Book fair at MOA.

At any given moment, it's just either I'm incurably curious or I don't give a shit. Now books and malls are two universes apart in my spectrum of interests. I can spend my entire life locked up in a library, but I'd go bonkers if you lock me up in a shopping mall. Friday just happened to be a convergence of these two extremities. I materialized in a book fair inside a mall.

Mall of Asia was packed with so many people you'd think the rockstar Jesus was having a free concert. The illusion of a three-day sale is that you pay less for the things you don't really need. But you buy them anyway because you think it's a good deal. The word "sale" is just part of a catch phrase predatory corporations use to trap their prey. A mousetrap with bits of rotten cheese. A psychological manipulation. They're the brains us zombies are programmed to feed on.

All those shit inside malls, they're either the stuff we want or the stuff we're trained to want.

I've been avoiding adverts forever. I haven't seen a TV commercial in ages; I don't watch TV. I haven't seen a single cyber-advert. (Thanks to Firefox's AdBlock plugin.) Inside jeepneys and buses and train rides, I read books instead of looking out the window. Corporate motherfuckers have been screaming at me to buy their shit that I've created my own little universe cramped inside my skull.

It just gets fucking annoying. You don't know it but everyday you subconsciously filter in an average of one thousand ads.

Two thousand years ago Homer and Virgil wrote epics they thought the gods whispered to them.

Two thousand years later we see an anti-dandruff shampoo on TV and we rush out to buy. Today this is what passes for free will.

Why we're all suckers for shopping malls is particularly why I avoid adverts. We're all hypnotized into wanting all the wrong things without even knowing it.

Now books, they're a different mofongo altogether. Reading defies all boundaries, liberates the mind, and generates creative and original thought. Reading is the best antidote against this marshland of boredom and vacuity. Reading is the supreme experience of living. The more I read the more I think the more I feel alive.

Humdaboogerdum.:p

But books inside a shopping mall, I'd be intensely curious and intensely disinterested at the same time they cancel each other out.

Buddies at UPWC.

Nevertheless I sauntered to the book fair in the mall with two girls (Yes, I hate girls and stupid girls in particular but this is an exception.:p) whom I share my passion for reading with. And would you believe it, half the books sold were strictly religious, strictly catholic, and strictly fucking pathetic. Them spiritual book stalls, they're infested with the same people who are trained to want the same things. They're the aimless lost zombies of our nation. The people who think they want the things they're conditioned to want. The idiots who think life's lessons can be reduced into a simplified and generic self-help manual.

On the tarpaulins inside the mall they say they've slashed up to 75% off the original price. But if you look at the original price they're so inflated you'd think they've wedged gold bars inside.

But me, I'm a sucker for books. I melt at the sight of them. I want to liquefy and drain all the ink from their pages. So to put it briefly, I've been sold into buying books at the book fair inside the shopping mall.

I am a zombie. But I am a zombie breaking borders, not building them.:p

Blabbityblah.

I'm saving moolalalah for a Mt. Apo expedition this coming semestral break. Mt. Apo, the highest peak in the country.:o But I don't know--I still don't get the logic behind mountaineering. It sounds like we all have the chutzpah and feel like we need to prove it. But really, I don't want to prove anyone anything. Why I'd spend ten grand on some stupid hiking experience, I haven't the haziest idea.

Or maybe, I'm simply a fool for nature. Maybe I'm vomity sick of the city. I don't know.

Books and toys for sale! For people around QC anyway. Just clearing some disposable shite off my shelves. I'm keeping my fav books though.:D I can sell them wholesale like I used to but I'm planning to set up a bookstore (yung may inuman at kapehan at malupet na sound system tulad ng Anthology Bar. hehe) when I graduate.:p

Contact Info

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or just comment here.

Fiction

• Douglas Adams - Life, the Universe, and Everything - P120 Sold.
• Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - P150 Sold.
• Douglas Adams - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - P120 Sold.
• Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice - P150
• Celia Ahern - PS, I Love You - P150 Sold.
• Richard Bach - The Bridge Across Forever - P120 Sold.
• Lilian Jackson Braun - The Cat Who Lived High - P150
• Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange - P50 Sold.
• Candace Bushnell - 4 Blonds - P150
• Candace Bushnell - Sex and the City - P150 (Holy shit.) Sold.
• Charles Bukowski - Post Office - P300
• A.S. Byatt - Possession - P200
• Castiglione - The Book Of The Covtier - P150
• Arlene Chai - Eating Fire And Drinking Water - P100
• Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist - P150 Sold.
• Michael Crichton - Next - P250
• Jose Dalisay - Selected Stories - P100
• Jose Dalisay - Soledad's Sister - P150
• Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov - P400
• Umberto Eco - The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana - P1000 (hardbound with pictures)
• Laura Esquirel - Like Water For Chocolate - P100 Reserved for Jev.
• Jostein Gaarder - Sophie's World - P250
• Julie Garwood - Honor's Splendour - P100
• Noah Gordon - The Last Jew - P120
• Jessica Hagedorn - Dogeaters - P300
• Edith Hamilton - Greek Mythology - P120
• John Twelve Hawks - The Traveler - P250
• Oscar Hijuelos - Empress of the Splendid Season - P150
• Victor Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - P150
• Anna Ishikawa - Glamour Games - P100 (A school requirement I never read.)
• John Irving - The Fourth Hand - P200
• Jerry Jenkins - Left Behind - P200
• Franz Kafka - The Metamorphosis - P100
• Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle In Time - P120
• Robert Ludlum - The Born Ultimatum - P100
• Robert Ludlum - Traveyne - P100
• Wally Lamb - She's Come Undone - P100
• Janna Levin - A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines - P400
• Og Mandino - The Greatest Mystery in the World - P120
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude - P120 Sold.
• Ian McEwan - Atonement - P200
• Sarah Mlynowski - Fishbowl - P150
• Toni Morrison - Beloved - P120
• Farnoosh Moshiri - Against Gravity - P150
• Haruki Murakami - South of the Border, West of the Sun - P200 Sold.
• Kathleen O'Reilly - The Diva's Guide to Selling Your Soul - P120
• George Orwell - Animal Farm - P150
• Frank Peretti - Prophet - P120
• Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar - P120
• Terry Prachett - The Color Of Magic - P200
• Lily Prior - Nectar - P150
• Ayn Rand - Anthem - P100
• Pauline Reage - The Story of O - P180
• Anne Rice - Beauty's Release - P150
• Anne Rice - Christ The Lord - P200
• Anne Rice - Taltos - P120
• Anne Rice - The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty - P150
• Ivana B. Rich - The Gold Digger's Guide: How to Marry the Man and the Money - P120 (Oh shit!)
• J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter 4, 5, 6 - P250 each
• J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter 5 - P500 (hardbound)
• J.D. Salinger - Nine Stories - P100
• J.D. Salinger - Raise High The Roof Beams, Carpenters and Seymour - P100
• Lawrence Sanders - McNally's Risk - P100
• Mary Shelley - Frankenstein - P120
• Deborah Skelly - The Misadventures Of Maria O'Mara - P120
• Sophocles - The Oedipus Cycle - P150
• Sister Souljah - The Coldest Winter Ever - P120
• Daniel Steel - Mixed Blessings - P100
• Patrick Suskind - Perfume - P150
• Amy Tan - The Hundred Secret Senses - P150
• Donna Tart - The Secret History - P150
• Studs Terkel - Working - P150
• Jeanette Winterson - Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit - P300
• James Wolcott - The Catsitters - P150 (hardbound)
• Virgil - Aeneid - P120

Nonfiction

• Ted Andrews - Uncover Your Past Lives - P150 (I used to believe in Buddhism.:o)
• Richard Bach - Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah - P120
• Jeremy Campbell - The Liar's Tale: A History Of Falsehood - P600
• Jose Dalisay - The Knowing Is In The Writing - P100
• Thomas Davis - Philosophy: An Introduction Through Original Fiction, Discussion, And Readings - P150
• K. Sri Dhammananda - Meditation: The Only Way - P100
• Kitty Ferguson - Stephen Hawking: Quest For The Theory Of Everything - P150
• Edward Gibbon - The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - P150
• Walter Gibson - The Key to Yoga - P100
• James Gleick - Genius: Richard Feynman snd Modern Physics - P500 Sold.
• Stephen Jay Gould - Ever Since Darwin - P150
• Mardy Grothe - Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit and Wisdom from History's Greatest Wordsmiths - P400 (hardbound)
• Edit Hamilton - The Greek Way - P100
• Mel Helitzer - Comedy Writing Secrets: the best-selling book on how to think funny, write funny, act funny, and get paid for it - P500
• James Kakalios - The Physics of Superheroes - P300
• Michio Kaku - Parallel Worlds - P500 Sold.
• Jenny King - Success In Writing School Papers - P100
• Kim Krisco - Leadership and the Art of Conversation - P250
• Sybil Leek - Telepathy - P100 (Holy macaroni!)
• Lucretus - On The Nature of the Universe - P120
• John Maxwell - The 21 Indispensable Qualities Of A Leader - P100 (Holy fuckery, self-help.)
• John-Roger and Peter McWilliams - Life 101: Everything We Wish We Had Learned About Life In School -- But Didn't - P180 Reserved for Jev.
• Mensa - The IQ Challenge - P120
• Desmond Morris - The Naked Ape - P80
• Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good & Evil - P300
• Anthony Pietropinto & Jacqueline Simenauer - Beyond The Male Myth: What Women Want To Know About Men's Sexuality - P150
• Robert Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - P150
• Flora Rheta Schreiber - Sybil (the woman with 17 personalities) - P180
• David Sedaris - Dress Your Family In Corduroy And Denim - P200
• David Sedaris - Me Talk Pretty One Day - P150 Reserved for Dana.
• David Schwartz - The Magic of Thinking Big - P100
• Zecharia Sitchin - The Lost Realms - P180
• Zecharia Sitchin - The Stairway To Heaven - P180
• Zecharia Sitchin - The Wars of Gods And Men - P180
• Lewis Thomas - The Lives of a Cell - P120

Anthologies/Collections

• The Age Of Analysis - P120
• The New York Times Book of Science Literacy: What Everyone Needs to Know from Newton to the Knuckleball - P150
• The World Treasury of Science Fiction - P150

Toys

• Rubik's Cube 2×2×2 - P200
• Rubik's Cube 3×3×3 - P400
• Rubik's Cube 4×4×4 - P500
• Rubik's Cube 5×5×5 - P600
• Rubik's Mirror Blocks - P600
• 4 Wooden Puzzles - P100 to 200 each

I dunno who made this silly list but I just copy-pasted it off a friend's journal. It's a rough list but whatever, I'm bored.XP

Instructions:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.

Them Silly List of Books

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (Now where did I place my copy?)
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (Just The Fellowship of the Ring. Horribly tormenting read.)
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (My emotional apocalypse, this I ABHOR, but was required in literature class.)
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (Har! I've read them alls!XD)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (In my shelf. Had started reading it but the blah tone puts me off.)
6. The Bible (For its mythology. I particularly like the Old Testament, specifically The Book of Wisdom, where a Goddess creates the universe with God.:P)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (I hates them Brontes.)
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (My #1 book of all time! The rest of my fav books follows from thee.:P)
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (Far better off than all them three LOTRs combined, really.)
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (And his two other books of fiction.:P)
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Why isn't The Brothers Karamazov in this list??)
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (This author eludes me.)
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (Seen the film.)
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (Seen the film.)
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (Seen the film.)
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Before the media picked it up, it was notorious. Now it's just blah pop culture. Thankyouveryfuckingmuch, Ron Howard. Not that I like the book, understand.)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (I've been looking for this forever!XP)
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (Read it when I was 11.)
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (Read it when I was 11.)
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce (Can't effin finishet.)
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (WTF is this doing here?? I hate this author but I've read all his books. Harhar!XD)
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupéry
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (Seen the film.)
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (Seen the film.)

Summary: I've read 23 books in this list (not bad.:P), loved 4, and intend to read 21.

So effing huwhaaat.XP

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