To kill a mock Birkin?

SEARCHING FOR some books prove to be an exercise in futility.

Case in point?  My recent search for a copy of the very elusive “Bringing Home The Birkin” by Michael Tonello.  It’s one of the books I gave away this season.  Here is a short tale of one of the more hilarious of those futile attempts.

Obviously, the "elusive" book is not in this pile of oldies.

 

SOMETIME EARLY DECEMBER 2009.  But late into the evening.  The tundra that is the mall.  Yet again, another branch of National Bookstore.

Silence.  A weird silence in eNTeNG’s head.  The bookstore seen from the air.  A sea of anxious and easily agitated holiday shoppers for aisle after aisle, for bookshelf after bookshelf.  The fluorescent lighting fixtures are very unforgiving to faces that have skipped required every-two-weeks facials.  A lady wearing a Franck Mueller wristwatch has to keep her designer shades on to protect her eyes against the light.  Who is to blame her?

eNTeNG browses through books – spine after spine – the bright light reflecting off the sapphire-coated glass of his Philip Stein wristwatch, its reflection swimming over the contours and indentations made by the shelved books.  Running late for his shabu-shabu dinner, he resolves to finally resort to the years-old tried-and-tested solution:  ask the sales associate and hope that he shall receive.

eNTeNG:  “Do you have Michael Tonello’s ‘Bringing Home The Birkin?’”

Sales Associate:  “To Kill A Mockingbird?”

eNTeNG forces a half-smile.

eNTeNG:  “Oh, thanks.  I’m running late.”

eNTeNG exits and thanks God for the promise of a good dinner.  The book hunting is put off for yet another day.

Copyright © 2009 by eNTeNG  c”,)™©’s  MuchTime™©.  All rights reserved.

What I’m reading

The 9/11 Commission Report

AIR TRAVEL has never been quite the same after 9/11.  Believe you me.  I’ve taken a cross-continental flight on a day when the “terror alert level” had been raised to orange (high risk) on a nationwide level.  Subjecting myself to the most stringent screening procedure at the gate was my smallest contribution to peace of mind at 30,000+ feet up in the air.

Every widescreen at the Chicago Midway International Airport that day was tuned in to national news discussing the heightened alert.  I needed to get distracted so I ended up buying practically every single title on the magazine rack.  On the flight back to California – with a layover in Las Vegas – I buried my face in between pages.

All these thoughts came coming back after my recent book purchase.  Lately, second-hand bookstores have been a favorite hangout of mine.  And the last time, I bought “House of Sand and Fog” and this one – “The 9/11 Commission Report:  Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (Authorized Edition).”  It’s a copy from the first printing.

This copy is from the first printing. I love the cover design! (or lack thereof)

I have just cracked it open.  The first section reads like a novel.  It actually brought to mind the opening lines of the second paragraph of my “Rickshaw Diaries,” an accounting of my travel to India in 2005: “As has always been the case with me, the night before any trip doesn’t see me sleeping for even a wink.  I really fuss about my stuff, lay them around for quite some time as I don’t put them in my luggage ‘til about the last hour before I leave.  And I don’t let anyone do my packing for me because I don’t want to lie to the customs officer at the airport once he asks me as to who did my packing.  It is one of my small contributions to tightened airport security post-9/11 – to be fully aware and accountable for whatever goes in my bags.”

This will be quite a challenging read. It's highly technical. And quite thick! Look at that spine.

 

Copyright © 2009 by eNTeNG  c”,)™©’s  MuchTime™©.  All rights reserved.

 

Harry highly recommends

John Grisham's "The Partner" sits atop other distinguished works.

I’VE BEEN devouring John Grisham novels one after another.  When Harry Stamper realized this, not only did he wonder if I had already seen the season 3 premiere of The Big Bang Theory but he also – and more importantly – made a recommendation.

So I scoured the city, from National Bookstore to anywhere and everywhere they sell second hand.  Fortunately, I found the book at a Booksale outlet.  This copy lacks the dust jacket but for the price I paid for it – just under 200 pesos – it was quite a steal.  Funny that it is only now that I’m sort of rediscovering John Grisham and not when I had two complete sets – all hardbound – resting on the shelf.  Back then the spines just looked so pretty to stare at – from “A Time To Kill” all the way to the “King of Torts”.  I’ve since given those away.

Title page of "The Partner"

As with other John Grishams I finished in one sitting, I’m finding when best to crack this open, lest I wreak havoc with my schedule.

 

Copyright © 2009 by eNTeNG  c”,)™©’s  MuchTime™©.  All rights reserved.

Fully booked

Books I intend to read again. I got all these second hand, except for "A Beautiful Mind" by Sylvia Nasar which I got at Borders.

MERRIAM-WEBSTER – the dictionary you hold in your hands, not today’s online incarnation – got me started to reading.  I mean really read.  Not recite the alphabet or count to ten.  That had already been taken care of by the time I realized I could bury myself deep in thought – with full concentration – in a book.  (By virtue of being a physical object consisting of a number of pages bound together, a dictionary is a book.)  This Merriam-Webster I’m referring to was my grandmother’s.  It was a very old copy and by that time in the 80’s when I would sit at the dining table going through it word through word, the spine had already given way.

I miss having all the time in the world to lose myself in a book, totally unmindful of the hours.  But there just seems to be not enough time lately.  I would keep on failing “finding” the time.  Then it occurred to me that the reason why I couldn’t find it was because I needed to “create” it in the first place.  So I’ve resolved to “make” the time – against “find” the time – to read.  Again.

Over the very very busy weekend, I went through my books and picked out some that I will read again.  Like the ones on the photo here, I got most of my beloved books at weekend community book sales in the States – save for “A Beautiful Mind” by Sylvia Nasar which I got at full price at Borders.  The screen play of “The English Patient” is one of two I have (the other being “Shakespeare In Love”).  I haven’t read quite that many autobiographical work but I’ll go out on a limb to say that Katharine Graham’s “Personal History” could be one of the best.

That doorstopper of a book – "Personal History" – is the autobiography of Katharine Graham, the heiress to the Washington Post fortune.

The first step I’m taking is get these books out of one of the small cabinets I have, stack them on one of the shelves of my study table, and hopefully reach out for them and read.

 

Copyright © 2009 by eNTeNG  c”,)™©’s  MuchTime™©.  All rights reserved.

The street lawyer summons the client

Eva Green and THE Kate Winslet by three John Grishams – The Summons, The Client, and The Street Lawyer

I KNEW I had much too much of John Grisham when I woke up from a dream all worked up about the cover art of The Street Lawyer.  I vividly recall standing my ground against a book publishing executive about changing the cover to one that shows a pair of well-worn Nike trainers.  That, or a pair of dull, well-aged loafers.  But then I realized it would end up looking very much like The Time Traveler’s Wife’s.  Then I snapped out of my dream.

Within one week, I finished three John Grishams – The Summons, The Client, and The Street Lawyer.  In that order.

They’re not exactly The Great Gatsby.  But John Grisham’s narrative is clear, simple, almost clean.  I didn’t feel the need to reach out for a thesaurus.  But his work – sans the out-of-this-world vocabulary – didn’t fail to captivate my interest, making me totally unmindful of the hours (reference to Michael Cunningham’s novel-turned-Stephen Daldry film is totally conincidental).  Even in straightforward uncomplicated prose, he managed to make me turn the pages a mile a minute.

I’ve always loved The Client – mostly because of Susan Sarandon’s brilliant portrayal of Reggie Love in the film version, in yet one of her Oscar-worthy turns on the way to her win for Dead Man Walking.

The Summons was good.  But after I turned the last page and closed the back cover, I felt it was lacking – especially since it is the work of someone who has churned out A Time To Kill, The Firm, and The Pelican Brief years ahead.  I felt The Summons to be a less-than-stellar effort – but something that made me move from chapter to chapter barely able to put it down.  I read this within the space of 24 hours. Somehow, I summoned the courage to keep on reading.

The Street Lawyer has the most socially relevant theme among these three I read in succession.  In a frantic pace within 32 days, the lead protagonist Michael Brock transforms from an elitist on the fast-track to becoming partner at a top law firm to becoming the champion of the homeless.  This was the book I had in my hands when typhoon Ondoy hit.  I got stalled at page 51.  But when I resumed, I surged full steam ahead.  I felt John Grisham preaching to me about how much the government and society have neglected those who need them the most.  Made me wonder just how much we are really attending to those grossly disadvantaged by the raging waters of Ondoy.

Quite obviously, I favor this passage from The Summons. (The Street Lawyer has a lot of moments punctuated by food references.)

Food for thought and tummy

BLAME IT on Batman’s recommendation Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.  The reading bug has bit me again.  And real hard this time.

Batman’s got another recommendation for me.  This one’s called Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster by Dana Thomas.  We didn’t see a copy though when we checked out Powerbooks Shangri-La Plaza Mall the last time.

I take down notes on my journal to put a plan in place. This time, read these books!

Friendship is another friend who just made a pitch for one book that has taken her fancy.  I suspect it to run along the same lines as Batman’s based solely on the title – Bringing Home The Birkin by Michael Tonello.

I took them down on my journal.  I’m sure to hunt for them the next time I’m in thebookstore.  While I don’t have them yet, I’m raiding my years-long stock.  For tonight, I pulled out a decades-old novel, John Grisham’s The Street Lawyer.

Before I hit the sack, I raided the refrigerator for some munchies.  That’s when I remembered that my brother brought home for me a large serving of deep-fried jumbo shrimp and french fries from Burgoo.  I don’t know exactly how the dish is called – Surf ‘n Fries?  But I do expect to be overwhelmed by oleaginous seafood as the shrimps were obviously dipped in batter before being deep-fried.

Burgoo Jumbo Shrimp & Fries

The coating is very light and airy even after being nuked in the microwave for about eight seconds.  It’s the first thing I’m nibbling on and I’m getting a slathering of grease on my lips.  But it’s not overwhelmingly oily.  Just a tad.  For take-out, the jumbo shrimps have surprisinly remained tender.  I half-expected to end up fighting with really rubbery seafood.  It’s good to be proven wrong sometimes.  The french fries of course are as french fries could get.

More of the fries this time.

I’m licking my fingers free of the intoxicating oil as I use my other hand to flip open John Grisham.

Jumbo shrimps all in a row!

And I thought I knew what it meant to be a success

I KNEW Batman got me in trouble when he decided to gift me with a book.  I cracked it open in the evening and before I knew it, I had finished just when the sun’s rays had pierced through the morning cloud.

Devoured in one sitting – Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone.  The Da Vinci Code.  Star.  The Runaway Jury.  Jurassic Park.  The Third Wave.  Tuesdays with Morrie.  Skipping Christmas.  The King of Torts.  The Alchemist.  The Greatest Salesman in the World.  These are the books I devoured in just one sitting – literally from dusk till dawn.

Oh, and count in all the Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and Bobbsey Twins on the shelves of the Mapúa Pre-Engineering Technological High School library.  I read each of those in just one sitting – every single time.

And now, Outliers:  The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell, the book that Batman surprised me with when we had our Pepper Lunch dinner last Monday night, is added to this list.

I have to admit that Outliers brought to the surface a lot of my own views about success that have – quite apparently – remained deep-seated in some compartment in my brain…  way at the back where they don’t get called out often enough.

And I thought a lot of one’s success highly depends – hinges – on one’s individual merits.

Oh, I so love the chapter on plane crashes (I’m still so afraid to fly)!  So, to get a good look at what led to actual plane crashes is such an eye-opener.  I cringe and want to go back in time to undo them.

And because of this book, I’m now more convinced about my choice for the 2010 presidential elections.

Thanks, Batman!  I’m so looking forward to the next book you are going to make me read!  But bear in mind, I wouldn’t mind to be surprised too with one of those wristwatches we checked out at Rafael’s.  Hahaha!

More on my current book selections on next posts.