Posted by bennardfajardo on January 5, 2015 · 3 Comments
2014, like all years past ever since I started blogging, has been an extraordinary year for reading. I’ve read 62 books total and most of them were amazing reads. Yes, yes, there were a few duds and even some of the worst pieces of literature that I have encountered in my life but the good and the … Continue reading →
Filed under A Year in Reading, Books · Tagged with 2014, A Month in the Country, A Year In Reading, Atonement, Books, Civilwarland in Bad Decline, Claire Messud, Clarice Lispector, David Mitchell, George Saunders, Ian McEwan, In Persuasion Nation, Jhumpa Lahiri, JL Carr, Joan Didion, Joyce Carol Oates, Julian Barnes, Leonard Michaels, Margaret Atwood, Muriel Spark, Paul Auster, Play It As It Lays, Raymond Carver, Sylvia, Tenth of December, The Blind Assassin, The Hour of the Star, The Interpreter of Maladies, The Sense of an Ending, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Posted by bennardfajardo on November 7, 2014 · 4 Comments
November, one of my favorite months, is now here. It’s my birthday month (which explains why November is a favorite) and I usually read good books at this time of the year which makes me a bit excited. Anyway, my October round-up: The Woman Upstairs by Clare Messud (4/5) The Tenth Man by Graham Greene (4/5) The … Continue reading →
Posted by bennardfajardo on July 7, 2014 · 7 Comments
We’re at the halfway point of the year and things are getting interesting reading-wise. I have read some interesting books, books that have either expanded my view on what fiction is or those that carried their genius with quiet dignity. On the other hand, I have read some books that have disappointed me and there … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Reading List · Tagged with A Dame to Kill For, A Tale of Two Cities, Books, Charles Dickens, Essential Reading, Fairy Tale Fail, George Saunders, In Persuasion Nation, Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Julian Barnes, Leo Tolstoy, Marek Hlasko, Mark Miller, Mina Esguerra, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Graveyard, The Sense of an Ending, The Sound of Things Falling
Posted by bennardfajardo on April 3, 2014 · 6 Comments
April is now here which means that the days of summer of reading is finally upon us. I don’t know what it is about the summer but it sure does make reading greater than it already is or maybe it’s just me? Anyway, before I go into the beginnings of my summer reading list, let … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Reading List · Tagged with Books, Civilwarland in Bad Decline, Dancing Girls, Day of the Oprichnik, Denis Johnson, Essential Reading, George Saunders, If on a winter's night a traveler, Italo Calvino, Like Life, Lorrie Moore, Margaret Atwood, Nobody Move, Vladimir Sorokin
Posted by bennardfajardo on December 30, 2013 · 7 Comments
This is probably my last post for this year (unless the blogging gods send their blessings) and my 80th overall. A nice round number would be a nice way to end this year in blogging (although a nice round number + 1 would be arguably better). Anyway, 2013 is almost at an end and sometimes … Continue reading →
Filed under A Year in Reading, Books · Tagged with A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, A Year In Reading, Alexander Pushkin, Alice Munro, Allen Ginsberg, Any Human Heart, Bill Willingham, Books, Chew, Dance of the Happy Shades, Dangerous Laughter, David Foster Wallace, David Mitchell, Elmer, F. Scott, Fables, Fatal Eggs, George Saunders, Gerry Alanguilan, Ghostwritten, Graham Greene, Guy Gavriel Kay, Howl and Other Poems, Hunger, Jason, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jessica Hagedorn, John Layman, John Williams, Jonathan Lethem, Jorge Luis Borges, Journey into the Past, Julian Barnes, Knut Hamsun, Labyrinths, Lolita, Lysley Tenorio, Manila Noir, Max Brooks, May Day, Michael Chabon, Mikhail Bulgakov, Milan Kundera, Monstress, Motherless Brooklyn, My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories from Chekhov to Munro, Neil Gaiman, Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents The Art of The Short Story, Pablo Neruda, Pastoralia, Paul Auster, Porcupine, Raymond Carver, Sandman, Short Cuts, Stefan Zweig, Steven Millhauser, Stoner, Tales of Belkin, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The End of the Affair, The Master and Margarita, The New York Trilogy, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Virgin Suicides, This is Water, Tigana, Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair, Vladimir Nabokov, Who Do You Think You Are?, William Boyd, World War Z, Yiyun Li
Posted by bennardfajardo on December 23, 2013 · 4 Comments
Finishing my last short story collection this year, Alice Munro’s Who Do You Think You Are?, I can conclude that this is a good year for short fiction. Of the 68 books that I’ve read so far for 2013, 23 were short story collections or anthologies and that is not mentioning the various short stories … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Thoughts on Short Fiction · Tagged with Alice Munro, Books, Dave Eggers, Denis Johnson, Elmore Leonard, George Saunders, James Joyce, James Salter, JG Ballard, Jorge Luis Borges, Lorrie Moore, Lourd de Veyra, Lydia Davis, Lysley Tenorio, Miranda July, Raymond Carver, Steven Millhauser, TC Boyle, Thoughts on Short Fiction, Vladimir Nabokov, William Faulkner
Posted by bennardfajardo on September 25, 2013 · 6 Comments
Okay, I think I have neglected my blog a little bit (maybe a whole darn lot) and it’s gnawing up on me now. I really would want to churn out regular posts about my reading life but life just gets in the way. Of course, I will say that this post will change everything and … Continue reading →
Filed under Book Love, Books · Tagged with A Heart So White, A Schoolboy's Diary, Alfred Yuson, America Is In The Heart, Book Love, Books, Carlos Bulosan, Cave and Shadows, Civilwarland in Bad Decline, Clandestine in Chile, Day of the Oprichnik, F. Sionil Jose, Fatelessness, Francis Wyndham, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, George Saunders, If a Filipino Writer Reads Don Quijote, Imre Kertesz, Javier Marias, John Cheever, Khavn, Mavis Gallant, Nick Joaquin, Paris Stories, Robert Walser, The Complete Fiction, The Road, The Wapshot Chronicle, Ultraviolins, Vasily Grossman, Vicente G. Goryon, Vladimir Sorokin
Posted by bennardfajardo on June 4, 2013 · 5 Comments
I knew it. I just knew it. The moment I reveled in the amazing feeling of reading so many books last April, I conked out in May. I wouldn’t exactly say that I am in a reading rut since I still enjoy reading (or maybe I am just in denial?) but it’s just that I … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Reading List · Tagged with Atonement, Books, Essential Reading, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, George Saunders, Ian McEwan, Lolita, Lorrie Moore, Love in the Time of Cholera, Michael Chabon, Pastoralia, Self-Help, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Vladimir Nabokov
Posted by bennardfajardo on June 4, 2013 · 8 Comments
So going here to the US, in terms of bookishness, has been better than I originally thought it would be. I found books here that I had a hard time looking for in the Philippines. Of course, if this previous post is any proof, majority of my acquisitions are short story collections (50% in fact) … Continue reading →
Filed under Book Love, Books · Tagged with Aleksandar Hemon, Annie Dillard, Bad Behavior, Book Love, Books, C, David Remnick, George Saunders, Joan Didion, Lorrie Moore, Mary Gaitskill, Pastoralia, Self-Help, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Teaching a Stone to Talk, The Lazarus Project, Tom McCarthy, Wonderful Town: New York Stories from the New Yorker
The Book Hooligan 