Overbooked!

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to read more books and I am doing it now.

There are many reasons why people resort to reading. It can be an indication of one’s financial health (better to read than to shop) or it can be a distress signal of how low your social life has become (whaaaa! where are all the parties? am having a migraine here)

I like the fact that reading keeps me celibate and sane at the same time.In literature, you can have all the Mr. Darcys and Robert Kincaids in the world whereas if you choose real life you probably will have to deal with a man who’s grumpy, cranky and doesn’t give a hoot about ya.

Am so stuffed with books I need air to breathe.

Did I tell you I was once a book columnist? It was soo demanding that I had to take a leave and concentrate on my full-time job.

Anyway, last Friday, I was doing my media rounds when Jun I, the Bulletin’s editor-in-chief greeted me in his office with: Have you read The Da Vinci Code? Do you need some more to shake your faith?

I wanted to say to him, shake my booty maybe but oh no! not again. That…Da Vinci….Code!”

In the end, I am being hailed out of his office with three books: The Messianic Legacy, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus and The Holy Kingdom: The Quest For The Real King Arthur.
Don’t call me a nerd. I am now more than that.

On the other hand, the Manila International Book Fair was a feast. I went with Issa yesterday and bumped into Timmy and Ivy. Today, I get to see Brad and Amor who were looking for stuff for their baby.

I would have tagged Paolo along but he didn’t want to go. He’s into computer games and when I read him books, my precious kiddo says “baduy!”

I went crazy in the book fair and I had to refrain myself from swallowing every book on sight.Yes! I want to hear what the cad Michael Bergin has to say about Carolyn Bessette. Oh no! There’s a new Helen Fielding Novel?… I want to have this book 1000 Places to See Before You Die but at the rate it’s sold at more than 1000 bucks, I’d rather go to Hong Kong than buy it. Salivate, salivate, salivate…

It’s amazing how they design really lovely covers for books these days…but the titles are not getting any better: Date or Soulmate? How to Know in Two Dates or Less. I Used To Miss Him But My Aim is Improving. A Husband who loved his Wife. Under The Duvet. Going Topless.

And I got a kick over this one: My Favorite Mistake. (Clue: It’s about a man)

Let it be known that am not buying any stuff on How To Make A Guy Fall In Love With You or Sex Tricks to Drive Your Man Crazy or even parenting manuals. I realized that it’s better learn them in real life; theories don’t always apply when they do happen. Besides, my three gigantic bookshelves at home are testament to the fact that you can only have enough of a good thing. Am borrowing my friends’ books instead.

After five hours of rummaging at the book fair, my shopping cart is this:

Princess magazines for my two princesses
Half-half (Kala-kalahati) Pinoy storybook for my video games fanatic
The Dumas Club by Arturo Perez-Reverte
Wilde’s A Picture of Dorian Gray
People Magazine with Orlando Bloom on the cover
Still more magazines
Cutesy notebook from Fully-booked
The Coconut Cookery of Bicol ( a bargain from Bookmark Inc; their coffeetable books were going, going at bodega prices)
The Nymph of MTV by Angelo Suarez (he’s a brilliant nineteener from UST and won the National Book Award for Poetry. Read him.)

As Marcus Tullius Cicero would say: A room without books is like a body without a soul