Ahhh, World Book Day

"Books to the ceiling, books to the floor, my pile of books is a mile high."

A hollowed out space in a gift book that I realized is a good place to store scattered bookmarks

My reading backlog is such that I've tried to discipline myself by not lingering too long when I'm inside Mt Cloud Bookshop. I can get waylaid there and find myself parting with what little I have in my wallet.

Meanwhile, Kai and I have spent precious moments reading over and over this Barbara M. Josse title Grandma Calls Me Beautiful, a birthday present from her adopted lola, Lorna Tirol. It's set in Hawaii, and at some point Kai does her "Hula hula, shake shake shake" moves. Never fails to amuse her lolo.

I've tried to balance my TV viewing hours and reading time. Again lack of discipline gets the upper hand not so much because TV temptations are stronger. It's my bad habit of flitting from one book to another so it takes longer to finish reading one.

This summer I enjoyed Menchu Sarmiento's latest collection of short fiction and essays, Ukay-Ukay (Anvil Publishing). Many times I paused to think who a character reminds me of. She is our mistress of social satire; the so-called upper class, the new rich are frequent targets of her sarcasm. Exclusive Catholic girls' schools are particularly fair game for ridicule. Recommended read for those who don't believe in light, happy endings.

To "get away" from Baguio where I'm spending summer, I "fly" to Brandon Stanton's multi-racial, multi-cultural, rich-in-fashion-quirks New York. His HONY (Humans of New York) project that earned hundreds of thousands of Facebook followers and "likers" is now in book form and in full color. A city is as good as its people- no wonder my daughter Ida has not given up on her dream of returning to NYC someday.

So immerse yourself in the pages of a book, gladly, madly, truly. Methinks one emerges from every reading experience more human.

Photos by Babeth Lolarga