The First Six Books

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Somebody asked me yesterday about what book would I like to get as a gift.

I have a lot of titles running through my head, so I came up with this listing.

This is not my six most liked books, but the first six books that I would like to have since after my long hiatus from all these business of reading and writing:

ACTS OF LITERATURE – Jacques Derrida (Edited by Derek Attridge)

One of my major influences in terms of critical study and discussion, Derrida is certainly one of the few contemporary thinkers whose content I read with a great deal of attention.

It is through his essays that I came up with my signature line: "I am, therefore I think."

Also from him are favored words: deconstuire, aporia, dissemination.

JACQUES DERRIDA and the humanities: A Critical Reader (Edited by Tom Cohen)

From my early survey of documentations of Derrida's speeches and interviews, this reading shows to be most faithful in terms of context and meanings, in the midst of the aporia and dissemination to which by translation and interpretation could have been lost (well it probably strayed somewhere too,) but as it draws mostly from the earlier appearances of Derrida before audiences, it is less cluttered than most books.

I find the contents of this book very useful for anyone who could not get hands on the transcripts and translations of his early lectures and discussions.

JACQUES DERRIDA: Acts of Religion (Edited by Gil Anidjar)

Derrida's claims have always contracted controversies from among the world's religions, but these controversies mainly arise by the same problem of translation and the assimilation of thought into a culture, which invariably led to debates about the true religiosity of the applied Derrida. 

On my readings however, I find the questions he posted as valid and in no way demeaning. And even by my own experience in the act of discussing Derrida, I have run the risk of controversion and being misinterpreted and misunderstood, and yet by the same perspective, continue to thrive in the same path of dissertation.

4. IBALONG: The Bicol Folk Epic Fragment - Dr. Merito Espinas

A must-read perhaps for anyone who is in the study of Bicol culture and heritage. It is considered the set-off for the Legazpi City's month-long Ibalong Festival which is celebrated during October.

It is a telling of the heroic tales of Handiong, Bantong, and Baltog and is often referred to as a fraction of the story of the early civilization and of the lyrical tradition of the early settlers and ancestors of our ethnicity.

5. Awit ni Kadunung - Abdon M. Balde, Jr.

A novel about the ancient Bikolano heroes and the expeditions of Juan de Salcedo in the Bicol Region.

This book is written in the Filipino language and takes us back to the discovery of our native land by the Spanish expeditions. 

The author is known for his surreal approach to literature.

I have yet to read it.

6. Bikol-English Dictionary - Mintz, Malcolm & Britanico, Jose 

Author:     Mintz, Malcolm Warren
                 [Mintz, Malcolm Warren. (Open Library)]
Description: Quezon City, Philippines : New Day Publishers,
                       c1985. 555 p., [1] leaf of plates : ill. ; 23 cm.
ISBN     9711002124 (pbk. : bookprint)  9711002132 (pbk. : newsprint)
Notes:     Rev. ed. of: Bikol dictionary. 1971. Subjects: Bikol language - Dictionaries - English.  | English language - Dictionaries - Bikol.
Other authors/contributors     Britanico, Jose Del Rosario
Also Titled:    Diksionariong bikol-ingles