Book Crossing in Singapore

I found a Book Crossing book! There were lots more at The Cafe Cartel; Apparently it’s an official hotspot, as Singapore has its own Book Crossing thing going on, called BookCross@SG. Apparently, they are partnered with the main Book Crossing movement. It’s curious how they don’t link back to the main Book Crossing site somewhere prominent, however.

I realize having official hotspots is more “organized” and will prevent books from getting destroyed (i.e., rain) and that’s a good thing — no use sending off a book only to have it rendered unreadable. But somehow, I really like the randomness of the original Book Crossing, and it makes the novelty of finding one so much more meaningful, I think.

Take for instance when I saw a book over at Cafe Cartel with the running book logo and I felt like I’d found a treasure (much to the confusion of my friends, I’ll bet…) and grabbed it up immediately. And then right under it, there was another book with the same logo, and then I started to feel a bit confused. I noticed suddenly that the URL was different from what I knew the URL to be, but I surmised it was a local chapter. I did take the first one anyway since it felt like finding a completely random book is the whole point.

So tonight I finally went to check the website out. Apparently, this local movement is managed by the National Library Board here, and there are official hotspots or venue sponsors for the books: SMRT taxis, and Cafe Cartel and Cafe Galilee outlets. Also, one cannot simply release a book into the wild; according to the FAQ:

I have a personal English Fiction book that I’d like to donate to BCSG. Can I leave it at any hotspot?

Not at the moment. It is highly recommended that donation of books for BCSG must be passed to the Customer Service Counter at any of the 23 public libraries.

Uhm, okay. That’s quite different from the original stance on released books:

Where should I release books? Are there places where I should not release books?

The list where books can be left or released is really limitless. You can release them at cafes, restaurants, coffee houses, those newspaper boxes for free papers, a bus, hospitals, doctor’s offices, anywhere people have to wait, on top of ATM’s…

The latter definitely sounds more fun and dynamic, and personally makes finding one quite a gem; after all, since I know I can get books in the hotspots, it’s just like going to the library and picking something up.

Anyway, the book I have with me is Linda Howard’s Open Season. The sticker covered the whole title. :P It’s a crime thriller sort of thing, so it might prove a good read.

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The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio (Lloyd Alexander)

I finished Lloyd Alexander’s last work sometime last week. The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio was light, and in keeping with how I know Alexander’s work to be: seemingly simple, but something with great depth. I loved the characters he created, as usual — for all the short time I got to know them, by the time I ended the book I loved them all.

The story is about Carlo, who is forced to leave his uncle’s home after a disastrous errand. Armed with only a treasure map and a coat with gold coins sewn in (effectively “wearing [his] fortune on [his] back…not the most fashionably dressed, but, no doubt, the most expensively”, in Carlo’s own words), he travels to Sidya and meets the beautiful, capable Shira and the rather shady Baksheesh, who goes with him on his journey on the Golden Road in order to find the treasure.

The story is an adventure, both literally and in the self-discovery sense. As someone who loves The Prydain Chronicles, I’ll go ahead with comparisons between the two. Like the idealistic Taran, Carlo must go through the same learning and awakening. Like Taran, he is kept wondering about the real deal with Shira, who admits to liking him but tells him that she will leave him. Like Fflewddur Fflam, Baksheesh loves exaggeration and won’t scruple to hide the truth (but as someone who’s always complaining, I admit to getting annoyed with Baksheesh!). I’d say Baksheesh is a mix between Doli and Fflewddur, leaning more on the Doli-scale. And the wise old man Salamon? He’d be in a league all his own. I loved the interaction between the ever-optimistic Salamon and the complaining Baksheesh.

My favorite secondary character would have to be Bashir, however, of the Bashir-Bazouks. He doesn’t come in until much later in the book, but he’s filled with such life, simplicity, enthusiasm, and good will. Even when you feel you should hate him, you just can’t get yourself to hate him. And for a secondary character who doesn’t have much screen time, it almost feels like you know him already; he’s not flat or stereotypical.

I admit to feeling that the book was far too short, that I would have wanted to be with Carlo, Shira, Baksheesh, and Salamon more. The Chronicles of Prydain are still my favorite Lloyd Alexander books, but The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio is still one amazing, well-written book that shouldn’t be passed on.

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Yahoo! Answers Singapore Plugin

Alright, shameless promotion time. One of the early projects I’ve been involved in when I joined Yahoo! was a Yahoo! Answers plugin for the SEA region, which Jaydee (of TipidPC fame) was already working on. All the snazzy JS effects was done by him, while I contributed the user interface for the plugin (so you know who to complain to if you don’t like the design!).

All the countries in SEA with localized Yahoo! Answers will have their own version of the plugin, but for now, the Yahoo! Answers Singapore plugin is out! So if you live in Singapore or is curious about the plugin, give it a whirl. :)

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Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007)

Why does it seem like a lot of my favorite YA authors seem to be leaving Earth this year? I just found out that Madeleine L’Engle died last September 6, at the age of 88. Of the books she wrote, the ones I read and loved were her Kairos books, principally the ones with the Murrys. (Of the O’Keefes, I’ve only been able to read An Acceptable Time).

Lenneth posted a wonderful interview with her: Allegorical Fantasy: Mortal Dealings with Cosmic Questions. I practically couldn’t tear my eyes away from the interview — I felt it had great meaning to me personally, both as a writer and a Catholic.

I’d like to highlight some lines that I felt were very meaningful for me:

[Writing and praying is] not a matter of feeling like it, or waiting when I feel inspired, because both in work and in prayer, inspiration comes during rather than before.

…Freedom comes on the other side of work. If I want to play a Bach fugue, I must practice scales. If I hope for any transcendent experience in prayer, I have to have just done my ordinary, everyday prayers, which is the same thing as practicing my scales. I have to write every day. Freedom and discipline, rather than being antithetical, are complementary. Permissiveness, either from others toward you or toward yourself, ends up being restricting and crippling. If you choose to be a writer and a mother, you have to be incredibly disciplined. Otherwise you won’t manage. Discipline does not imprison you.

This is truly something that I personally have to work on, even though I’ve read this same thing from various places and books, and they all say the same thing. And yet I still don’t get to write on a daily basis — creative writing, that is.

We’ve got to be free to fail. … We live in a world that insists we be successes. If you’re not free to fail, you’ll never be anything but mediocre. You must try to do more than you can really do. Sometimes, you do do more than you can really do. That’s the marvel of it.

I feel there is a lot of truth in this statement, and frankly I feel this is where my biggest difficulty lies, especially in writing. I might go into this in depth at this blog some other time, but basically I’ve been coming to the conclusion for some time now that my biggest barrier in terms of writing is my fear of failure at what I most want to do.

I remember seeing, once back in the Philippines a month or so before I moved to Singapore, these beautiful new editions of her Kairos books. I wanted to buy them, as I didn’t have my own copies (the ones we have are really technically my sister’s) but I didn’t as I was moving. I really should have bought them.

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