The Books Cebu Bloggers are Reading

The books members of the Cebu Bloggers Society Inc. (CBSi) have read, are reading, and will be reading are about as diverse as their personalities and the niches their blogs belong to. I discovered this piece of information after I posted an open-ended question on reading for the blogger-members on a cool Sunday afternoon. The response has been, to be honest, surprising because, young as most of the members are, I was half expecting more book titles belonging to the young adult genre, which is the rage these days. What I got instead are good old classics and inspirational and self-help books that, for me, manifest how serious CBSi blogger-members are in their craft and niche.

For instance, Red Yumang of Cook My Garden is devouring more books about cooking, and they are not recipe books, mind you. These are books written by the late Doreen Fernandez and popular Filipino chefs like Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan. He is now planning to get the complete line of Fernandez’s works and start reading about the world famous American chef Anthony Bourdain.

“The one by Besa and Dorotan, “Memories of Philippine Kitchens”, talks about our Filipino cuisine and culture. So interesting. I went down history lane and found out where adobo came from and why Philippines, as a nation, has a unique cuisine comparate to our Asian neighbors. It talks about regional dishes, explains how and why we have them, and how they evolved. The book is more of a self-discovery for me; it gave me a lot of good insight about us as Filipinos,” he said.

While Red is quite absorbed in reading more literature about cooking, this does not stop him from venturing other book titles just for the pleasure of reading, including “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel (which, in my opinion, should be read before watching the movie set to come out sometime this year). As an advocate of Philippine literature, I was gratified by Red’s admission that F. Sionil Jose’s “The Mass” and Lualhati Bautista’s “Dekada 70” are important books in his life that molded his “thinking” years.

Another CBSi blogger-member, Clarisa Briones-Bernal, founder of Pinoy Great Deals, is now reading “The 8th Habit” by the late Stephen Covey, which deals with finding one’s voice and inspiring others to find theirs. During her leisure time, she also reads books by Judith Mcnaught and recommended some of her books–”Perfect”; “Kingdom of Dreams”; and “Whitney My Love”. I, in turn, recommended to her “Just the way you are” by Barbara Freethy.

Bert Padilla of Cebu Tech Blogger and a new father (cheers!) shared that he is now on the last few chapters of Rice and Chips by Dennis Posadas, a gift from CBSi president Ruben Licera Jr. and also a new father (double cheers!).

Some days when bloggers need a good dose of inspiration, books become a useful source for them, too. Puree Mabano of The Awesome Things just finished reading “Good Luck: Creating the Conditions for Success” by Alex Rovira and Fernando Trias de Bes, while Geezelle Tapangan of Geemiz, as part of her personal initiative to read again all of the John Maxwell books in her collection, is now reading Maxwell’s “Put Your Dreams to the Test”.

“(Good Luck: Creating the Conditions for Success) is a really good book–very engaging, inspiring, and easy to read. It tells the secrets of having good luck in life. It states in there that luck is merely the sum of opportunity and preparation, and while opportunity is given to everyone, not everyone is actually willing to work hard for it,” Puree said.

A few recommendable classic titles floated in the forum and I, as a lover of classics, laud these Cebu bloggers for reading them. Herbert Kikoy of The Two-Sided Perspective has read “The Greatest Salesman in the World” by Og Mandino, which is highly recommended, though I haven’t read it yet myself.

Milafel Hope Awe-Dacanay of Domesticated Cebuana is trying her best to finish Les Miserables by Victor Hugo before the movie adaptation of the latter comes out in December this year. She shared her other favorite titles as well, including Danielle Steele’s heartwarming “Fine Things”, which featured a character with the same name as her husband, Bernard.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover CBSi Vice President-External Bjornson Bernales of Bjorn Cebuano is reading the challenging two volumes of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. On the side, he also reads detective novels with science fiction elements.

“The stories (in Sherlock Homes) are are cleverly-written, compelling and enthralling. The plots and climaxes are magnetic. I could read for six hours to finish one story and then re-read the parts which I might need to carefully scan to fully understand the story. It’s like watching a movie all over again to get the whole picture and not missing the parts. Every part of the story is important,” he said (and to which I say, “Amen”).

While Milafel is also finishing up The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Murakami, Mark Razonable of Mr. Tambay is hooked to Japanese language books. An avid fan of Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, he shared that he even finished the seventh book of the series in the midst of school exams.

Fantasy and young adult (particularly vampires and wolves and the romance involved) are also within the reading radar of Xerxes Bernadez of Obnoxious Queer who is now into the “Skinners” series by Marcus Pelegrimas, vampire romance novels by Amanda Ashley, S. J. Watson’s “Before I Go To Sleep”, and books by Anne Rice. Doctor Narciso Tapia of Cebu MD is also into fantasy but in comic form, such as the Ultimate Marvel series.

It is definitely clear that while Cebu bloggers are spending more time online, they also allocate some to unplug and just cuddle with a good book either for self-improvement or merely for the pleasure of reading books. Keep reading!

How about you, what book are you reading now? What are you planning to read soon?

(Author’s note: All images in this post are from www.goodreads.com)