Serendipity

May 24, 2007

"You know, I'm a political science student but I don't like reading non-fiction much," I said the other day as me and Marco stood in an aisle in Booksale. We were surrounded by second-hand books and we felt at home in the musty scent. More importantly, we felt at home with each other.

 

"What, I love reading non-fiction," he remarked blandly. He majored in Political Science and I found out quite early that he likes classical and contemporary political philosophy bullshit. Stuff I meant to read since forever but always bored me even though i knew they were interesting.  I rolled my eyes and they rested on a random book. "Hey, here's Tocqueville. Political non-fiction bullshit." I touched the book for emphasis. Tocqueville is another one of them boring old farts.

 

He didn't bite the bait. "Hey, you know what you should read?" he asked.

 

"What?" I slipped the book back in the shelf.

 

"The Dune chronicles by Frank Herbert. It's non-fiction and very political. Also it's sci-fi."

 

"Well yeah I've always wanted to read it. But when I scout Booksale I always found the later books in the series. You see, I don't want to read the whole shit in the wrong order. I think it's that awesome," I lazily remarked as my eyes wandered to other books. It landed on a nondescript one with a brownish cover. My eyes widened.

 

"Cool. Here's Dune. For only 80 pesos what the fuck," I told him as I excitedly passed the book to him. How so very coincidental. Here's this book I've been hunting for since what three, four years back, since I watched the movie and he mentions it and it turns up like magic. Amazing.

 

"Let's buy it," he said. While he was paying at the counter I saw this children's pop-up book with moving pop-ups. How cool is that? Moving paper pop-ups!  It's a potluck combination of fairy tales. I love fairy tales. I leafed through the whole thing before leaving Booksale. I'm happy.


Posted by lizette at 4:59 pm | permalink

Previous Comments

You found Dune? YOU FOUND DUNE!?!?

Posted by Ting at May 25, 2007, 10:46 am

I FOUND DUNE! FOR EIGHTY FUCKIN’ PESOS! EAT THAT! HAH! i am so happy when i find books you haven’t found dear. because. you have so many books i haven’t found yet either. books i’d die for. i love evening it out. ^_^ misshoo! polsci ka pa ba?

Posted by lizette at May 25, 2007, 11:26 am

do you know the “The years of the rice and salt” by kim stanley robinson..

(wala na ako mahanap na copy..binanggit lang sa akin ng blog bud ko..alternate history daw..a world without europe and christianity)

Posted by dave at May 25, 2007, 12:43 pm

nah, i don’t. :( sorry dave.

Posted by lizette at May 25, 2007, 2:08 pm

shit. DUNE?! damnit i’ve been looking all over for that one. And the Foundation series. i want copies of that. dang it.

Posted by arc at May 25, 2007, 5:41 pm

DUNE… is… not my type. :P
i read mostly japanese shit. :P last series i finished was the Otori series by Lian Hearn. more samurai, more daimyo, more fun! lol

Posted by keysi at May 25, 2007, 11:47 pm

bloghop… try, the razor’s edge by S. Maugham

Posted by _victor_ at May 26, 2007, 10:26 am

And that’s where it all begins. Hahaha.

I can sense what will happen in, errr, two weeks. Nyarrrr. But I can’t figure out what it exactly is…

Posted by Niko at May 26, 2007, 2:45 pm

Yup, stuck pa rin ako with PolSci XP. Take care of them books you borrowed!

Posted by Ting at May 26, 2007, 2:55 pm

it it fair to say that you are what you read?

doh! im a cheap tabloid..

Posted by confessions from a cheap motel at May 27, 2007, 12:05 am

You mean “fiction and very political”? Hehe.

I love that! There’s the original Dune series, but there are also prequels written by Frank Herbert’s son, books like House Atreides and House Harkonnen.

Other politically-motivated fantasy novels are those by Terry Goodkind, the Sword of Truth Series. Especially the latter books.. They turn revolutionary and idealistic.

Posted by Celle at May 27, 2007, 12:42 am

niko: what?

ting: see you in three weeks. ;) hopefully with your books. i keep forgtting. i am deeply sorry.

paolo: yeah, a cheap tabloid with brilliant writing powers.

celle: thank you for the suggestions. i will try and look for them.

Posted by lizette at May 27, 2007, 7:30 am

Honestly, I dunno. :p I just said that, didn’t I?

Posted by Niko at May 27, 2007, 5:49 pm

I hate non-fiction, too. Well, not really. I just prefer fiction. All the non-fiction reading I had back in college had the tendency to make me sad.

Posted by helga at May 28, 2007, 3:10 pm

yeah. same here. i guess it’s because non-fiction is real and who wants to read about real, horrible things?

Posted by lizette at May 29, 2007, 9:43 am

oooh. di ba may computer war game na Dune? same din ba yun?

Posted by torres-c at June 4, 2007, 9:10 pm

Hey Claren,

Liz isn’t much of a computer game buff but I AM!!

Yep the Dune game series were based on the same book, it was made by Westwood Studios back then as an attempt to take back the popularity of Starcraft made by rival game developers Blizzard. Unfortunately the Dune game series didn’t fare to well because of the lack of good AI and sucky sucky graphics.

Hope that helps!

Posted by Marco, the site guy at June 5, 2007, 1:30 am

i got my copy of Dune at Booksale for only P50. i also got a copy of Children of Dune for P30. finding those was a hell of an adventure. i really had to check out every Booksale stall in Manila. so far, i haven’t found Dune Messiah.

good luck on your next book hunt.

Posted by kirk at June 7, 2007, 12:30 pm

you know dude, i hate you. but i will stop hating you if you give me your books, you know. so do take the easy way out and everyone will be so goddamn happy even Paul Atreides will see again.

Posted by lizette at June 7, 2007, 12:45 pm

ahaha. sorry, they’re mine.

but i’ll they tell you where i got them.

in all my booksale hunts, the best stalls/branches that have the gold are:

Booksale stall at Isetann Recto, the one on the 4th floor, in front of the activity center.

Booksale branch at SM North

Booksale branch at SM Fairview

Booksale branch at EDSA Central.

Posted by kirk at June 8, 2007, 11:44 am

okay, i semi-love you now. thanks for the heads up. ;)

Posted by lizette at June 8, 2007, 2:06 pm