Off to Baguio

We'll be taking the first flight to Manila tomorrow. I'm already so tired, yet I'm still here in front of the PC, saving episodes of A Tale of Two Cities from the BBC radio (I just can't resist the BBC's radio dramas). Yesterday we started our completion duty in the DR at St. Anthony's in Basak. Our shift was 6-2, but we extended till 9PM because there were two patients who were already in active labor. And today, we again reported at 6 AM. We assisted two deliveries plus a caesarean section. (I'm really relieved that I'm almost complete with the required number of DR cases, and I'm hopeful that before our last two-day duty on the 13th and 14th we'll all be complete with the requirements; though I feel guilty that the other half of our group will be left behind [they weren't able to join us]).

I'm still not certain what audiobook I should bring for the trip. I have Religious/Catholic lectures (which I've downloaded from Wordhaven.net -- a mind-blowing site with the sheer quantity and quality of its audio resources), a good thing to listen to for the Holy week. But what else? I'm thinking, I may want to listen to Pride and Prejudice again. Or this fascinating lecture - A Way With Words: Writing, Rhetoric, and the Art of Persuasion (A TMS course, which you can also find in that, again, awesome, awesome site, Wordhaven).

I'll bring along my copy of Signet Classic's The Complete C. S. Lewis. I bought it last week. Medyo mahal, pero it's actually already a bargain since it contains seven of C. S. Lewis' classic books on apologetics (the most popular being Mere Christianity). I've listened to an audiobook of the latter, but I didn't understand it at all. I'm blaming the reader. Something about his reading style that gets me (too "snobbish" sounding, and with a repetitive and bland tone; sort of like a robot with a human touch). If you buy each book separately, and it's hard to find copies of them in our bookstores here in Cebu, it will cost you a fortune because each book is priced for around 500-600 pesos. I think Mere Christianity is better read than listened to.

I much prefer stories than lectures. I have a very short attention span for lectures. Stories are much more interesting. So I'll probably go for stories. Or, more stories than lectures. Tolstoy?

A Man For All Seasons

I really love and enjoyed this book. I read it a long time ago, but I just listened to a BBC radio adaptation of it. Brilliant!

I think it's required reading for all the politicos out there who are running for office. Rare na lang kaayo these days ang mga taw nga nag-hold og some sort of political power nga unshakable ug integrity og faithful sa iyang conscience (and therefore to God's law). Thomas More is one man all politicians, statesmen, lawyers, civil servants, etc., can emulate. In fact, he is someone all of us should look up to as our role model. A man of great intellect, morality and character!

Norweigan Wood

I just finished Norweigan Wood. I feel so depressed. It's such a sad novel. I also find disturbing the, um, sex scenes. How can I say it? Lahi ra kaayo'g morality si Murakami with regards to sex. There's plenty of those in this novel. Probably why I've felt and continue to feel so sad... because the characters are so lost in their own brand of morality... Oh, if they can only discover/ realize that there's such a thing as objective truth or natural law, and that the Truth is actually a person...

I can't really say I like Murakami. Maybe my opinion of him will change after I listen to his other novels. Or probably not.

Murakami

I've been listening to The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami. The stories are sometimes funny, sometimes surreal, and often strange and weird... But I like the way he writes (Wait, is he even a "he"? This is my first Murakami audiobook, or book for that matter, so I don't know).

Rizal joins Dickens and Austen

Here's some really good news for Philippine literature: Penguin Classics publishes Rizal's 'Noli Me Tangere' (Touch Me Not).

PDI: Rizal joins ranks of Dickens, Austen

JOSE Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere” has been published in a new English translation and released worldwide by Penguin Books, one of the major publishing houses of the English-speaking world, under the Penguin Classics imprint. The publication effectively canonizes the novel as one of the classics of world literature.

Augenbraum said he stumbled upon Rizal’s novel in 1992 while compiling a bibliography of North American Latino fiction writers. He said he came across the name of National Artist N.V.M. Gonzalez whom he thought to be Latino. He went on to read Gonzalez and “loved it” and thereby got “introduced to a whole world of Filipino and Filipino-American literature, which I began to seek out here in the US.”

“The name of Rizal came up several times, so I read the ‘Noli,’ which fascinated me,” he said. “Then I read the ‘Fili,’ which also fascinated me. Then I read the Austin Coates biography, and Rizal himself became one of my heroes.”

Augenbraum said the “Noli” should be required reading in Asian-American courses in US universities “because it is the foundational novel of the nation, with large implications for the diaspora and its influence on other writers.”

Very exciting indeed.

About a week ago I also got excited by the idea of reading Rizal's books into a podcast (after I found out Project Gutenberg actually has them as etexts, including his essays). No one's doing it, as far as I know. Librivox reads all sorts of books from the public domain, most of which, if not all, are great works of literature. But no one's doing classic Philippine literature. No one's doing Rizal's books.

I still have much, much, much to improve on my reading, particularly my fluency and pronounciation of the English words. But with practice, I believe I can eventually arrive at a reading that is at least understandable hehehe.

What I really want to see in the future is people 'converting' Filipino literature into audiobooks. Librivox is doing an awesome job with Western Literature, why not do the same with our own literature? We have a wealth of books, essays and poems, I believe, and they would add to the richness of the audiobooks available in the public domain.

BBC 7 Radio

I think The Horse And His Boy is a more majestic and more beautiful book than The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I just finished listening to the former (published by Harper Audio). It's the fifth of the seven Narnia series (in the order in which they were written).

The timing is just right, for I just discovered BBC 7. They actually have dramatisations of classic works of literature! This week, they have just started The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew! To follow in the couple days or so is The Horse and His Boy. It's simply amazing. When I discovered it I was so excited and thrilled. I felt like devouring all the great stuff they have (A Thomas Hardy classic is ending this week; an adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel just began its first few episodes; there's a short story by Mary Shelley about to disappear from the 7-day radar [I'll explain this later]; and another classic book by G.K. Chesterton -- these, to mention only a few).

I wish I could share this with more people, especially with my pangga, and all those who don't have regular access to the internet. Because the catch, you see, is that these programs only stay in the website for 7 days. Such a waste, isn't it?

Not really. Thank goodness there are such softwares as Audacity (it's a freeware, btw, so just Google it). It can save stream audio as MP3 files! So I'm gonna be collecting these great productions from now on and share them with my love ones.

Crazy about audiobooks!

This blog is getting me very excited lately:

BlogOutLoud

A lot of very exciting stuff about audiobooks and podcasts, or "audiolearning" in general. You can find a lot of free stuff in there for your aural pleasure. I've already subscribed to the website, and what's great about it is that you get to download one audiobook for free every month. The site already has loads of free audiobooks, so that's just an added bonus.

I'm still dropping by Librivox once in a while. I've finished Northanger Abbey two weeks ago but I didn't enjoy it very much. I'm now listening to Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales. A lot of his stories are strange...

I've also been listening to Sherlock Holmes stories (the site seems to be experiencing some technical problems). Great stuff.

I have literally dozens of audiobooks in our PC right now which I have recently downloaded. I don't know how I'm going to find the time to listen to all of them. I have almost eaten up all the storage space in our hard drive, and my brother's complaining. So I've begun transferring most of them to CDs.

I've been tagged!

Thanks to Kendi. It's my pleasure for I love books! :)

One book that changed your life.

I think probably The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck. It taught me to look at life more realistically and to discipline my vices.

One book that I read more than once.

Pilipino, Isa Kang Alipin! by (I forgot his first name) Garcia

One book you would want on a desert island.

The Bible. :)

One book that made you laugh.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, many times.

One book that made you cry.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck siguro...

One book that you wish had been written.

Wala ko'y mahuna-hunaan...

One book that you wish had never been written.

Wala pud ko'y mahuna-hunaan...

One book you are currently reading.

Daghan man... The Enduring Questions by Fr. Michael Moga, The Examined Life by Dennis Helming, and The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. I'm about to begin Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.

One book you have been meaning to read.

Daghan kaayo ko'g daghan basahun... kung pwede palang dunganun nako basa tanan... These are mostly audiobooks... Mere Christianity and all the Narnia series by C. S. Lewis, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and other books by Douglas Adams, Saint Augustine's Confessions, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and then The Da Vinci Hoax by Carl Olson and Sandra Meisel...

I don't know who to tag... anyone who reads this is welcome!

Next book, please

I am done with the book. I have to say again that I really loved it!

Now, what's next? Northanger Abbey? :)

A review of the book from Amazon:

Though Northanger Abbey is one of Jane Austen's earliest novels, it was not published until after her death--well after she'd established her reputation with works such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. Of all her novels, this one is the most explicitly literary in that it is primarily concerned with books and with readers. In it, Austen skewers the novelistic excesses of her day made popular in such 18th-century Gothic potboilers as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers all figure into Northanger Abbey, but with a decidedly satirical twist. Consider Austen's introduction of her heroine: we are told on the very first page that "no one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine." The author goes on to explain that Miss Morland's father is a clergyman with "a considerable independence, besides two good livings--and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters." Furthermore, her mother does not die giving birth to her, and Catherine herself, far from engaging in "the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush" vastly prefers playing cricket with her brothers to any girlish pastimes.

Catherine grows up to be a passably pretty girl and is invited to spend a few weeks in Bath with a family friend. While there she meets Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor, who invite her to visit their family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Austen amuses herself and us as Catherine, a great reader of Gothic romances, allows her imagination to run wild, finding dreadful portents in the most wonderfully prosaic events. But Austen is after something more than mere parody; she uses her rapier wit to mock not only the essential silliness of "horrid" novels, but to expose the even more horrid workings of polite society, for nothing Catherine imagines could possibly rival the hypocrisy she experiences at the hands of her supposed friends. In many respects Northanger Abbey is the most lighthearted of Jane Austen's novels, yet at its core is a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage, 19th-century British style. --Alix Wilber

You can actually view movie clips from both the 2005 version of P@P and the 1995 one by the BBC over at Youtube.com. Some people say the BBC version is better and more faithful to the novel than the big screen version.

Great novel

I'm now about to begin chapter 44 of Pride and Prejudice. I really love how Jane Austen writes. She is so fluent and her words are so pleasurable to read. I really love the story so far. The characters are very interesting; very intelligent and complex. I admire how "character" and "civility" is highly valued and praised in Austen's time.

I'm looking forward to seeing the movie adaptation of the novel. Now I'm sorry I missed it.

Pride and Prejudice

I am now listening to (at the same time reading) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. The dialogues between the characters are pleasurable to listen to because they are full of wit. But half the time I can't understand what they're saying hehehe... But I love the story so far...

Mars series

I'm done with A Princess of Mars, and I really liked the story. The ending gave hint to a sequel so I googled Burroughs' name and found out that it actually is a series of books...

A PRINCESS OF MARS, 1917
THE GODS OF MARS, 1918
THE WARLORD OF MARS, 1919
THUVIA, MAID OF MARS, 1920
THE CHESSMEN OF MARS, 1922
THE MASTER MIND OF MARS, 1928
A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS, 1931
SWORDS OF MARS, 1936
SYNTHETIC MEN OF MARS, 1940
LLANA OF GATHOL, 1948
JOHN CARTER OF MARS, 1964

Wow, that's a lot. I'm happy to learn that you can actually read all the sequels online. Visit this site. It also has etexts of Burroughs' other works, including the Tarzan series.

Now I'm trying to decide what book to listen to next.

Mars and audiobooks

A friend of mine from SFC texted me several weeks ago with this message:

"Planet Mars will be brightest in the night sky starting August. It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will culminate on August 27 when Mars comes to within 34.65M miles of earth. Be sure to watch the sky on August 27, 12:30 AM. It will look like the earth has two moons. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Share this with your loved ones and friends as no one alive today will ever see it again..."



I checked the net if this is true and I found these articles in this website:

Will Mars be close in August 2006?

Can Mars appear as large as the moon?

Apparently, it's a hoax, spread through email since 2003, when Mars was close to the Earth, but not as close as to appear the size of the moon. It only looked like a star.

On average, Mars is approximately 139.5 million miles away from Earth.

In contrast, the moon is a scant 238,700 miles away, on average.

For Mars to appear as close as the moon is to Earth it would have to at least be about 500,000 miles (since the diameter of Mars is about twice that of the moon's) close...

So much for my initial excitement...

Anyway, incidentally, I'm listening (yes, listening) to this novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs called A Princess of Mars. This after having "discovered" this awesome website that offers audiobooks of novels, shortstories and poems for free! -- Librivox -- much to my excitement and delight.

So now, I'm in love with the spoken word. It has renewed my interest and perhaps passion in literature and reading. It has sort of opened for me a vast, new, and exciting world... the world of audiobooks... Following through the links from the site I was led to other public domain sites offering a wealth of other works in audio for free. For example, I found this great blog in which the author on a regular basis does a reading (podcast) on various Catholic literature, plus more! --

Maria Lectrix: Six days a week of public domain audiobooks — mystery, history, adventure, devotion — for people with Catholic tastes.

These sites are truly Heaven sent!