Books for the weekend

I'M CURRENTLY reading William Boyd's Waiting for Sunrise, but I should be able to finish it this evening. He's good. A Good Man in Africa is supposed to be a monumental work. We'll see about that.

According to reviews, Netherland evokes feelings similar to when you read The Great Gatsby. The protagonist is a Dutch man. I like Dutch people in general; they're polite.

One can never go wrong with Italo Calvino. Have you read On A Winter's Night A Traveller (my review)? Blew me away. I still have an unread copy of Difficult Loves, his short story collection.

The Housekeeper and The Professor is by Yoko Ogawa. A short piece, just perfect for busy people. Please tell me how I can put down a novel that begins thus: "We called him the Professor. And he called my son Root, because, he said, the flat top of his head reminded him of the square root sign." Ah, memories of nerve-wracking exams at the Math Building in Diliman.

I don't know how I can possibly finish all these in two weeks, on top of the backlogs I currently have, but it feels good to have an armament of literary works to fend off boredom stress.

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SENT some of my reading friends copies of these books. Few hours later I got an interesting email from my super-cool lawyer-friend Ate Liw: "Happy reading, but fail not to have time for the things that no book in this world will ever compare." Amen to that.