Posted by bennardfajardo on July 4, 2015 · 9 Comments
July marks the halfway point of my reading year and, so far, I have finished 30 books from my target of 60 for 2015 which means that I’m on track to achieve my reading goal. However, I have been lagging in my reviews because, out of the 30 books that I’ve read this year, I’ve … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Reading List · Tagged with Books, Emily L., Essential Reading, Flannery O'Connor, Giovanni's Room, Graham Greene, James Baldwin, Marguerite Duras, Shusaku Endo, Silence, The Quiet American, Wise Blood
Posted by bennardfajardo on January 16, 2015 · 5 Comments
2015 has just passed its one-day mark and I already have a backlog. Three of them in fact because, for the last three months of 2014, I have failed to update my BOOKLOVE feature. Sure, there have been attempts to avoid the undesirable result of having a backlog but, alas, I have no excuse why … Continue reading →
Filed under Book Love, Books · Tagged with After Henry, Aharon Applefeld, Alice Munro, Augustus, Badenheim 1939, Barry Hannah, Book Love, Books, Complete Short Stories, Emily St. John Mandel, Family Furnishings: Selected Stories 1995-2014, Grace Paley, Graham Greene, Hawthorn & Child, Here, Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne, John King, John Reed, John Williams, Keith Ridgway, Long Last Happy: New and Selected Stories, Memed My Hawk, Muriel Spark, On Modern Latin American Fiction, Richard McGuire, Snowball's Chance, Station Eleven, The Collected Stories, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, True Confessions, Yashar Kemal
Posted by bennardfajardo on October 14, 2014 · 6 Comments
I’m feeling a little bit book giddy today, generally happy about the state of literature and about the large number of books that I have yet to read so I’ve decided to write, sooner that I would have, about the books that I got last month. September was a bit crazy overall because there was a … Continue reading →
Filed under Book Love, Books · Tagged with A Very Easy Death, Adrian Tomine, Anton Chekhov, Art and Litearture, Art Spiegelman, Bellefleur, Betrayal, Book Love, Books, Brian K. Vaughn, Cartesian Sonata and Other Novellas, Christopher Hitchens, Dancing Bear, David Mitchell, Donald Antrim, Ezra Pound, Fiona Staples, Graham Greene, Harold Bloom, Harold Pinter, High Lonesome: New and Selected Stories 1966-2006, Ian McEwan, Italo Calvino, James Crumley, Jeanette Winterson, Joseph Brodsky, Joyce Carol Oates, Less Than One: Selected Essays, Living Thinking Looking, Marcel Proust, Marjane Satrapi, Maus, Mr. Palomar, No One Left to Lie To, Persepolis, Poem Strip by Dino Buzzati, Saga: Volume 1, Saturday, Seven Short Novels, Simone de Beauvoir, Siri Hustvedt, Summer Blonde, The Bone Clocks, The Emerald Light in the Air, The Hundred Brothers, The Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, The Tenth Man, The Verificationist, Till I End My Song: A Gathering of Last Poems, William H. Gass, Written on the Body
Posted by bennardfajardo on October 4, 2014 · 4 Comments
It’s a wonder that September flew by without me noticing. At the start of September, I was almost sure that I was going to finish the books that I lined up for September only to end the month with finishing just two, the shortest ones at that. However, I did end up reading two other … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Reading List · Tagged with Books, Donald Antrim, Essential Reading, Exercises in Style, Graham Greene, Peter Handke, Raymond Queneau, Sjon, The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, The Tenth Man, The Verificationist, The Whispering Muse
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 July 1, 2013 · 8 Comments
I have been going into a blogging rut lately because of various disturbances in my life (rewatching sitcoms, for example) that I felt that I should at least post a short feature to hopefully restart my article production especially reviews and whatnot. Yes, baby steps first. Anyway, I just remembered that we are already halfway … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Hooliganism · Tagged with Alice Munro, Any Human Heart, Books, Dance of the Happy Shades, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Graham Greene, Hooliganism, Hunger, Jeffrey Eugenides, Knut Hamsun, Michael Chabon, Mikhail Bulgakov, Milan Kundera, Pablo Neruda, Paul Auster, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The End of the Affair, The Great Gatsby, The Master and Margarita, The New York Trilogy, The Queue, The Virgin Suicides, Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair, Unbearable Lightness of Being, Vladimir Sorokin, William Boyd
Posted by bennardfajardo on March 4, 2013 · 8 Comments
So the love themed reading month of February is done with. In the realm of fiction, hearts were broken; dreams were shattered; love was lost then found; and everything in between. In the real world, we move on to other books. But first, a rundown of my reading month that was February: Journey into the … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Reading List · Tagged with Alexander Pushkin, Alien Hearts, Angelo R. Lacuesta, David Foster Wallace, Dead Souls, Fourteen Love Stories, Graham Greene, Guy de Maupassant, Jose Dalisay Jr., Journey into the Past, Mikhail Bulgakov, Nikolai Gogol, Pablo Neruda, Stefan Zweig, Tales of Belkin, The End of the Affair, The Master and Margarita, The Queue, This is Water, Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair, Vladimir Sorokin, We, Yevgeny Zamyatin
Posted by bennardfajardo on February 3, 2013 · 8 Comments
This month’s theme, which is books about love, may be very predictable (owing to the fact that it’s Valentine’s month) but I still wanted to do it. Love is a universal subject and it is something that I like reading about (to be fair, I like reading about anything as long as it is well-written). … Continue reading →
Filed under Books, Reading List · Tagged with Alien Hearts, Books, Dalisay and Lacuesta, Essential Reading, Fourteen Love Stories, Graham Greene, Guy de Maupassant, Jeffrey Eugenides, Journey into the Past, My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories from Chekhov to Munro, Pablo Neruda, Stefan Zweig, The End of the Affair, Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair
The Book Hooligan 