I, Bookworm

I joined a book discussion club last Sunday and met 10 new people here in the city. They are a great lot, and we share the same interest in reading. The assigned books for the month of February were Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything is Illuminated" and Raymond Carver's "Shortcuts". I loved the first book. I cried and laughed and even read some snippets to my friends. No wonder it garnered awards and praises the moment it came out. What's even more amazing is that the author was 24 years old at the time he wrote it. I didn't imagine somebody younger than me could have created such an endearing book.

I have not yet finished reading the compiled short stories of Raymond Carver. But I think I already have enough reasons to appreciate the author. His prose, his style, his characters of regular and average people and the things they do and think provide the reader a dark but different reading experience. His characters are just regular people who can be somebody you meet in the grocery store, the neighbor-next-door, or the boss downstairs who leads a seemingly ordinary life. This is where he connects with his readers by intentionally leaving a lot of room for speculation and imaginings. To read his stories is like being reprimanded that there is something worth looking in an ordinary person's life. Somehow, it made me think that my life too can be worth looking at. I just pray that I wouldn't do the things his characters end up doing.

More about the people in the book club, they are quite international. There is this one Spaniard who has been to Zamboanga City and Basilan. While he was amazed with the Chavakanos speaking the Spanish language, I was amazed by his interests in going there. There is also one half-Italian girl who was born in Guatemala but grew up in New York. She can speak quite a lot of official languages: Italian, Spanish, English, and Japanese. I hope I could get to know more people in the coming months.

The book for March is "Out" by a Japanese author named Kirino Natsuo.