30 Books Everyone Should Read Before Their 30th Birthday

I have just read 2 from this list.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Search about this book and good reviews are here and there. It would cause you to be curious and eventually would want to read about Stieg Larsson’s said-to-be masterpiece. It was also adapted into a movie that garnered good reviews both in IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.

More than a year ago, I have been drawn to read this book not by anyone but by this book’s title when I chanced upon it inside a bookstore. I only got hold of it late last year, and began reading it last Friday. I would not deny the fact that I was still enthralled by this book despite the lack of depth and the blunt style of writing. It was rather easy to read and turning the pages is not hard to do, which in my case is usually caused by my average comprehension skills. Maybe it’s just my Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys childhood that the plot seemed predictable. I wasn’t amazed nor amused by any supposed-to-be revelation. But I have to give it credit for the character Lisbeth Salander. I’m just into mystery-loving, specifically female, characters. Add the wallflowery image of her.

But unlike the harsh bashers of this book, I don’t think I wasted my time reading it.

Spent the last hour covering these books which I have acquired the past year. One goal for 2012 is to read more and get out of the usual zone of the books that I read. I’m planning to invest on a big bookshelf the coming year.

a-ladys-findings:

DATE A GIRL WHO READS

by Rosemarie Urquico
(In response to Charles Warnke’s You Should Date an Illiterate Girl)

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Date a girl who reads. Date me. Haha!

Appreciated the book even MORE the second time I read it. Brilliant!

current read…

The books I bought yesterday at OMF Bookstore SALE!

Out of Your Comfort Zone (Is Your God Too Nice) by R.T. Kendall.

—My current read. If I could relate one word with this book, I choose the word SAPUL.

p.s. I wanna finish this book fast as I have bought another book just today. Yay! Back to reading.

The last time I went to Passion Manila (2008), I was still a student and when I was about to buy a Passion WT 2008 shirt, I was unlucky that it was sold out.

Now that I’ve got another chance, I bought Passion World Tour 2010 shirt then bought Passion Awakening album and bought the Awakening photo book which I have been dying to own since Feb 2009.

Yay for earning my own money this time around!!

I decided to reread PDL and not just read it but ‘study’ it. Who knows I might talk in front of our youth someday. Oh and this time, I’ll do it slowly and not read as much as I can in one day.

I stayed a good 2 hours inside Powerbooks ATC yesterday. And apart from the magazines I’ve browsed, 2 books caught my attention:

(1) Nvm my bipolar nail colors, if I have extra money, I would like to buy this just to have a book-checklist. XD

(2) Yes, ‘national bestseller’. I didn’t read it. It just caught my attention. >__>

I just remembered a conversation about being a bitch with Berna 2 weeks ago.