The Ego Episodes

Thursday, May. 05, 2005

You Are What You Read

Brace yourselves. This is going to be long and about books. So if you're not really a book fan, skip this and read my other post for today.

Fiction Books I Have Read Recently/Currently Reading

1. Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella

Overcome by an unexplainable craving for a fiction book, I fled to the library, dragging my sleepy self out of the lecture theater on a Thursday. This was the week before the one-week recess break, if I remember correctly, and I had a draft report to finish within that recess week. Being the overconfident fool that I am, I didn’t start writing my report until Monday and instead, read this book from Thursday until the next day. I couldn’t bring myself to put this book down because it had been a long time since I indulged myself with this kind of funny and light-read chick lit. Honestly? I felt the adrenaline rush the minute I took it out of the library bookshelf because I didn’t think the library would own a single copy of a book that belongs to the chick lit genre but apparently, they do and I FOUND IT! This fact reinforces another fact: I am a book fetishist.

2. Eating Crow by Jay Rayner

What made me borrow this book (aside from the bizarre and funny plot) is that its cover shows a tiny version of the protagonist surrounded by giant forks. The dork in me resurfaced and thought, “Awesome and how appropriate!” The story basically revolves around a food critic – the Simon Cowell of the food business – who killed a chef – indirectly – after giving said chef a bad review; chef baked himself in his oven. I know! After apologizing to the bereft family, he realizes how good it felt and this compels him to start a series of apologies to those he had wronged in the past. Now, if this were Simon Cowell’s story, I would surround tiny Simon with giant Scott Savols.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I salivated at the mention of a pasta recipe in this book, complete with procedures! I believe it’s Linguine with Clams in White Wine. Sounded soooo good! I think that’s why I ordered that pasta dish (or similar to it) when Donny took me to Garibaldi for our anniversary. The clams are divine, I’m telling you. I am so cooking this one when I have the chance.

3. Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

This is like a Dan Brown book, except the protagonist is not Robert Langdon or a single person. It tells the story of two friends in Princeton, trying to decode the most controversial scholarly work of all time, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The Strife of Love in a Dream. It was a good read. I like how the writers weaved historical facts with their fictitious tale. They make it look so plausible and controversial, when in fact, history tells otherwise. It’s like reading gossip columns with corresponding paparazzi pictures in tabloids. That got me hooked. (Note: I don’t mean to lower the quality of this book with that tabloid analogy. Seriously, this is overall a good book. There were parts that drag but what’s a good book without some drag?)

4. Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The Strife of Love in a Dream by Francesco Colonna, translated by Joscelyn Godwin

I didn’t read this one. Almost, though. I saw it in the library the day I returned the Rule of Four and immediately, my hand groped its hardbound cover and refused to let it go until I glanced at the final draft of my report I was holding. A ray of conscience hit me and made me leave it alone. You see, I already set my heart on another thick book. Two is more than enough. (Note: This book was published after Rule of Four and I would like to think that this was done to satisfy curious readers like me because we can’t stop thinking what that long-titled book was all about, really. Having scanned a few pages, the illustrations alone did convey eroticism.)

5.Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

This was the thick book I was talking about. This is the best of the bunch. I was truly entertained and moved to the point that my heart ached after reading this book (Okay, I cried.). It evoked all kinds of romantic feelings that I sent a message to Donny to tell him … mushy stuff (so I’ll spare you the cheese). I’ve never read anything like this before. It’s a love story, yes. There’s time-traveling, yes. But it’s not what you think! This is not Jude Deveraux’s Remembrance (And now you know I have read this stuff at one point in my life. High school, in fact.). The Time Traveler’s Wife tells a poignant and original love story that made me think that true love transcends time. I couldn’t put this book down. It has about 600 pages, and I finished it within four days – and I had classes.

6. The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie

I’m still reading this one. In fact, I borrowed it from the library just yesterday. I’m taking advantage of my still-valid library card until it expires this June (?). That means, I will have to open an account in the National Library here because I will go crazy if I can’t get hold of a fiction book when I now have more free time. Anyway, I borrowed this book because it’s “set in the inspiring, vain, fabulous world of rock ‘n’ roll” and “this is the story of a love that stretches across continents, across Vina and Ormus’s whole lives, and even beyond death.” Didn’t that grip you? I’m a sucker for original love stories. See book #5 above.

7. By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart

Same as above; borrowed it only yesterday. It’s a very thin book so I should be able to finish this one within five bathroom trips. Yeah, I’m a bathroom reader. This is a common practice so don’t look shocked. (Bathroom readers, back me up on this.)

Oh wow. I wrote a lot. Again.

{ joycie at 11:14 a.m.}