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We’re currently reading (and posting lovely pictures of ourselves with our copies of) The Great Gatsby for Read Hard. Care to join us?  My copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby features a detail of The Evening, a painting by Delphin Enjolras, on its front cover. (I know that because the book says so on the back.) The book is one of the “budget editions” from the Penguin Popular Classics series of “the greatest works of literature.”  When Penguin declared the books in the series as “budget editions,” they weren’t kidding. I bought The Great Gatsby for only P99 (roughly $2). And when Penguin referred to the books in the series as “the greatest works of literature,” they also weren’t kidding. Aside from The Great Gatsby, among the many novels released in the Penguin Popular Classics line are Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and Fryodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, all of which I have graciously bought (each costs only P99, remember?) but have not yet read. I’m starting with The Great Gatsby.

We’re currently reading (and posting lovely pictures of ourselves with our copies of) The Great Gatsby for Read Hard. Care to join us? 

My copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby features a detail of The Evening, a painting by Delphin Enjolras, on its front cover. (I know that because the book says so on the back.) The book is one of the “budget editions” from the Penguin Popular Classics series of “the greatest works of literature.” 

When Penguin declared the books in the series as “budget editions,” they weren’t kidding. I bought The Great Gatsby for only P99 (roughly $2). And when Penguin referred to the books in the series as “the greatest works of literature,” they also weren’t kidding. Aside from The Great Gatsby, among the many novels released in the Penguin Popular Classics line are Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and Fryodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, all of which I have graciously bought (each costs only P99, remember?) but have not yet read. I’m starting with The Great Gatsby.

readhard

The past week, like most other weeks before it, saw me living and breathing for books. More than that, though, it also saw me and my precious skin being saved by them. You see, the company I work in has partnered with a couple of small restaurant owners to supply us employers with packed meals every day so that those who choose to order from them wouldn’t have to go out of the office for lunch. Every morning, right after we punch in, I and most of my co-employees would check the available dishes for the day and specify what we’d like to have for lunch. Last Thursday I happened to arrive at the office mere seconds shy of being declared tardy, and not wanting to be reprimanded for coming late to our daily department morning meeting, I ignored the day’s menu and sprinted towards my desk straightaway. I figured I’d just tag along with my teammates who regularly eat lunch at nearby fast food restaurants or convenience stores—and I did as soon as the bell signaled lunchtime. Later, at least five employees were rushed to hospital for suffering severe allergic reaction apparently to the dish which they all ordered from one of the packed-meal suppliers. The culprit? Ginataang tulingan (tuna in coconut milk), something I, a sucker for fish-based viands, would have ordered in a heartbeat that morning had I not been almost late. (The tuna, the unlucky employees later told us, might have been mishandled or have already spoiled prior to preparation, thereby resulting in scombroid food poisoning.) And the reason I was almost late that morning? I stayed up till the wee hours of the morning reading books, of course.

In other (bad) news, the issue of whether J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye should (or could) be turned into a movie has again surfaced recently. The late Mr. Salinger’s estate is reportedly in dire straits right now on account of a certain tax law, which, like other tax-related stuff, is hardly worth one’s effort to understand, and the easiest way out appears to be one that involves selling the film rights to the author’s most popular novel. I say, bollocks. I shall agree to a film adaptation of The Catcher in the Rye if and only if the prospective producers (otherwise known as phonies) could commission a time machine to bring the 16-year-old Jared Leto to the present and have him portray Holden Caulfield.

On a happier note, the books in the Penguin Inks collection, included in the series of releases from Penguin in celebration of the world renowned publisher’s 75th anniversary, arrived at local bookstores no sooner than last Wednesday. Penguin Inks features six novels, each re-released with a new and striking cover designed in collaboration with tattoo artists. The novels are Martin Amis’s Money, Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, Keri Hulme’s The Bone People, Ian Fleming’s From Russia with Love, J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians, and David Foster Wallace’s The Broom of the System.

Finally, last night I and several friends from the office threw a farewell party for one of our teammates who has resigned to pursue a career in, well, job-hunting. It was a riot, to say the least, and a good portion of it was spent reading a book that was far removed from my usual literary selections of late: a KTV songbook, no less, featuring songs by Justin Bieber. Naturally.

Fully Booked, my favorite bookstore chain in the country, celebrated the annual Free Comic Book Day today by giving away (surprise, surprise) free comic books. More important, though, for this impulsive buyer of books, comic or otherwise, Fully Booked also put their stock of graphic novels on sale. As was the case last year, I didn’t get to score free comics this year; the store I ran to this afternoon had run out of copies to give away hours before I showed up. But as was also the case last year, I nabbed a kick-ass graphic novel at 20% off this year. Last year I got Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s groundbreaking magnum opus, Watchmen. This year I bought Frank Miller’s masterful Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. KA-POW!

Fully Booked, my favorite bookstore chain in the country, celebrated the annual Free Comic Book Day today by giving away (surprise, surprise) free comic books. More important, though, for this impulsive buyer of books, comic or otherwise, Fully Booked also put their stock of graphic novels on sale.

As was the case last year, I didn’t get to score free comics this year; the store I ran to this afternoon had run out of copies to give away hours before I showed up. But as was also the case last year, I nabbed a kick-ass graphic novel at 20% off this year. Last year I got Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s groundbreaking magnum opus, Watchmen. This year I bought Frank Miller’s masterful Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

KA-POW!

I was about to head to Eastwood last night to see what I could score at Fully Booked, where books were, yet again, at 20% off, when Don rang me up and asked me to join him and Jansen for some pizza at the Shang. I was a bit reluctant at first to postpone my book-buying binge, but pizza with a couple of feral but very good friends was just impossible to pass up (that the pizza was going to be free made it so).  About thirty minutes later I was at a table with the two, in front of several slices of California-style pizza. The pizza was good, but the concomitant chat was better. In between talking about our jobs and Lost, we of course talked about Tumblr, that place where we got to know one another and the inspiration to the faux logo shirt I was wearing last night.  After discussing our plans (or the complete lack thereof) for our collaborative Tumblr film blog and flinching at the mention of a certain tumblelog filled with blind items (an exercise in poor taste), we eventually arrived at the subject of Zet’s just founded Read Hard! Tumblr book club. I said I’d submit a photo of my ugly face beside my copy of Everything is Illuminated, Read Hard’s first selection, and here it is. Everything is blurred, but that cover actually reads: Everything Is Illuminated Jonathan Safran Foer a novel While I’m a huge fan of gray318’s iconic book cover design, I got this limited Olive Reader edition instead not only because it’s the only copy of the novel I found when I went looking for it around the metro last year but also because its cover design was done by another favorite artist of mine, Milan Bozic. Also, it’s a tribute to Safran Foer’s nascent genius that his novel was included in this limited series of paperbacks, in the company of such great works as Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.  Lest I forget, I’ll still be participating in the Ilustrado online book club that I mentioned previously. I imagine it’ll be interesting to read both novels alongside each other, what with the parallels that can be drawn between the two, stylistically and thematically. For starters, the narrators in both novels were named after their respective authors. Also, the cover for the locally distibuted editon of Ilustrado was designed by none other than gray318. Then there’s the use of various literary devices in both novels. And… I think I better stop right here before I run out of thoughts to contribute to my online book clubs, both of them. And I think I still owe Fully Booked a visit.

I was about to head to Eastwood last night to see what I could score at Fully Booked, where books were, yet again, at 20% off, when Don rang me up and asked me to join him and Jansen for some pizza at the Shang. I was a bit reluctant at first to postpone my book-buying binge, but pizza with a couple of feral but very good friends was just impossible to pass up (that the pizza was going to be free made it so). 

About thirty minutes later I was at a table with the two, in front of several slices of California-style pizza. The pizza was good, but the concomitant chat was better. In between talking about our jobs and Lost, we of course talked about Tumblr, that place where we got to know one another and the inspiration to the faux logo shirt I was wearing last night. 

After discussing our plans (or the complete lack thereof) for our collaborative Tumblr film blog and flinching at the mention of a certain tumblelog filled with blind items (an exercise in poor taste), we eventually arrived at the subject of Zet’s just founded Read Hard! Tumblr book club. I said I’d submit a photo of my ugly face beside my copy of Everything is Illuminated, Read Hard’s first selection, and here it is.

Everything is blurred, but that cover actually reads:

Everything Is Illuminated
Jonathan Safran Foer
a novel

While I’m a huge fan of gray318’s iconic book cover design, I got this limited Olive Reader edition instead not only because it’s the only copy of the novel I found when I went looking for it around the metro last year but also because its cover design was done by another favorite artist of mine, Milan Bozic. Also, it’s a tribute to Safran Foer’s nascent genius that his novel was included in this limited series of paperbacks, in the company of such great works as Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. 

Lest I forget, I’ll still be participating in the Ilustrado online book club that I mentioned previously. I imagine it’ll be interesting to read both novels alongside each other, what with the parallels that can be drawn between the two, stylistically and thematically. For starters, the narrators in both novels were named after their respective authors. Also, the cover for the locally distibuted editon of Ilustrado was designed by none other than gray318. Then there’s the use of various literary devices in both novels. And… I think I better stop right here before I run out of thoughts to contribute to my online book clubs, both of them.

And I think I still owe Fully Booked a visit.

readhard