A Post About Books, and I Love Lifeboat

My days have trudged on slowly. And I think I should make one blog today. Yes, today I am going to blog about books (and those of my girlfriend too) because I’ve all the luxury now to read and talk about them. When I said I have the luxury, it means I just feel lazy to write any more articles for the clients. But crap. I’ll write the rest of the projects when I feel like it. I mean I can’t work well when I am not enjoying whatever things I am working on. But for the record, I’ve really been doing the best I can to deliver to our clients some quality works that they want, and possibly on time. And I’ve not disappointed them yet. For now. Or whatever.

But, for today, I’ll take the pleasure to post about books – those lovelies that still remain a faithful companion and a consolation to me when bouts of anger, desolation, and jealousy strike me.

I’ll start with The Dark Side of Genius by Donald Spoto. A dark side indeed portrayed honestly and lovingly by one of Alfred Hitchcock’s biographers. I followed it up by supplementing the words with what clips and videos I can find in youtube. And the experience is very enlightening as it is entertaining. You cannot mention Hitchcock without thinking of Psycho, which the master thought as a hilarious movie while others couldn’t sleep after watching it. And, of course, his early feature “Lifeboat” in which the lead actress, Tallulah Bankhead, tired of wearing a panty during a shoot just took it off for all to behold, and to Hitchcock's silent diversion. The master of surprise and the unexpected in films was the director we never have (except perhaps Lino Brocka). And there’s also The Birds…

After some delightful hours of eccentricities, I picked up another good book: The Greatest Salesman in the World. I’d heard of the book in college but I’ve had a handicap not to read, or watch, anything when almost everybody is talking about it. So years later I now read the book and enjoyed it a lot. It’s like reading How to Make Friends and Influence People or Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Effective People.

When I finished it too shortly, I relished once again some good hours with Pearl S. Buck. I can now say that I’ve read The Good Earth and have changed my opinion on China from something positive to negative and now better to worst, and just a good opinion about China and the likes of Chip Tsao.

I am now reading Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays and Doyle’s The Complete Novels and Stories of Sherlock Holmes.

The girlfriend had read Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet and attempted to read The Brothers Karamazov on a wager, in which I’ll buy her a unisilver set if she finished it in a month. Her last report says she’s still at chapter 3 or 4 and it's almost a month now, which means I’ll soon get a Nick Joaquin novel. She’s also reading The Greatest Salesman in the World.