Super Panalo Sounds! page 31-32  

Goodbye Earth!

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What Type of Reader Are You? Part 2

After sharing Samuel Coleridge's categories of a reader earlier (the post below) and after seeing the strain-bag type, I asked myself "How about the Douche Bag types out there?" as there are evidently some types of "readers" that easily annoy us in varying degrees. We encounter them in our house, school, workplace, in MRT/LRT, bus, jeepney, the cyberspace, etc. They represent the Other Types of Readers that we dread to face sometime in our lives but they will always surround us in abundance since this world is already populated with 7 billion people. For reasons of amusement and reminder to stay in the right side of the Reading Force, let's take a look at them one by one...

1. The Clone - A reader who agrees with everything he reads. He also copies  the style of his favorite author, including the gesture and the bad hair. He believes he is the perfect DNA replicant of his favorite author including his idol's IQ.

2. The Proofreader -  If you ask him about his current read, his answer is most likely "The comma is misplaced somewhere in chapter 4, page 238, line 27." The kind of reader who checks every misspelled word and wrong placement of colon, dash, semicolon, comma, apostrophe, italics, caps, and so on, and so forth...

3. The Incomplete - His reading is always partial. After reading the first ten pages of a book he swaps it and read the first chaper of a new one, and then turn to book no.3 only to read up until midway and then turns to book no.4 and the cycle goes on and on, and on...

4. The Lawyer - Also known as the Attorney, he retraces historical and logical fallacies, propaganda, and politically incorrect terms. The kind of reader that does not agree with everything he reads and the hardest one to please, he is a tough nut to crack and a diligent cross-examiner. Fundamentalist by ideology, his opinion is always right and absolute. This makes him the opposite of the Clone and a severe case of the Proofreader.

5. The Douche Bag - A completely useless reader.

6. The Cheater - He declares reading the book complete from cover to cover but in reality, he only reads book reviews, wikipedia articles, blog posts, and overheard comments in public places. He can also be called the Googler.

7. The Poser - You can easily spot him in public places cradling a thick, popular book of the moment, especially when the film adaptation is currently featured, or about to be shown in cinemas. His gesture is "Look world, I'm a nerd! I'm reading the most popular book on the planet and I'm cool!" as he sways and swaggers in public display of his ultra-thick book. What makes him a poser is that he actually does not read books, he just like displaying them in public.



DOUCHE BAGS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!!!

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the poser

Reading List of 30

01 - Your Favorite Book

FOUCAULTS PENDULUM by Umberto Eco

02 - Least Favorite Book

CONAN THE BARBARIAN by L Sprague de Camp and L Carter

03 - A Book that completely surprised you (bad/good)

THE POWER AND THE GLORY by Graham Greene

04 - A Book that reminds you of home

BARRIOTIC PUNK by Mes De Guzman

05 - A Non-fiction book that you actually enjoyed

TIME FLIES by Bill Cosby

06 - A Book that makes you cry

NIGHT by Elie Wiesel (this is a holocaust memoir)

07 - A Book that’s hard to read

---(it aint a book if its hard to read...)

08 - An unpopular book you believe should be a Best-Seller

THE SUMMER OF KATYA by Trevanian

09 - A Book you’ve read more than once

THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN by Mitch Albom

10 - The first novel you remember reading

LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding

11 - The Book that made you fall in love with reading

THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER by Tom Clancy

12 - A book so emotionally draining you couldn’t complete it or had to set aside for a bit

THE RAPE OF NANKING by Iris Chang

13 - Favorite childhood book

THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES by Hans Christian Andersen

14 - Book that should be on hs/college required reading list

THE BOOK OF FIVE RINGS by Musashi Miyamoto

15 - Favorite book dealing with foreign culture

SHIBUMI by Trevanian

16 - Favorite book turned movie

THE LORD OF THE RINGS by JRR TOLKIEN

17 - Book turned movie and completely desecrated

DUNE by Frank Herbert

18 - A Book you can’t find on shelves anymore that you love

BARRIOTIC PUNK by Mes De Guzman

19 - A Book that changed your mind about a particular subject (non-fiction)

TO SUFFER THY COMRADES by Robert Francis Garcia

20 - A Book you would recommend to an ignorant/racist/closed minded person

MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING by Viktor Frankl

21 - A guilty pleasure book

THE GAME by Neil Strauss

22 - Favorite Series (Edit)

The LOTR Trilogy by JRR Tolkien

23 - Favorite Romance Novel

--- (this is weird, i hate romance books. better ask me of a porn novel instead!)

24 - A Book you later found out the Author lied about

AN IDEOLOGY FOR THE FILIPINOS by Ferdinand Marcos

25 - Favorite Autobiographical/Biographical book

MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING by Viktor Frankl

26 - A Book you wish would be written

I'm thinking of a novel about a group of assassins formed after a series of brutal rape and slaying of a Filipina working abroad

27- A Book you would write if you had all the resources

This may be foolish but I used to imagine about the spirits of Rock n Roll masters who died early in their career making a comeback and creating a terrible mess, a terrible void against the world of the living, the world that adores Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga...

28 - A Book you wish you never read

---(that book does not exist!)

29 - An Author that you completely avoid/hate wont read

STEPHENIE MEYER

30 - An Author that you will read whatever they put out

NEIL GAIMAN

note: my shelfari group inspired me to make and update this list and damn, i missed writing a list like this!

KOMIKS TOP 10

WASTED poster by LEINIL YU

Comics: since its inception in my younger life at 5 years old (even if I can't read or write yet), flipping the pages one by one allowed me to sense the story by just looking at the pictures in sequence. That experience taught me to trust my intuition in conveying what the author wanted to tell, and basically that became what comics really meant for us readers of this sequential form of art.

I was lucky to read some and even at this age, I still consider reading a comic book or a graphic novel in this country a worthwhile pastime. Here's the list of my All Time Favorite Filipino Comics (Komiks) from a wide range of  format. I included the series, the funnies, the solo release, the one shots, and the indies in my criteria. I'm sure you're not familiar with majority of them and maybe it's time for you to try reading them. Let me know what you think. By the way, this list is very subjective but you get the point. I'm going to present them in a countdown manner.

10 

This is surely, the most popular Urban Horror and Fantasy graphic novel series available in any bookshop in the country. The art by KaJo Baldisimo is superb, and the stories by Budjette Tan is one of the country's best. And yeah, it's an ongoing saga for us fans.

9

Homophobics need not be afraid to touch and read this graphic novel by artist/writer Carlo Vergara. It's a fun read, I assure you.

8

An indie comic by Louie Cordero (disguised as Abang Guard Production Inc) made its way into my list. A very ugly art (it's about shit, what else?) but a very funny story about a man accidentally obtaining the power of an alien excretion and literally struggling how to capitalize on the current misfortune from his native farm, to the flooded outskirts of Navotas. 

7

Manix Abrera's initial collection of college and post-college life in Peyups with the gang of mental bandits and activists scored highly as very relevant to any alumnus reader. No one can forget those days of cramming for the report, cramming for the exams, cramming for org activities, cramming for rock concerts, and last but not the least, cramming for love life (or zero love life). Hwoooh!

6

This is so far, the most memorable graphic novel on Philippine Mythology written and drawn by Arnold Arre. It's an adventure roller-coaster ride into the realms of lower and higher mythology complete with twists and turns throughout the Pinoy culture and history.  

5

Three words: Love and Destiny. Arnold Arre once again crafted a beautiful story revolving around two friends in a world heavily influenced by angels and devils ever since man's first fall to the temptation of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. 

4

Pol Medina Jr is for me the most consistent comic book artist and author. His trademark wit, humor, and deep sense of Pinoy culture is so far, the best among the living Pinoy cartoonists today. His books became required reads for Japanese students studying the Philippine Culture and Politics. And this is not a joke at all. This 5th collection of his series is a personal favorite because of his local parody of Star Wars. And I love the fight scenes and his cool usage of time paradoxes--ala Star Trek. This book made Polgas (aka Wisedog, Dobermaxx) a household name.

3

Gerry Alanguilan's ultra-violent story of a killing spree along EDSA is actually an allusion of his heartbroken days after his girlfriend migrated to the US. It's a classic story of coping the loss of someone you deeply loved. Love, or Die.

2

  

This book by the legendary Francisco Coching is five stars for me. It's classically drawn and classically written by a leading National Artist contender. Being a classic book, I  didn't mean that it doesn't have a twist. The twist is actually the main story and the reader will be rewarded with a perfect ending.

1

Once again, Pol Medina Jr's deep knowledge on the popular and less popular culture of the Filipino catapulted his name as the country's leading comic book author and artist. If you don't know yet where to test your anting-anting or agimat (with a hearty laugh), better read this book. Laughter is still, the best medicine for the Filipinos and the comedy-horror story arc is the best that exists in my opinion and still, unmatched. 

Great Finds in 2009

2009 is the year that almost doubled the number of books in my archive. Though I think I will be more disciplined in buying and will probably focus on reacquiring my lost titles of graphic fictions next year, I'm still more inclined to accomplish quality reading (and cut the percentage of unread books to below 50%) in 2010 than using the idle time for adventurous searching I did this year. So far, acquiring the right book at the right time is a safer strategy. I admit that  "chance" is a good factor, as this "randomness" in discovering a rare book is admittedly a good attribute of a cool book trip.

2009-- what a year of searching! The following is a list of my favorite acquisitions.

Foucault's Pendulum (Umberto Eco)

Flatland (Edwin Abbott)

2001 A Space Odyssey (Arthur Clarke)

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter Thompson)

On the Road (Jack Kerouac)

Necronomicon (Al Hazred)

The Christ Commission (Og Mandino)

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

The Diary of Anne Frank

Anne Frank's Tales From the Secret Annex

The Book of Five Rings (Miyamoto Musashi)

Joseph Campbell: An Introduction (Robert Segal)

Notes From Underground (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

The Colour of Magic (Terry Pratchett)

Steppenwolf (Herman Hesse)

The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)

The Odyssey (Homer)

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

Trainspotting (Irvine Welsh)

Xerxes Invades Greece (Herodotus)

The Gnostic Gospels (Elaine Pagels)

Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut)

Declare (Tim Powers)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke)

Nobody Here Gets Out Alive (Sugerman & Hopkins)

Holy Blood, Holy Grail (Baigent, et. al.)

Foundation (Isaac Asimov)

Heart-Shaped Box (Joe Hill)

I, Robot (Isaac Asimov)

Little, Big (John Crowley)

Rendezvous With Rama (Arthur Clarke)

Spy Catcher (Peter Wright)***

Tehanu (Ursula K. Le Guin)

The Apocrypha (Edgar Goodspeed)

The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)

The Day of the Jackal (Frederick Forsythe)

The Einstein Intersection (Samuel Delany)

The Ipcress File (Len Deighton)

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Robert Heinlein)

Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)

War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells)

*** -banned book in UK!

Renegades in Fiction

Rebellion and revenge are two of the classic themes used in literature. Some brought interest while others bored you to oblivion, depending on the source of the story whether based from real experience or a product of imagination.

From these we see characters that add more depth and life to the story, if they themselves are not the central figure of the story. Even from history we already saw remarkable characters that showed the strength of their spirit in the middle of the storm. Some faced dictators, some fought monsters while trying not to become monsters themselves, and others defied the trials of time until they faced each man's ultimate fate --death.

Lately, I cannot stop remembering reading about these rebels in fiction. And as I think of memorable renegades in literature (some are funny, some are cool, and some are just plain wicked), I realized that I can make a list of them.

Here's my TOP 7:

7 V
    V for Vendetta by Alan Moore

Alan Moore created his character V with reference to a real, historical figure Guy Fawkes who used to be an instrument of anarchy in the 15th to 16th Century England. In the story, V dons Guy Fawkes' legendary mask. V loves everything that is classical, a night fighter and saboteur, a computer hacker that preaches against the infliction of fear by the ruling political machinery -the Norsefire. He preaches that people should not be afraid of their government, as he makes the fascist government  afraid of its people.




6 Hiroaki "Hiro" Protagonist

   Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

By day, a deliverator of Uncle Enzo's Cosa Nostra pizza. At night, code writer, samurai warrior and bounty hunter in the Metaverse. 24/7, renegade for both worlds. This half-black half-Korean master swordsman may not be that perfect in a gunfight, and may not be the most intelligent to decipher codes and cryptograms but his sword will never run out of ammo and he got the smarty chick YT by his side. Heck, he was even saved by a Filipino slave at his captivity. This makes Hiro a lucky scoundrel/rebel.




5 Paul Atreides
    Dune by Frank Herbert

He is known by many names; Muad'Dib, Usul, Lisan al-Gaib, and Kwisatz Haderach. He is the Chosen One in the Prophecy who will bring the future life of vegetation in the desert planet called Dune. Frank Herbert created a universe with the desert planet Arrakis (Dune) as the main playground and battlefield for the young and disinherited Paul of the House Atreides.

And Paul unknowingly fulfills the prophecy as he showed to the band of desert rebels - the Fremen his learned skill in taming the sand worms and adapting to the arid and scorching environment itself. After losing his son,Paul fought the annointed heir to the throne of the planet Arrakis from the House Harkonnen (Feyd), won the ceremonial duel to reclaim the heirarchy that is rightfully his and in the process earning a second wife that made him a cool rebel and ruler of Dune.

4 Ogami Itto and Daigoro

   Lone Wolf & Cub by Kazuo Koike

The best renegade father-and-son tandem. Ogami Itto is an executioner of the Shogun and he is a good servant before accused wrongfully by a conspiring, jealous Yagyu Clan. After Ogami's wife gave birth to a baby boy, she and the rest of the household were murdered by the Yagyu Clan but luckily the baby Daigoro survived.

With no one to turn to as Ogami is implicated as a public enemy, there's only one path for him to take (and also for Daigoro)-- to become a ronin. Ogami gave Daigoro two choices; to pick the ball or the sword. If Daigoro choose the ball, Ogami will be forced to kill Daigoro. The child crawls away from the ball and touched the hilt of the sword, signaling to his father his chosen path.

Hunted not just by the Shogun but also by bounty hunters and fellow renegades, the samurai-weilding tandem are the hardest nuts to crack in the Japanese countryside as they carve a bloody road towards the destruction of the Yagyu Clan. These unlikely samurai tandem are also an inspiration of the film Road to Perdition starring Tom Hanks, Jude Law, Daniel Craig and Paul Newman .

3 Elias

    Noli Me Tangere by Jose Rizal

With vengeance, Crisostomo Ibarra's transformation into Simon is a highly recognized character development in Jose Rizal's series. How? Because of Elias. It was Elias who first showed the way of the renegade to Ibarra. It was he who prompted Ibarra to avenge his own father's death. Elias is the Andres Bonifacio archetype by knowing when to move and mobilize, and when to stop and retreat.

He moves like a ghost who secretly appears to warn Ibarra and exits without catching any unwanted attention. It was Elias who saved Ibarra's life from the trap in the laying of the cornerstone, a mocked up accident conspired by Father Damaso. It was Elias who saved Ibarra from the guardia civil along the Pasig River by sacrificing his own life. It was the dying Elias who helped the mournful Basilio bury his mother's body, and it was also Elias who pointed the location of the hidden treasures, ordering Basilio to use the money to study on a condition that Basilio help burn Elias' dead body. And yes, it was his last dying words that became one of the resonating battle cries for the historic Philppine Revolution in 1896.

2 Randle McMurphy

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

McMurphy for me, is the best punk-rebel in literature that have a heart and a soul. He is the epitome of defiance that kicked the sorry butt of an abusive authority with his funny but brutal prank jobs in the Mental Hospital. Reading the book makes me wish to meet a person like him. He's funny, and he's like a cool brother that you will take his side in times of trouble. But of all the renegades in literature, his fate is the most horrifying.





1 Edmond Dantes

     The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Personally, I love the movie more than the book. At first, Edmond's simple life is almost perfect. His family loves him, he and Mercedes were engaged, and Edmond is about to be promoted as a Ship Capta.

Not far from reality, God allowed evil to test a man's character. Edmond was betrayed because of jealousy. He was connected to Napoleon Bonaparte's rebellion and convicted by treason as conspired by his best friend and a Bonaparte agent's son. Imprisoned to the worst place on Earth-- the Chateau d'lf, where every soul is "purged of their sins" up to their last dying breath, Edmond is hopeless and started to denounce God and His Words. He despised the sculpted words on the wall of his stinking, rat infested prison den that say "God Shall Grant Me Justice." The only thing he wanted is an instant death, but he cant even find the energy to strangle himself. All he could do is to lay down and die.

But his hope will literally rise from the ground and his life will make a 180 degree-turn after that. He befriends a fellow prisoner, a priest of a mysterious and glorious past. For me, this part is the best as Edmond begins to learn how to fight back, outsmart the guards and escape the prison, create allegiance with the pirates, find the hidden treasure and become a Count. He will be named as Zatarra by his pirate comrades, meaning "driftwood." He will learn to play and become master of the game to punish the ones who betrayed him.

Retribution and redemption may be the twin tropes of this classical novel by Dumas but Edmond Dantes--The Count of Monte Cristo himself is still a major symbol of vengeance and rebellion in Literature.

Top 15 Espionage Novels by Publisher's Weekly (2006)

Deciphering code

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Nearly three years ago, Publisher's Weekly released their list of Top 15 Spy Novels compiled by Peter Cannon:

1. THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD by John le Carre (1963)

2. THE BOURNE IDENTITY by Robert Ludlum (1980)

3. THE DAY OF THE JACKAL by Frederick Forsyth (1971)

4. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME by Ian Fleming (1962)

5. THE QUIET AMERICAN by Graham Greene (1955)

6. THE IPCRESS FILE by Len Deighton (1962)

7. THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE by Ken Follett (1978)

8. MASQUERADE by Gayle Lynds (1996)

9. THE MOSCOW CLUB by Joseph Finder (1991)

10. ABOVE SUSPICION by Helen MacInnes (1939)

11. THE 39 STEPS by John Buchan (1915)

12. HARLOT'S GHOST by Norman Mailer (1991)

13. THE UNLIKELY SPY by Daniel Silva (1996)

14. THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS by Erskine Childers (1903)

15. MORNING SPY, EVENING SPY by Colin MacKinnon (2006)

Reactions in favor and against the listing circulated after its release but for me, the list is substantial enough for any curious collector of Best Espionage Fiction. But I would like to add Rudyard Kipling's Kim (1901), Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October (1984) and more importantly, Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (1907). GK Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) is another good book to add to the list, but I think it's more of a metaphysical thriller and cross genre literature about saboteurs, just like Tim Powers' sci-fi and modern fantasy spy thriller Declare (2001).

Let me know what you think about this list, or any suggestions of your own.

All images belong to their respective authors and owners.