of books and reading and such

It's no mystery that I'm a sucker for fiction books. I'm even building my own library at home (but only for fiction). I really don't care much for other kinds of books except when I have to (sad!).

(my boredom survival kit ====>)

In our family I'm the only one who actually loves to read. My sisters read occasionally. Ev has finished a very few novels, the really exciting and interesting ones (like Angels and Demons by Dan Brown) but she writes more than reads. El, on the other hand, only reads when I force her to like when I literally forced her to read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (which for me doesn't really count as novel coz it's very short) coz I know she's gonna like it. She loved it! But I think that was the only book she finished. And my parents? Well, they even let us read their text messages for them let alone books. I always campaign to them the best ones in my collection, giving them my reviews, but my efforts are mostly in vain.

My love for books was my parents' fault actually(they don't know that) even if they don't read themselves because a book is the first ever treasure toy that I can remember. That book was a big blue book of comics-like stories from the Bible. The cover was that of what looks like Jesus and some children surrounding Him as if He's telling them stories. I brought that book everywhere and I've memorized all the stories, which my parents told while we look at the pictures. I can still picture in my mind the pages of that book. Sadly, it was ruined by the flood that destroyed most of our things in the night of October 23, 1989.

When I was in grade school, our English books have these very shorts stories that we have to read and answer the questions that follow. That was the only part of English that I like (as I hated grammar). My reading actually became a hobby when I was in Grade 5, when I discovered some books in the library that were collections of short stories that were very interesting even without pictures in them (they were about gnomes and dwarfs). Since then I read for pleasure (not just because I have to). When I stepped in high school and discovered that the high school library has a very wide fiction books collection, I was in heaven. Most of them were them were series like Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Bobsey Twins, Sweet Valley, etc. The thing about these serieses is that you can't read one and not read the rest. So before I finished my first year I have consumed 2 library cards already, but everything in there was fiction. Our high school curriculum was great because we had Literature in every year level (which was aside from English).

As to genre, I don't really care much about it. I basically read anything as long as the author has some serious (imba) writing skills. I enjoy a lot of classics like Dickens, Twain, Hardy, Austen, etc. But most of my collection are of "modern" authors. Some of my favorites are Anne Tyler, Michael Cunningham, John Irving, Paulo Coelho and John Grisham. I also want to start a Philippine short stories in English collection. I love short stories by famous Filipino authors like Nick Joaquin, NVM Gonzales, Jose Garcia Villa, etc. I got introduced to their works in my freshman year in high school. I was an amature at grasping fiction elements (like theme, plot, tone, etc.) back then making me not understand anything of what I read. This got me to read some more and also ask help from the teacher until I finally begin to understand. I came to actually love reading assignments (but I still wasn't a fan of writing about them). Now, thanks to the Interwebz, I can enjoy many of the Filipino short stories that I loved and missed. But I still want a hardcopy.

If you can't relate to this post because, like many, you're not a fan of reading but you want to start now, then I suggest you begin with short stories. The serious ones are only 5 to 10 pages long (unlike a novel, which is 300-1000). They are long enough to be taken seriously but short enough not to get you bored.

* Wow. I realized this is my 200th post. Yey!