JUNE 17

I was at the Mall last weekend to buy my best friend a gift for his 26th birthday. I never failed to give him something every time there's an occasion and he never failed (well, almost) to give me a present as well.
 
While I was in search for the best gift at The Block, I suddenly realized that since he is earning more than I do (not to sound bitter or what) and since he is now capable of buying material stuff for himself, It suddenly came to me that I should give him something that is different, something not usual or something that can easily fade.
 
I, then, decided to go straight to "Fully Booked" (has been my favorite bookstore) and scavenge for the best book. He used to read and I know that it’s going to be the perfect gift. I want him to remember me or our friendship, how it began, whenever he reads the book. So I picked “Running after Winston Charles” the author of the book, “The Devil wears Prada”. The book, according to its description, is “so us”.

I also used to read well I still am but I the last book I finished was the 7th Installment of Harry Potter Book, “the deathly hollows”. It’s been a year and I would love to read and it was very envious of me because I want that same book I gave my best friend.


The next week, my office friend, Chery brought a book from the infamous Bob Ong. It is called, “stainless longganisa”. To be perfectly honest, I am not a fan of him. Maybe because of so many forwarded messages that I’ve been receiving almost everyday about Bob Ong’s famous lines which really annoys me. But to my surprise, I found myself scanning the pages of the book.

What caught my attention was not his writing skill nor the content of his book. What it made me hooked to it as I sat down at the corner of the room was something we have in common, we have the same humor. And it was then I realized that I just finished Page 35 just after a few minutes. The book revolved around the concept of writing and the unfolding of his writing abilities. He was able to juxtapose his experiences as an author and his inspirations as he grows.

It made me looks back at the days that inspired me to read and somehow, write. From the Grimm Brothers to Hans Christian, I counted some of the first readings I had. The comic book Archie is definitely one of them. I’m fond of reading comics even the local ones and I have this fondest memoir of asking my sister to lend me her copy of “your daily Horoscope”. It was one of the top sellers before and It has one of the best tagalog stories I read from a comic-book wihich eventually became a hit Movie, “Sa isang sulok ng mga Pangarap”.

Reading books is one of the things I usually do usually if I’m alone of there’s an available one to read. I am fascinated with the works of John Grisham (The Client, The firm, et al), Patricia Cornwell’s Hornet’s nest, Dan Brown’s “Angel’s and Demon’s”, and “The Vinci Code”, And some of the works of Mario Puzo, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Candace Bushnell, Mitch Albom and of course, J. Rowling.

I can definitely read almost any books about anything under the sun. I am not particular with any genre. There was this one incident wherein I found myself reading one of the novels of Bienvenido Ramos, An author about romance pocket books. Well, that was a long time ago and I was just a kid.

From books, I used to read magazines too. I had a bunch of FHM Magazines and I stopped purchasing when it became very commercial and “gasgas” that everyone knows it and reads it. My first FHM subscription was the July 2001 edition and it has Myle Dizon. It was magnifying to me because of its feature articles about man’s lifestyle that you can’t find through the pages of COSMO, PREVIEW or METRO. I also used to read CHALK Magazine because I was, then, a freshmen student and it used to feature a lot about College life. Then now, I have new sets of magazine subscription which I ought not to dwell on.


And then there’s BLOG.