Some Books Need Reading

And some readers enjoy free shipping

Some books need reading and some acquisitions need flexing.

In late 2023, I got lucky.

I was able to score a local online seller's extra copy of Some People Need Killing by Patricia Evangelista.

The sealed, hardbound edition went for a thousand pesos, which included free shipping, I said, flexing my acquisition on social media because the item was hard to come by — at least locally — at that time.

Not long after, a former co-worker — now a big shot at a multilateral institution — liked my flex and formulated a reply that played on the book's title.

"Some books need reading," he said.

I promptly returned the gesture by liking his comment while withholding mine. After all, up to now, I haven't read the book (I will — soon) and I didn't want to complicate the exchange by mouthing off something inane or incendiary like "We thank you, Panginoong Duterte, for making this book possible."

So I kept quiet.

Silence (still) is golden, especially on social media, in matters of social convention, and in the exercise of social obligation. (Or as someone else once told me, appropos of the Bro Code: bros before bashers, tropa before troublemakers, likers before laiteros or laiteras). It's a piece of advice that I've been known to ignore on occasion.

Take note: There was nothing wrong with my ex-co-worker’s comment. In fact, it stayed with me long enough; like an unaired grievance, a first degree burn, a show cause memo from human resources.

Some books need reading, indeed.

But exactly which books (besides the one by Evangelista) deserve our limited attention (and, for that matter, limited time on this slowly dying planet)?

It's a simple enough question but one that yields a culturally complicated, multi-dimensional answer. Should we stick to fiction? Novels? Or should we be bound by non-fiction, history, biography, memoir? What about works written in Filipino (such as, to name a few, Utos ng Hari by Jun Cruz Reyes?)

Photo taken from a seller on Carousell.PH because I’ve already put my copy in storage. Other books worth reading twice include Kerima Polotan Tuvera’s The True and the Plain, Resil Mojares’ Isabelo’s Archives, Eric Ramos’ biography of Rodolfo Biazon, Adrian Cristobal’s Occasional Prose, Eric Gamalinda’s The Empire of Memory, Jose Y. Dalisay Jr.’s Penmanship and Other Stories, among many others. Two books on this list were written by authors associated with the Marcos Sr. regime while a third featured a fictionalized account about the experience of writing for Marcos Sr. If you can identify all three, I’ll buy you a beer or two (three?)

The best books to read, according to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, are the ones that deserve to be read again.

This is a tricky undertaking because some unsophisticated readers (present company included) would rather spend time reading than wasting hours looking for books that are worth reading twice.

For his part, American happiness expert and Harvard professor Arthur Brooks offers a guide on what to read next. His tip is also useful if you want to be — and I say this in utter seriousness — happy.

According to Brooks, you need to read a "heavy and wise" book for at least 15 minutes a day, based on this a September 2023 interview. It starts on the 9:18 mark.

Besides increasing chances at finding happiness, readers are also likely to benefit from the wisdom and insights contained in these "wise and heavy" books, said Brooks, who also writes for the Atlantic Monthly and hosts a podcast called "How to Build a Happy Life," which I've also listened to.

Too bad Brooks seemed to be all caught up in the interview to be more specific about his book recommendations.

Sadly, despite the books that some of us can buy and have access to and the privilege of having the actual time to spend reading, we are all constrained by our circumstances.

In short, in reading as in life (as if the first is separate from the second), we work with what we have.

This is why it pays to have smart, generous friends with stable incomes.

Before Evangelista's book arrived — have I mentioned that it was shipped for free? — I met up with a friend and a public servant.

Mr. T. was so well read that I've told him that he's become my favorite government bureaucrat of all time, despite the administrations — the immediate past and the all-too-present present — that he's worked for.

During our conversation over supper (which he paid for), he recommended that I try reading The Brothers Karamasov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

"It's the best novel I've read that deals with psychology and human nature," he said.

That book — all 800 pages of it — later became my "wise and heavy" book which I finished reading in March, my fourth for the year.

This edition was translated by Constance Garnett, whose translations have been criticized by, among others, David Foster Wallace, for being “excruciatingly Victorianish.” [See: Constance Garnett]

Unlike most novels, this one was an easy read because I could quickly pick up on the narrative even after I missed reading it for a day or two. This meant either one of two things: that my attention span hasn't been ruined by Instagram Reels or that Dostoyevsky weaves a tale so well that — despite the nuances lost in translation — no ordinary reader can just drop it midstream and move to another book.

But then again, it doesn't mean that I'll go full Dostoyevsky anytime soon.

I recently got a good deal on a book and have I told you that it was shipped for free?