An asteroid can just crash through the roof and flatten me one ordinary day, or I can slip on a banana peel and impale myself on the exposed construction steel bars along Taft avenue, and there’s no rule telling us to read just one book at a time anyway, so now I’m reading five books at the same time! And at the rate I’m going, either I’ll drop the ball on some of the titles, or I’ll die a horrible death along Taft without having finished any of them. So to enumerate, I’m currently trying to chip away at the tsundoku pile by reading following:

1. R. Kwan Laurel’s Ongpin Stories- a collection of short stories published by Milflores Publishing House, about the author’s experiences growing up in Ongpin. Fun!
2. Catherine Torres’ Mariposa Gang and Other Stories- a collection of short stories published by UST Press. Cathy was my blockmate in UP Psych, and one of my favorite friends back in college. She has always been so nice and smart, and I knew back then that she would go places. I totally envy the trajectory of her career: she became a diplomat and had been assigned in New Delhi, Singapore, and Berlin. She married a Korean scholar. She won many literary accolades. I’ve recently asked her for advice re the manuscript I was writing, and she was just the sweetest.
3. Ladlad 2: An Anthology In Gay Writing edited by Neil Garcia and Danton Remoto- saw a copy of this 90’s classic selling for P50 in National Bookstore today. P50! Who determines these prices? But i’m not complaining. Discovered that Ronald Baytan, author of the hilarious The Queen Lives Alone and was the facilitator in the writing workshop we did under the Bienvenido Santos Creative Writing Center, has a thoroughly enjoyable essay and poem in this anthology.
4. Too Much Happiness by Alice Munroe- which I’ve bought last week in Solidaridad. Just when I thought I’ve gotten the trend and flow of Munroe’s stories, the stories in this collection have so far been very surprising.
5. The Complete Stories of Truman Capote- which I tried to read in Starbucks, but I had to bolt because Omicron was in the air.

3 Filipiniana titles! Will see if I can further optimize by reading 8 titles at the same time!

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