Tag: books
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READING: Sequoia Nagamatsu’s Unflinching Study of Mortality
It’s happening. I’m taking book recommendations from TikTok. To be fair, TikTok has a vibrant community of readers, writers, and booksellers, all posting under the #booktok tag. It feels almost reminiscent of 2010’s era Tumblr, when people would write reviews and headcanons of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Sherlock Holmes. Except now there’s the earworm-y…
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The smell of wood and pages
The following post is a recollection of my visit to Baguio, which concluded a two-week business trip in Northern Luzon. I have a very predictable personality: I love cats, books, and rustic sceneries. So, when the opportunity of coming to Baguio arose back in 2019 after a two-week sprint visiting Jollibee stores across Northern Luzon…
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February 2021 in Reading: Going Back to Print
February did not open well for me. Late in January I was introduced, through a Youtube video by Wisecrack on the philosophy behind The Office probably the one TV show I can claim to absolutely love (other than Community, that is), to David Graeber’s book, Bullshit Jobs. My interest piqued, I got a hold of the…
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January 2021 In Books: Women, Men, and Money Problems
As we were all expecting, 2021 is turning out to be the overhyped sequel to 2020. The virus is still a reality for most countries, and here in the Philippines the vaccines are finally available – but not quite yet, though at the very least they have distributed the forms. Indefinitely I am still stuck…
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My Favorite Books From 2020
It’s been a very non-eventful year, a reflection that I recognize is coming from a privileged position when I think back at the millions or so of people that contracted the virus, the significant portion of those that ultimately didn’t get out alive, and, speaking about local matters, all the people that lost their jobs…
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Reading All Of Faulkner: Soldiers’ Pay
I’ve had the idea for this challenge for a while now – have been, in fact, ready with most of the books purchased and shelved for the better part of a year – only I could never quite get started for two reasons: (1) I am lazy, and (2) I’ve read some Faulkner before and…
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READING: The Master and Margarita, A Ridiculously Funny Novel From A Ridiculously Unfunny Time
So far the moral of the story seems to be: stop taking things too seriously, and be wary of giant cats. But I’m getting ahead of myself. After the pleasant if short-lived experience with Genki Kawamura’s If Cats Disappeared from the World, we fly out of Japan and come into Soviet Russia, coincidentally also involving…
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Quarantine Journals: If Cats Disappeared From The World
The day Fully Booked announced that they would be open for deliveries within Metro Manila amid the community quarantine, I was already on their online store browsing for books. That’s how much I missed being inside a book store. Looking at book covers through a screen didn’t quite emulate the experience, especially when half the…
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Quarantine Journals: A Bibliophile’s Spending Habits
One tiny silver-lining I was looking forward to with the lockdown was the chance to save a little more cash as working from home everyday meant I’d be spared from much of my daily expenses. There’s the commute, which isn’t really much at face value since I use mostly public transportation and opt for Grab…
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Quarantine Journals: Reading Albert Camus’s “The Plague”
With Manila entering a rather militaristic community quarantine, I find my Saturday morning suddenly freed up. Naturally my first instinct is to pick up a book from my personal library and while away the hours perched on the bed with a hot cup of coffee. And to think we’re supposed to be in a state…
Dominic Dayta 