Posting an old entry that answers this question.

Wow! Tough question, because this never fails to daunt or overwhelm my poor memory. Often when I’m asked, I fail to rattle all my favorites in one go. Anyway, here we go! In no particular order:

• Lakambini Sitoy (Filipina author)
• Ninotchka Rosca (Filipina author)
• Kerima Polotan Tuvera (Filipina author)
• Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo (Filipina author)
• Gregorio Brillantes (Filipino author)
• Nick Joaquin (Filipino author)
• Rosario Cruz Lucero (Filipina author)
• Krip Yuson (Filipino author)
• Margaret Atwood
• Anaïs Nin
• D.H. Lawrence
• Joyce Carol Oates
• Raymond Carver
• Ray Bradbury
• John Cheever
• Stephen King
• Annie Dillard
• Mark Twain
• Jeanette Winterson
• Alice Munro
• Erica Jong
• Graham Greene
• Virginia Woolf
• Ian McEwan

Poets whose works I cherish and enjoy: Jeffrey McDaniel, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Dorianne Laux, Richard Siken, Jack Gilbert, Conchitina Cruz, Louise Glück, Emily Dickinson!

I can’t just pinpoint one, you know. BUT I’d have to say Lakambini Sitoy is my most favorite Filipino writer eveeeeer. I love that woman.

I have no answer to this. Next book meme question! 

a: A Novel by Andy Warhol

A stands for alienation. This book alienated me. Sure Andy Warhol was a genius but was it even necessary for him to mess up with the traditional prose to prove his point? The entire novel (I don’t know why this qualified as a novel) was close to being undecipherable. Post-modern kung post-modern, but didn’t like this one bit. 

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Because I’m a girl like that.

JO MARCH! <3

White Fang by Jack London. (Okay, also The Call of the Wild by the same author)

The story’s written from the POV of the animal; so I thought it was one big bore. BUT NO. I enjoyed this book so much. Very beautifully written, thought-provoking, rich in details, heartwarming. Jack London whipped up a very sympathetic canine character :)

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.

Sigh. I had so much hope for this book. It was supposed to be awesome, I was expecting to be majorly blown away.

ALAS.

Okay, the first few chapters were not so bad. After all, Dave Eggers wrote about the most tragic experience one could ever find himself in: your parents dying a month apart from each other. That’s powerful material right there. What was disappointing was how he handled the material, how he made it less about the pain and more about his godforsaken brilliance. Too many unnecessary bullshits to announce to the world he’s the coolest guy who has ever walked the earth. Too many uninspired passages. Too many sentences that were haphazardly written. Like he was just too lazy to keep up with the momentum of the first few pages of the book and he just decided to let his brand of witticism save him. That’s why I don’t understand the hoopla, the massive love for this book. I thought it was a terrible tribute :(

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain. I call it underrated because I haven’t met anyone who has professed a love for this book. This is, I think, the funniest book Twain’s ever written! Gah, I may even go as far as saying this is his greatest novel. It’s about a Yankee, Hank Morgan, who is transported to Camelot and finds himself in the most ridiculous situations with King Arthur and the gang. Oh guys you should really really really read this. Mark Twain is a farking hilarious genius.

I can enumerate a number of books that brought in momentary depression (hello Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love, Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, Bernard Schlink’s The Reader), but this book….oh God this book. I read this when I was her age writing the diary, and then I just fell in love with her because she was practically articulating my adolescent thoughts. There I was, fourteen like she was, happily reading her entries, her thing for Peter, her desire to be a writer, life after hiding, and then I came upon her last entry, the appendices after that explaining in detail how they were dragged out of the Secret Annex and transferred to a concentration camp. She wrote her August 1 1944 entry, not thinking it would be her last entry. :( It took months before I recuperated from the sadness her loss had caused. She was so real. We were friends. At 14, that’s how I saw her, not as a historical figure, not as a Nazi victim removed from my time, but as my friend. I mourned like how one would mourn over the death of a good, good friend. This book has sadness written all over it. Anne Frank’s diary is so monumental in my growth as a person, this I believe. This I believe.

Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft. This is a treat to all Stephen King fans (I count myself as one of them, of course). I was in a state of kilig (giddiness) reading it from cover to cover.

The Sandman Volume 2: The Doll’s House by Neil Gaiman

I love the first three books from the series, and The Doll’s House is my absolute favorite. Everything is just so imaginative and rich and mindfuckinblowing. Imagine how I felt when I got to interview Mr. Neil Gaiman! I ALMOST DIED.