Quarantine Reading List
/
So, with this mandatory stay-at-home, I’m able to read more than usual and the first pile I managed to conquer was that of books newly acquired or given between January to April 2020, which are authored by Filipinos. Some of these were published a few years back but, I’ve included them because I just got hold of a copy.
Here, in no particular order, are some of the impressive ones you might want to check out:
Dirty Ice Cream (Looking Back 14) by Ambeth R. Ocampo (Anvil Publishing 2020)
Rizal’s True Love by Gemma Cruz Araneta (Cruz Publishing 2014)
Both these books are collections of the authors’ columns, are small enough to carry around, easy to read and both definitely have historical heft. The 14th volume of Ocampo’s Look Back series should be as much of a bestseller as the previous 13. The book offers such eye-catching titles as “A History of ‘Dirty Ice Cream,’” “A Woman as Pope and Jesuit,” “Don’t Steal Once, Steal Thrice” among a collection of 19 columns. Ocampo never fails to make Philippine history interesting and accessible.
Cruz Araneta’s book, already a third edition, puts together the author’s columns in the Manila Bulletin and spans Jose Rizal’s life and thoughts as only an ardent researcher and Rizalista can tell it. It also includes stories about the national hero’s contemporaries – the volatile Luna brothers, the brainy Apolinario Mabini, the entrepreneur Domingo Franco and Rizal’s influential elder brother Paciano. A bonus to seniors with failing eyesight – the fonts used are bigger than those of the usual books.
The Locked Door and Other Stories by Rosario de Guzman-Lingat, Translated by Soledad S. Reyes (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2017)
I don’t usually read short stories, but this collection I couldn’t put down. De Guzman-Lingat is relatively unknown to readers who read only English because she wrote in Filipino for Liwayway magazine. These stories were written from the late ‘50s to the ‘70s, so it’s best to remember the social and cultural context of those periods when reading them. Her lead characters are female – headstrong, intelligent, determined and, at times, unconventional, even if they bowed to the norms of their times. Fascinating “feminist” stories without the grating heaviness. I put “feminist” in quotes because many of these stories were written way before feminism was a thing.
Crying Mountain by Criselda Yabes (Penguin Books, 2019)
Great Philippine Jungle Energy Café by Alfred A. Yuson (Anvil Publishing, 2015)
Two fiction books written the way fiction should be written – beautiful prose, a story that grips, and characters that elicit strong reactions, be it love or repulsion. Cris Yabes’ book was published earlier as Below the Crying Mountain by UP Press; the title was shortened under the Penguin Random House Southeast Asia imprint and updated a bit by the author. I loved both versions with the lush descriptions of Mindanao and the Moro Rebellion, and the clashing emotions that a state of war draws out.
I actually just started reading Krip Yuson’s novel, but I know it should be included on this list. Described as “an avant-garde experimental work” by the late great Nick Joaquin when he read the manuscript in 1987, he further describes it as “rough, rude, delirious and electrifying,” which to me makes it all the more attractive. It’s not an easy book to read, despite Krip’s obvious mastery of language, and frankly, it’s driving me crazy, but I’m going to finish it because it will give me great satisfaction if I do.
Living In Times of Unrest: Bart Pasion and the Philippine Revolution by Eduardo C. Tadem (University of the Philippines Press, 2019)
I’ve been eagerly awaiting this biography of the guerrilla fighter and lifelong revolutionary, Bartolome Pasion. I have fond memories of this amiable, soft-spoken man with the gentle, smiling eyes which belied his personal history as a Hukbalahap stalwart and one of the pillars of the late, unlamented Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP). Ka Pasion (along with some of his comrades) used to stay the night at my brother’s house whenever he was in Manila and would sometimes take over the cooking of dinner. Like a typical Kapampangan, he would make such memorably delicious dishes out of whatever vegetables were on hand; dishes I’ve tried to replicate but never could. Of course, this vignette does not figure in Ed Tadem’s biography, which is both a worthy tribute to a warrior and a history book about our homeland’s peasant struggles and revolutionary mistakes.
A Memory of Time by Virgilio A. Reyes Jr. (New Day Publishers, 2020)
I wrote the Foreword for this book so I’m biased, but I genuinely recommend it because the author, a retired ambassador, has a unique perspective and meticulous eye for details that make Filipino cultural history alive and appealing. The essays are commentaries on people and places, historical landmarks and historical moments. Not something you will read through in one sitting but you will want to choose and pick at various times, depending on your mood and inclination. Definitely an educational –but not a boring – read.
Confessions of an Ex-Jesuit: A Journey to Wellness by Ibarra M. Gonzalez (San Anselmo Press, 2019)
Brown Rice: The Fugitive, A Memoir, Book Three by Ted Yabut Jr. (Self-published, 2020)
Crossings: Portrait of a Revolutionary by Rolando E. Peña (Central Book Supply, 2019)
Three memoirs by three different Filipino men writing about three different milieus. As his title suggests, Ibarra “Nim” Gonzalez writes from the prism of a Jesuit even if, after 35 years in the priesthood, he left the order and followed a different path that included marriage to a neuropathic doctor. I like reading memoirs of ex-somethings because they usually dish truthful dirt on the institution they are turning their backs on. Nim, of course, doesn’t do this because he’s a nice guy and he sees his life as a constant forward movement with interesting twists and interruptions, yes, but is nonetheless a blessed journey towards consciousness. Thanks to his faith and his religious order.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Books One and Two of Spike Yabut’s long-playing memoir because they were well-written and peopled by characters I knew in college. A former editor of UP’s Collegian, a frat man and later an advertising executive, Spike idolized his father, Teddy Yabut Sr. of theater and advertising fame, who joined the Light A Fire Movement against Ferdinand Marcos and had to escape to the US as an exile. Book Three is the story of exile, compellingly told like the first two books, of the father and son, the latter choosing to immigrate to Canada with his wife and daughter. Spike very authentically tells of the many fits and starts, the frustrations and the humbling of a brown man trying to make ends meet in a white country.
Rolly Peña was considered the Philippines’ foremost geologist, a brilliant scientist and writer, a revolutionary (who manned the ill-fated MV Karagatan ship which attempted to smuggle arms from China to the New People’s Army in 1972) and, as this compilation of his writings by his only daughter Sibyl Jade reveals, also quite a ladies man. Don’t be waylaid by the snippets of X-rated sexual encounters though. This book is an important documentation of Philippine contemporary revolutionary history.
For a review: https://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/a-red-and-expert-renaissance-man
I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir by Malaka Gharib (Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2019)
Jose Rizal: The Filipino Hero’s Life Illustrated, story by Takahiro Matsui and art by Ryo Konno (Anvil Publishing, 2019)
Malaka Gharib, an Egyptian-Filipino who grew up in Southern California, chooses to tell her family’s immigrant story as a graphic memoir, which makes it such a delightful read. This is a book that should be gifted to every Filipino immigrant child struggling with the demands of a bicultural family in a milieu that can be very strange.
I didn’t know that manga, which is what this Rizal book is, requires a different way of reading (from right to left then an S curve down) and this, along with my being impressed that two Japanese millennials actually liked and learned about Rizal enough to come out with an illustrated, though abbreviated, bio, makes this book special. I hope it gets more market airing; I almost missed it because it was tucked in a tight corner shelf in a bookstore in Cebu.
Before you click on Amazon to order these books (most of which are probably not sold there), please consider ordering from the following independent Filipino bookstores in California:
Philippine Expressions Bookshop: https://philippinebookshop.com/
Arkipelago Books: https://www.arkipelagobooks.com/
In the Philippines:
University of the Philippines Press: https://press.up.edu.ph/store/
Ateneo de Manila University Press: http://www.ateneo.edu/ateneopress/
Anvil Publishing: https://www.anvilpublishing.com/
New Day Publishers: marketing@newdaypublishers.com