Reading something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue
With the two long weekends coming up, I’ve been lining up my Halloween reads to count down to the end of this frightful month, when I can finally read without interruptions.
I’ll start you off with a couple new offerings that come right in time for the season, Tahanan Books’ not-so-scary Ma-Me-Mi-Mumu! by Jomike Tejido, and All & Sundry’s hair-raising Kaba: 50 Maikling Kuwento ng Kababalaghan at Katatakutan!!! by Yvette Tan, illustrated by Nelz Yumul.
Last month I attended the launch of Anvil Publishing’s new book, Connecting Flights: Filipinos Write from Elsewhere edited by journalist and author Ruel S. De Vera. I reviewed it for a travel magazine together with some other travel-related books — I’ll have to check if the issue is out already.
Connecting Flights is a companion to Writing Home: 19 Writers Remember Their Hometowns, also by De Vera. It’s a collection of poems, essays, and fiction by 20 contributors, including Dean Francis Alfar, Jose Dalisay Jr., Lourd De Veyra, Karla P. Delgado, Rosario A. Garcellano, Ramil Digal Gulle, Christina Pantoja-Hidalgo, Alya B. Honasan, Marne L. Kilates, Angelo R. Lacuesta, Ambeth R. Ocampo, Charlson Ong, Manuel L. Quezon III, D.M. Reyes, Sev Sarmenta, Alice M. Sun-Cua, Yvette Tan, Joel M. Toledo, Alfred A. Yuson, and Jessica Zafra.
“These dizzying days, we constantly move from home to in-between places before landing somewhere else,” De Vera notes in his introduction. “But I believe that we Filipinos bring our true selves along with us on every leg of every journey. We leave with it — and we treasure it enough to take it home, changed perhaps, but always overjoyed to have returned.”
