A RENEWED PASSION

SOMEONE has said that human nature is so weak in the bookstore.

There’s truth to that, with what happened to me one Wednesday morning while I was in a bookstore that exclusively sells secondhand books, at Waltermart near Muñoz Market in Quezon City.

It’s 11:30 a.m. on my watch, and I still had 30 minutes to spare before I go to work. But that half-hour dragged on until past 12. I knew I would be late, but I had not yet decided which book or books I must buy. And worse, I only have P400 in my wallet for the rest of the week.

With a very limited time and budget, I must pick with any one or two of many books that I had selected. Dammit, there’s so many for picking that morning when in some regular days, I could only see two or three good ones for me. I picked up Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (P65), John Lennon by Alan Clayton (P180), East of Eden by John Steinbeck (P180), Mitla Pass by Leon Uris (P45), Mexico by James A. Michener (P65), and Presumed Innocence by Scott Turow (P85). But I must choose only one or two if I hold on to the more expensive titles, or at least three if I chose the less expensive ones. The clock was ticking very fast.

To think that a day before that I also ransacked a stall of secondhand books at a lobby in Trinoma, another mall along EDSA within the city. For almost an hour of rummaging, I was able to bring home five good books: Got Shorty by Elmore Leonard, The Cider House Rules by John Irving, and Roger’s Version by John Updike, a Magic Tree House’s Dingoes at Dinnertime, and Happy Feet (junior novelization of an animation movie)—the last two were for my two boys who have also been fond of reading pocketbooks.

For the past few months I have been buying an average of one book a week, all second-hand books. With my limited budget (look, I am a father of three, have a part-time job, and a law degree to complete), I couldn’t afford to buy expensive new releases, all bestsellers, on display in National Bookstore. Even when I buy one if I got extra money to spare, I would still have second thoughts shelling out P300 or P400 for a new book. I might rather use that amount for four or five secondhand books from Booksale. Why not, I don’t exactly need new releases when there are myriads of good old books out there that I couldn’t even read a fraction of them in my lifetime.

I haven’t read the other books—around 20 of them—that I have bought since June. But I don’t mind looking at my unread books, and that, once I’ve finished reading one, I can immediately browse at them, thus giving me a choice from which I can select the next one.

My passion for reading has been increasing since middle of last year. It all started when I got invited by a friend to open a Shelfari account. I felt good downloading from my memory box those titles, from children’s storybook to romance and bestsellers to classic novels that I have read, and compiled them in a list, complete with pictures of familiar covers and some important details. Then I began to think of those books I haven’t read so far. It was then that I realized I have missed so many books since I faltered from reading and collecting books some years ago, thanks to termites which gobbled most of my first collection of pocketbooks, in our rented place near Muñoz market.

Now to catch up on my reading, I read while in a vehicle as I commute from our home in Marilao, Bulacan to our office in Quezon City, which is a one-and a-half-hour travel. And during office hours, I stole some time beyond coffee break to read pages of my book. And I’d formed the habit of reading more pages before going to sleep. So in those terms, I'm on track!

But one side effect though is that, my allocated time for my law course was now at a minimal because I have been spending more time reading fictions than reading my codals and textbooks on Taxation and Civil Procedure. So most of the time I cram in these subjects.

I don’t think it is a belated passion for reading. I haven’t stopped reading pocketbooks since high school but not as this rate that I am having now. I am starting to build up my library at home. It was my second attempt to put up another collection after that sad incidence with the termites.

Going back to Booksale, I settled on the more expensive ones: John Lennon and East of Eden. They were rare titles in a second-hand store as this one, and the copies were in good condition as if they had not been used at all by their first owners. That cost me P360, and one-hour salary less (due to tardiness) from what I would earn that day. Now you call that a sign of a weak human nature!

But it’s nice to think that when I get home I have new materials to read. Then that would inspire me to finish the one I am reading now, The Sandman: Book of Dreams, and have vowed to complete one more book by the end of the week.



My latest Shelfari account on books read