The first book I remember holding was:
A Reading textbook, featuring ‘Bantay’ the dog.

I think I was about 4 years old at that time, too young to be in school, at least by that era’s standards. I was tagging along my older cousins, who were in Grade 1 at the local public school in Southern Leyte.

The teacher gave me my own scratchy wooden desk to sit on, and lent me a worn-out copy of the book. The 7-year-olds in the class were reading aloud from the text in a singsong manner:

I didn’t understand the letters and words, but I enjoyed looking at the pictures and hearing the chant-like chorus. It was wonderful. It was the first day of my lifetime love affair with books.

***
The books I almost broke a leg for were:
My cousin’s classic Disney books

My cousin’s parents were both English teachers and owned this huge collection of what to me were beautifully-illustrated Disney books featuring endless stories about Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Donald Duck, and company. My cousin lived 2 houses away at that time, and on long summer days she and her sisters would come over to our house to watch TV, and afterwards I would go over to their house to read the books.

Those big, heavy books were placed in a high shelf over their living room sofa. I suspect it was because my cousins hardly read them and they were just there mostly for decorative purposes. One day when I came over the adults were too busy too help me, so I decided to climb up the window to get to the shelf on my own. As I was holding on to the volume on Mickey the Magician, I lost my footing and slipped. Thankfully I did not fall too hard on the bamboo-slat floor. My aunt and uncle were mortified, but I didn’t even cry, and proceeded to read as if nothing happened.

***
The book that ushered me into ‘adult’ book reading was:
“Master of the Game” by Sidney Sheldon

I was 12. The standard reading fare for my age, I was made to understand by friends, was ‘Sweet Dreams’ and ‘Sweet Valley High’. That summer I was back vacationing in Leyte when I saw my aunt with a book whose cover photo was a diamond dripping with blood. My mom saw me eyeing it and expressely forbade me to read it. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that exactly because of that admonition, I snuck out of our house every day between noon and dinner that summer, hid in my aunt’s 2nd floor living room, and relished each forbidden page.

That year I read four other Sidney Sheldon books and not one ‘Sweet Dreams’ (although I would ‘discover’ these later, at 15).

***
The book I was politely but firmly asked to stop carrying around in College was:
The Holy Bible

I was a young, passionate Christian, and added a weighty full-sized Bible to the load I carried in my bag, already heavy with huge Nursing books. Some of my friends and I would chat after lunch, and would at times get to opening our Bibles to one page or another. Sometimes, other friends and classmates would come over, and we would have friendly, and often spirited, impromptu discussions about Christianity and other matters.

I didn’t know this had reached our Dean’s ears, until I was summoned to her office and very politely but very firmly asked to stop ‘carrying a huge Bible and proselytizing’. To honor my dean’s request, I bought a palm-sized Bible that same week. But the discussions continued, I guess because people didn’t want stop discussing Christianity just because I carried a smaller Bible.

***
The book that changed the way I looked at comic books was:
“The Sandman” by Neil Gaiman

A few months after I arrived in Manila to work, one of my officemates, JB, found out that I was ‘into’ comic books…that is, I used to read X-Men and could tell who was Cyclops and who was Wolverine at a glance, and didn’t have to have the premise explained to me at length (this was before X-Men the movie came out). (I’ve also read a number of classic literature in comic book format, but this is another story).

JB then raved about ‘Sandman’, and over the next few weeks brought me his copies of this epic story. I am eternally grateful to him for this because a) I think Sandman is one of the best stories ever written in graphic or any other format, and has some of the most memorable, well-developed, and complex characters in any story I could think of, and b) it was one of the topics I could talk about with Markie when I first met him, because, well, Markie is ‘into’ comic books and graphic novels too.

***
The book I’ve read more than 3 times (and could read over and over again) is:
“Foucault’s Pendulum” by Umberto Eco

My next-cubicle neighbor at Summit, Kat, lent me her copy of Foucault’s Pendulum, and I fell in love with Eco’s words and worlds. The couple of weeks I spent reading this book was the only time I ever holed up for a long time in my then-apartment in Pioneer, not caring that I had neither TV set nor phone (landline).

There is something about Umberto Eco’s writing, and especially about Foucault’s Pendulum, that I find immensely enjoyable. Whenever I start to read this book I find myself totally immersed in it. The words that Eco uses are not easy words. The allusions he uses are numerous and varied, and could be obscure at times. I’m not sure if “fun” is a word that other people use to describe Eco’s books, but that is exactly what I experience when when I read Foucault’s Pendulum.

***
The books currently on my night-stand are:

1. Quicksilver and The Confusion by Neal Stephenson
2. Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman
3. The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
4. Dancer by Colum McCann

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QUICK QUESTION: What are the books of YOUR life?

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