Oscar Wilde once said that if one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all. I do not claim to have read each and every book on my shelf, nor do I lay claim to total comprehension. My modest collection isn't exactly Shakespeare and Co. Understand: it's a collection built throughout the years by invoking the gods of serendipity and pilfer. These are little purchases made from innumerable garage sales and, of course, the almighty Booksale. Some books I stole from the library of my good friend, Homer Novicio. Most of them are cheap–dirt-cheap–paperbacks. But it's not really the price but the element of fate and memory attached that makes them significant. Gone: Martian Chronicles, R is for Rocket, The Illustrated Man, and those Ray Bradburies that kept me through bad nights during high school. All the Vonnegut paperbacks–gone. Denis de Rougemount's Love in the Western World that made me daydream about tragic adulterous trysts. That copy of Necronomicon and a collection of stories by H.P Lovecraft I picked up from a creepy Kamuning antique shop. Those Woody Allens and Donald Barthelmes that make more sense when read under psychotropic influence. A ten-peso copy of James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake that I promised to myself I'd read and try to understand before I reach senility. And what about Clifton Fadiman's Lifetime Reading Plan that I fantasized following? Gone. Like countless others.
There are books that affirm the beauty of the world. At the same time there are also books that celebrate the idea of destruction. Books may screw with your brain, but they'll be the only true friends you'll have. Books don't borrow your books and CDs and forget to return them. Books don't talk shit about you behind your back. Books don't borrow money from you, nor do they drink all your beer and puke all over your couch and steal your girlfriend and your blotter acid. My friend, the Cebuano writer Januar Yap, provided one of the best descriptions of a great book: you can't help but hurl it across the room in a burst of pure joy. I know what he means. On my shelf used to dwell dog-eared titles with injured spines and creased covers–casualties of effervescent displays of appreciation.
