Posts tagged david shields

Ten bookstores within a 500-meter radius of my center of gravity as I sit on my ergonomic chair in the office. Ten miniature meccas of literature within walking distance from my cubicle on the eight floor of the east tower of a commercial building. What kind of book collector wouldn’t be tempted to visit at least one of them, considering their proximity to his or her place of employment? Not my kind, that’s for sure. Near Ortigas Center (or “The OC,” if you’re so inclined), where I work, are a total of ten bookstores, including branches of the three major bookstore chains in the country, National Book Store, Fully Booked, and Powerbooks, and those of every frugal book hoarder’s best friend, Booksale, located at or inside three multilevel shopping malls along Edsa. If you’re (a) an avid reader, (b) an impulse purchaser, and (c) a daily commuter who has to cross Edsa en route for home, don’t make the perfect mistake of accepting a job in Ortigas Center or you’ll often return home from work with an empty wallet and a bag full of books. Take it from me. Tonight, buying David Shields’s Reality Hunger at NBS Bestsellers Robinsons Galleria, Ken Jennings’s Brainiac at Fully Booked Shangri-La, and J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace (not in picture) from Booksale SM Megamall, I just did. Jorge Luis Borges famously said, “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” Passing by at least one book shop on my way home almost every day, invariably expecting to let go of a considerable fraction of what I earn in exchange of eight-hour workdays in an office in Ortigas Center, in my place of abode Paradise I have built.

Ten bookstores within a 500-meter radius of my center of gravity as I sit on my ergonomic chair in the office. Ten miniature meccas of literature within walking distance from my cubicle on the eight floor of the east tower of a commercial building. What kind of book collector wouldn’t be tempted to visit at least one of them, considering their proximity to his or her place of employment? Not my kind, that’s for sure.

Near Ortigas Center (or “The OC,” if you’re so inclined), where I work, are a total of ten bookstores, including branches of the three major bookstore chains in the country, National Book Store, Fully Booked, and Powerbooks, and those of every frugal book hoarder’s best friend, Booksale, located at or inside three multilevel shopping malls along Edsa. If you’re (a) an avid reader, (b) an impulse purchaser, and (c) a daily commuter who has to cross Edsa en route for home, don’t make the perfect mistake of accepting a job in Ortigas Center or you’ll often return home from work with an empty wallet and a bag full of books. Take it from me. Tonight, buying David Shields’s Reality Hunger at NBS Bestsellers Robinsons Galleria, Ken Jennings’s Brainiac at Fully Booked Shangri-La, and J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace (not in picture) from Booksale SM Megamall, I just did.

Jorge Luis Borges famously said, “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” Passing by at least one book shop on my way home almost every day, invariably expecting to let go of a considerable fraction of what I earn in exchange of eight-hour workdays in an office in Ortigas Center, in my place of abode Paradise I have built.