Book Twist October 2008
November 07, 2008
The Silmarillion



Do you remember the giant spider that lost his Frodo Meal to the orcs? Tolkien didn’t just throw in that character into the trilogy for suspense effect. Darn web spinner is an offspring of Ungolianth who together with Morgoth stole the silmarils from the guardianship of the Valars. The salvaging of the robbed jewels is what this Genesis to the masterpiece The Lord of the Rings is all about.

Tolkien’s The Silmarillion presents the mythological beginnings of what would eventually be dubbed Middle-earth and briefly tackled the forging of the one ring and its destruction at the fiery pits of Mt. Doom.

[He then proceeded to expound the ring part into a three-part story (The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), The Two Towers (1954), and The Return of the King (1955)) which, with the help of an Orlando Bloom bookmark, took me three months to read.]

As for the twist part, I bought my copy from a second hand shop and it is a rather curious one with its pages sprayed of ancient stains that CSI NY (not SOCO ha) would certainly take interest on. I mean, it is a very good read except for the millions of similar sounding names.

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posted by Bryan Anthony the First at 11/07/2008 | 20 comments

Book Twist September Part 2
October 13, 2008
Ads on the side


write about poverty on October 15, 2008

there

going back





Chasing Harry Winston

by Lauren Weisberger


First two pages and I was thinking Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda but to be fair with Ms. Weisberger, tales of witty well-heeled New Yorkers running the rounds of career, romance and love post-Sex and the City are easily put into pigeonholes. Then again, benchmarks aren't excuses.


I arrived at the last pages of my copy hoping that the good half of the novel was torn away by the housekeeper. Nobody got fired and I'm done hoping.


Really, the only chase here is me hunting for a plot.


The Call of the Wild

by Jack London


The Secret Garden

by Frances Hodgson Burnett


It's impertence to give my take on these classics. For one thing, you couldn't go wrong with them. If anything I should chastise myself for being soooo late with these reads. Hmmm... how about:


1. cutting down on porn

2. watching jyesebel

3. listening to Bea Alonzo's album






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posted by Bryan Anthony the First at 10/13/2008 | 10 comments

Book Twist: May-September 2008
September 15, 2008
I haven’t done this for a while so here we are with a pile.





Finally, I’m done with the Dan Brown quartet. “Angels & Demons” remains my favorite (and we should watch out for it on the big screen) while I was deceived in spending my dollars on the ultra predictable and mega boring “Deception Point”. “Digital Fortress” is strongly recommended!

My fetish for Ivy leaguers (I almost dated one) rouses the more after “Eaters of the Dead”. There’s something about Harvard summa cum laude Michael Chichton’s story telling that makes you want to be at the very heart of his yarns—even at his cannibal-infested 10th century Scandanavia.

I did not exactly not graduated with honors but I struggled with Marquez’s Nobel Prize winning “Hundred Years of Solitude”. Combing through the repetitive bequeathed names, I almost forgot mine. I don’t think I am out of my league here, but I’ll stick to lighter reads.



The “500 People You Meet In Hell” is not funny. The only un-funny Jessica Zafra I’ve read. But of course, there’s no hating on our rimmed-spectacled blog guru.

I assume you expect me to love Kitty Go’s “When Chic Hits the Fan”. And you are darn right queridas! I decided that if I never get the chance to replace Anna Wintour or be the next Chelsea Handler… I don’t mind being the gay Kitty Go. Kitty Went sounds vindictive enough.

Read any Suze Orman book! Period.



From the pile, Winston Groom’s Forrest Gump is my top read. I’ve seen the movie a couple of times but my experience with the novel is a marvelous thing. From page to page I savored the spontaneity I seldom see work on my own life. Plus I wondered at one point…that maybe at core we are all idiots…

…

Nah! Most certainly not! But I’m sure all of my ex’s are—from core to toe!

Woof!

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posted by Bryan Anthony the First at 9/15/2008 | 26 comments

Funny Ellen
April 14, 2008

I'm probably one of the last Ellen fan to read this:




I found it at an ukayan here in Port Moresby. What's that I said, I ukay? Naman.

"If you are a person who has chosen not to have sex, you're not a celebrity--you're a celibate. Now I'm sure there are may benefits to being celibate, though the only two that spring to my mind are: one, you probably become better at other things, like, for instance the Jumble or remembering Star Trek trivia; and two, I would imagine you don't have to change your sheets quite so often."



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posted by Bryan Anthony the First at 4/14/2008 | 8 comments

My First Bob Ong: Ang Paboritong Libro ni Hudas
February 04, 2008

He is not funny. He is a moralist incognito.

His way of telling stories has the charm reminiscent of the quintessential high school alpha male who thrives in annoying pretty girls.

I like his mini-book. I guess Melanie Marquez knows what she was talking about after all. About not judging people as they are not books.






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posted by Bryan Anthony the First at 2/04/2008 | 10 comments

Hey, Joe
December 04, 2007

Unlike Vancouver and Sydney, Manila has yet to make it to the Worlds' Most Livable Cities list.

Although aesthetics which the Philippine capital is undoubtedly lacking of doesn't necessarily translate to livability, neither could Manila boast a functioning sewage system, a low crime rate, sufficient health facilities, or a reliable public transport facility.

Lacking both the sights and the insfrastructure of what it takes to be a 'livable' metropolis, what then is left to see if one takes a 'slice of the city'?

What's life like to the eleven million or so Manilenos?

In the true Ted Lerner way adventure scratches away Manila's un-pretty surface, in a similar way you scrape off the dull silver-gray film that conceals the recharge number of your prepaid card, to reveal a city that may not be deemed as livable by some snob list but a city that is actually living.


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posted by Bryan Anthony the First at 12/04/2007 | 15 comments

September 24, 2007
Book Twist June-August 2007


The allure of the outdoors on me is waning. The odd part is that I do not mind locking up myself in my apartment heavily contrasting my old lifestyle when the only chance you can keep me from the great alfresco is when it’s time to sleep and when I am in my room busy unpacking shopping bags.

Cutting down my terrestrial activities gives me time to catch up on my reading. As of late, I did most of my catching-up in the toilet where I used to waste my time musing on the day the Philippines once again wins the Miss Universe crown. Here are the five titles that kept my every fart, grunt and flush company over the past three months:

Shattered Icon
By Bill Napier

A waste of toilet daydreaming time where the only thing shattered here is the plot. It didn’t help either that my farts and turds have more dimension than the characters. Not worth telling about.



Memories of Midnight
By Sidney Sheldon



One of the pros of having a Virgo moment of excessive compulsiveness i.e. keeping your apartment as pristine as possible to the last dust, crease and askew-ness is stumbling into something wonderful like this Sheldon novel of illicit affairs, murders and vengeances.

The plot has a few miniscule leaks but if you share my frivolous fascination for an amalgam of scandal, sex and vindication then this novel is a handy toilet companion.

Note: This novel is the continuation of his 1973 best seller 'The Other Side of Midnight'.



Fat Land
By Greg Critser

Mr. Crister is funny and witty on the first five pages…only. Halfway through, I decided to read something else.


Veronica Decides to Die
By Paulo Coelho


It is not difficult to come into a decision and say: 'I want to die now.' or for a gayer version you say 'I want to die na, like now naaaaaaaaa!'.

Once too many, whenever I wallow over my sorrowful mysteries I often conclude my lamentations with a declaration of my desire to see the end of my mortal life but I always fall short of having the courage to even consider killing myself rendering me technically a non-suicidal. I can’t even cut a chicken's throat--I’m a coward.

There are several ways to take in this light read from Mr. Coelho. It is a fictional retell on his (Coelho) stint on an institution. It is a woman’s sojourn in her quest for self worth. It is a critique on the social and moral order of our time. For me it is thorny love story between Veronica and herself.


Lipstick Jungle
By: Candance Bushnell



It’s “Sex and the City” ten years after. Same New York and same fab-ness plus kids, disconcerting husbands, pending divorce, CEO issues, extra-marital affairs and all that post-"single and fabulous" stuff. A fun read of three aplomb women in an equally aplomb city dealing with life after they’ve done all the climbing and are already there.

Note: While Sex and the City’s success on primetime TV has been monumental, Lipstick Jungle will chance upon turning into a hit come January on NBC. Brooke Shields leads the main cast.

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posted by Bryan Anthony the First at 9/24/2007 | 14 comments

May 11, 2007
Book Twist- April 2007

For the simple reason of not wanting to write about the unentertaining wackiness the Filipino community gossips are I’ll share my thoughts about books that kept me company the month before. The thing is, this gig is not necessarily a book review or its ilk. Like what I’ve mentioned 18 words ago, I’ll share my thoughts about books that kept me company the month before.

I hope you’d still put up with another monthly thing.


1. We’ll Meet Again
By: Mary Higgins Clark

A blood-drenched wife with all the good reason to murder his philandering husband lost all her recollections at the time of the crime. But her finger prints were all over the place. After spending five years behind bars she began to vaguely recall that someone else was there when his husband was killed.

It’s always true that no matter how Chowking or your neighbor with dirty finger nails mixes your halo halo, every glass will always have crushed ice, milk and sugar. Similarly, every Mary Higgins Clarks I’ve read has a murder or two; a very unlikely but very circumstantially guilty suspect; a very likely but slightly circumstantially guilty suspect and my wrong guess. The rest are colorful fruits. Nevertheless this familiar halo halo is teeming with all the MHC skill I’ve come to love.

N.B.
Mother-of-two Kris Aquino claims that she’d read every single novel of Ms. Clark. If her fondness of the “Queen of Suspense” has nothing to do with the thrill she gets from trial run-ing men producing a Joshua, syphilis, and Yap Jr. as a result, then none of us is the wiser.

2. The Twist
By: Olivia Goldsmith


Murder is another way of dealing with a Casanova husband. A wife-mistress swap is another. Sylvie wants the old romance back; her look-alike Mistress Marla wants a husband. To pull it off the switcheroo that is, it helps that wife and the mistress can pass for as twins.

“The Twist” is another hilarious scuffle on the issues of monogamy and middle life crisis from the same writer who brought us “The First Wives Club”.

N.B.
Ms. Goldsmith has written 30.


3. Infamous Murderers
By: Rodney Castleden

I mistook the book to be biographies of slayers, butchers and killers. It turned out to be the kind of stuff for police academy freshmen. The writer tackled the merits of the crimes more than it probed on the personalities involved.

Mr. Castleden’s diligence in highlighting the flaws of these imperfect murders makes this a good read for those who plan to fool-proof their own.


11 May 2007

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posted by Bryan Anthony the First at 5/11/2007 | 10 comments

April 24, 2007
Disco Daddy

Losing a million-pound bet doesn’t make things any harsher when they’re at the bad side of a bargain over an inextensible moratorium on a decent midlife-dom. They’re forty-ish, they’re still single and their broodings—that decade of tardiness in moving to New York. The greenbacks challenge: they need to marry off before summer arrives.

Morag Prunty’s sex-and-the-city-ish take on Dublin’s single and fabulous in “Disco Daddy” worked much more than just a drugstore paperback that keeps me safely at bay from silly TFC shows.

I dialed home.

Transcripts, diplomas and CPA certificates will be flying to Australia.

Twenty was f**** eight years ago.

Things must be done and dealt with now.




24 April 2007

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posted by Bryan Anthony the First at 4/24/2007 | 3 comments

March 20, 2007
The Real Hero


David Frankel’s The Devil Wears Prada is tad of a version than it as an adaptation.

The book’s heroin is Andy but missed-out details stripped her off that role leaving Streep as the real hero. THE Meryl Streep alone is bound to cast shadow on both Andy’s heroin role and the message her character is suppose to send across.

In the last two chapters, during a fashion week in Paris, we’ll find Andy chew up and bark at Miranda to fuck herself—a trivial detail among other imperative fine points omitted in the movie that sets it in a different air.

The movie downplayed some sub plots which might have helped push the message that a “real” job and pedestrian clothing is fine to live by as long as you are happy. (Sell that to a generation who’d likely to honor Oscar dela Renta with a Nobel.)

Nonetheless, everyone seems to find both the book and the movie entertaining. Ditto! So I’m ok.

P.S.

Once-upon-a-time Anna Wintour assistant Lauren Weisberger should wiegh up the possibilities for a The Devil Wears Prada the Series one that would give Ugly Betty people a run for their money.

20 March 2007

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posted by Bryan Anthony the First at 3/20/2007 | 10 comments