Soledad's Sister Over Coffee

I dropped by Greenbelt's Powerbooks yesterday and, instinctively, found my way to the Filipiniana section (love your own!). I spent quite some time browsing through Dean Alfar's A Kite of Stars, making a mental note to buy it the next time I visited a bookstore. I was still, due to time constraints brought on by work, in a reading hiatus and knew that I had to practice restraint if I didn't want one more book to gather dust on the shelf.

I gazed around to look at the other titles, saw a copy of Butch Dalisay's Soledad's Sister on a nearby shelf, picked it up, read the first page, checked the cash in my wallet and promptly headed to the cashier.

So much for restraint. It was just too good to resist.

I read a fourth of it at a nearby Starbucks (the lighting was poor, but I didn't care), sparing a couple of minutes to preach to my friend (who's not that into Philippine Lit.) that he should read the book I was reading if he wanted his opinion of Filipino writers to change. "Read Dalisay, for heaven's sake. This book was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize!" I told him and, satisfied that I had made my point, happily slouched back into my chair to read.

Guess this means the reading is on again. And, boy, does it feel awfully good!