I finished Paulo Coelho’s Veronika Decides to Die last Sunday and found it fairly touching, with an ironic twist for the ending.

I first discovered Coelho’s works through the popularity of The Alchemist, which I subsequently bought and read voraciously. Veronika is the second book of this brilliant author in my collection.

I adored the character who became Veronika’s love interest: a rich, highly educated, schizophrenic music lover named Eduard, who also happens to be quite handsome. He sounds exactly like my kind of man.

Yesterday, I bought two “chick lit” paperbacks. This new inclination for such reading fare has, I believe, been indoctrinated into yours truly by the very charming Shophalic series penned by Sophie Kinsella.

My newly acquired tomes are Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes and The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger. Right now, I am nearly 200 hundred pages into the former.

So sue me from being a pink-loving girly-girl.

Here is a summary of Veronika from Amazon.com:

The bestselling Brazilian author of The Alchemist delicately etches this morose but ultimately uplifting story of the suicidal Veronika, who creeps along the boundary between life and death, sanity and madness, happiness and despair.

Veronika, 24, works in a library in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and rents a room in a convent; she is an attractive woman with friends and family, but feelings of powerlessness and apathy tempt her to find “freedom” in an overdose of sleeping pills.

When Veronika awakens in the purgatory of Villete, the country’s famous lunatic asylum, she is told her suicide attempt weakened her heart and she has only days to live.

In a sedative-induced haze, Veronika finds companionship in white-haired Mari, who suffers from panic attacks, and Eduard, an ambassador’s son who has been diagnosed as schizophrenic, and she begins to question the definition of insanity.

It is her supposed death sentence from the devious Dr. Igor, who is trying to shock her back into reality, that allows Veronika to reacquire the will to live and love.

I finished reading The Rule of Four late last night, after towing it around for the past several days.

This book is the literary debut of the writing team of Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. They are kind of like a low-key, erudite version of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, the duo that penned the Academy Award-winning screenplay of the film Good Will Hunting.

The Rule of Four is, without doubt, highly intellectual, but there are many stilted moments that take away the thrill experienced in discovering centuries-old secrets. In this case, the object in question is the enigmatic, subliminally heavy Renaissance text Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, which is being obsessively dissected by a Princeton senior.

Perhaps the novel was too intent in mixing scholarly incisiveness, pulse-pounding suspense and youthful angst that the final product seemed like a satisfactory yet unexciting mishmash of various literary genres.

As of the moment, I am midway through Paulo Coelho’s Veronika Decides to Die. It is far less breathtaking than the elegant grandeur that is The Alchemist.

However, Coelho still retains his fresh spirituality and deadpan sensibility. Veronika Decides to Die reminds me a bit of Amrita, Banana Yoshimoto’s “longest novel” on amnesiac rebirth.

Amazon.com provides the following book review:

A compelling modern thriller that cleverly combines history and mystery.

When four Princeton seniors begin the Easter weekend, they are more concerned with their plans for the next year and an upcoming dance than with a 500-year-old literary mystery. But by the end of the holiday, two people are dead, two of the students are injured, and one has disappeared.

These events, blended with Renaissance history, code breaking, acrostics, sleuthing, and personal discovery, move the story along at a rapid pace.

Tom Sullivan, the narrator, tells of his late father’s and then a roommate’s obsession with the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a 15th-century “novel” that has long puzzled scholars.

Paul has built his senior thesis on an unpopular theory posited by Tom’s father – that the author was an upper-class Roman rather than a monk – and has come close to proving it.

Belated happy, happy, happy birthday, Papa!

I know I am four days late in stating this greeting in my journal, but, as the saying goes: “Mas vale tarde que nunca!”

My father celebrated the above-mentioned occasion on May 18th, the same day I caught the simultaneous worldwide premier of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

I was able to forage a couple of tickets and thus caught the screening with my friend Bob.

Before going up to the 10:00 PM show at SM City Cinema 5, we had dinner at the newly opened Rai Rai Ken, a Japanese (obviously) restaurant. Our fare consisted of chicken teriyaki on rice, mushroom and rich sauce on noodles, and bottomless iced tea.

Revenge of the Sith is my favorite among the three prequels, mainly because it is very dark and has a more adult and less teenybopper approach to storytelling, compared to the long political hullabaloo that was Episode I: The Phantom Menace and the rather mushy Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

As usual, I loved Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Christopher Lee as Count Dooku, although the latter had such a short role in the film.

Jimmy Smits was very debonair and dignified as Senator Bail Organa, while Ian McDiarmid as Emperor Palpatine had such delightful villainous command of all his scenes.

However, Master Yoda undoubtedly, literally rocked the house with his supreme lightsaber and martial arts skills.

Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker looked sexier with long hair but, sadly, he did little to appear more menacing as he succumbs to the Dark Side of the Force. His anger, fear and possessiveness could have been more palpable onscreen than it was portrayed.

I was very disappointed with the role of Natalie Portman as Senator Padme Amidala. All throughout the movie, she could be seen lounging around in a variety of highly stylized maternity dresses and crying over whatever it is Anakin decides to do, is doing or has done.

I missed the outspoken, powerful Naboo Queen-turned-Senator, who could enthrall the entire Galactic Senate with her courage and eloquence. Amidala was reduced to a necessary plot device, that is, the final push that would turn her husband into Darth Vader.

Nonetheless, I so had the chills when Anakin donned his costume and mask as Darth Vader for the first time. It was a little like communing with the Force.

Finally, after the long wait, the saga has come full circle.

Happy, happy, happy 89th birthday, Lolo!

My maternal grandfather is now pushing a decade shy of a century, and yet he is as hale as ever.

May you have many fruitful years ahead, Lolo. You are always in my heart and in my prayers.

Later today I am planning to go to the mall and pick up a book or two. I also intend to check if Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith will be showing in the next few days.

There is no substitute for catching a local movie premier, as I have done with Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, The Matrix Trilogy and the Harry Potter films, among others.

Yesterday’s trip to Concepcion was very enjoyable and memorable.

In fact, our family is planning to return on December, during one of those non-working holidays leading towards Christmas.

We left Iloilo City at around 10:00 AM, picking up film, gourmet chicken and roasted peanuts along the way. We passed numerous fiesta celebrations, as well as town plazas overflowing with ukay-ukay stalls.

To all interested bargain hunters, I highly recommend that you go to Leganes and Zarraga in Iloilo province during the weekends to catch those coveted cheap-and-chic buys.

Despite a very dusty and sweltering trip, we made it to Nino at 1:00 PM. We were met by Lolo and Lola, who are now both in their eighties.

Lolo will be turning 89 years old tomorrow! We had a big lunch as a sort of joint birthday celebration for Lolo and my father, whose birthday falls on May 18th.

I was able to take a bunch of photographs, but they were mostly pictures of people posing together. It rained on and off starting late afternoon, so it was not really a very good idea to walk around the fields and hills.

We left Nino past 5:00 PM and traveled to the neighboring town of Ajuy, where one of my uncles and his family live. My mother had a grand time buying euphorbia from the gardens that we passed, as these plants were available in bigger, cheaper and more exotic varieties at the northern areas compared to those being sold in the city.

At my uncle’s house, Father and I snacked on shark stew and Mountain Dew. Yes, shark equals Jaws.

It was a little past 7:00 PM when we finally started the journey back to the city, our jeepney filled with such goodies as bananas, farm eggs, Indian mangoes, patotim (steamed sweetened duck), pinaupong manok (steamed salted chicken, my favorite), talaba, and fresh vinegar.

My parents and I are going to the town of Concepcion early tomorrow morning to visit my maternal grandparents.

They live in the barangay of Nino, which, all in all, is a good three hours away from Iloilo City. I am so looking forward to seeing Lolo and Lola again, after almost a year.

I am grateful that it rained tonight. This will make the roads far less dusty than usual, and that is a very good thing as we will be using an open-window jeepney for transport.

It is quite fun to travel long distances via jeepney because it really makes you appreciate and savor the entire concept of completing the journey from one place to the other.

Over the past 24 hours, I finished the second and third installments of Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic series, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan and Shopaholic Ties the Knot.

These books were both fun romps, but I have to say that I still love Confessions of a Shopaholic best. It goes without saying that I plan to get the fourth book, Shopaholic and Sister, the next time I go to the mall.

Never mind that I go to the bookstore practically everyday, just to make sure that I get first dibs on Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress the very moment it hits the shelves. It is left as the only Brown book I have yet to read.

In additio, have I mentioned that I have actually made a down payment on my reservation of the sixth Harry Potter book a week ago?

Here is a description of the second Shopaholic book from Amazon.com:

In this sequel to Kinsella’s bestselling Confessions of a Shopaholic, Becky Bloomwood, a personal finance “expert” with her own TV show, is more of a financial mess than ever: she can’t stop shopping, even though she can’t afford anything.

She’s even assigned her flatmate, Suze, to monitor her spending, but to no avail: Becky is full of cute rationalizations, like “Foreign money doesn’t count, so you can spend as much as you like,” and can’t stop herself from sneaking into posh boutiques.

Her work-obsessed boyfriend, Luke, runs a financial PR agency, and when he gets the green light to open an office in New York City, he brings Becky along.

Upon her arrival in the Big Apple, she euphorically discovers Barney’s, Saks, Sephora and sample sales but when wind of her shopping excesses gets back to the British press, she loses both her relationship and her TV job.

This meme was shared by a friend. Go ahead and try it yourself.

Instructions
1. Enter “(your name here) needs” in a Google search.
2. Read through the link descriptions, looking for those that actually form a sentence.
3. Post the first 15 results.
4. Enjoy!

· Shirley needs the Holistic approach.
· Shirley needs help.
· Shirley needs a dollar.
· Shirley needs overhauling.
· Shirley needs Supreme Court Reporter v.44.
· Shirley needs me.
· Shirley needs advice.
· Shirley needs the public to escape depression.
· Shirley needs love.
· Shirley needs more spells.
· Shirley needs the following: any donated items; volunteers to help with sales, inventory and pricing items; and help designing and distributing fliers.
· Shirley needs to be on the thoroughfare between the development and the car park.
· Shirley needs to remain free.
· Shirley needs more sand.
· Shirley needs Harvard.

I have just finished Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a Shopaholic, which I got on paperback (contodos 20-percent Laking National discount) yesterday during my Graduate School lunch break.

The book is light and spirited, with a few emotional chords here and there. Overall, it is definitely chick lit. I highly recommend Confessions to those who want to experience unadulterated extravagant fun. Pun intended.

Amazon.com provides the following book summary:

At age 25, Rebecca Bloomwood has everything she wants. Or does she?

Can her career as a financial journalist, a fab flat and a closet full of designer clothes lessen the blow of the dunning letters from credit card companies and banks that have been arriving too quickly to be contained by the drawer in which Rebecca hides them?

Although her romantic entanglements tend toward the superficial, there is that wonderful Luke Brandon of Brandon Communications: handsome, intelligent, the 31st-richest bachelor according to Harper’s and actually possessed of a personality that is more substance than style. Too bad that Rebecca blows it whenever their paths cross.

Will Rebecca learn to stop shopping before she loses everything worthwhile?

When faced with the opportunity to do good for others and impress Luke, will she finally measure up?