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Three thousand pesos. That's how expensive the book "Sinaunang Habi" on Filipino indigenous weavings is. Three thousand pesos is also on the price tag of a Keith Haring coffee table book. The same amount could get you a vacation in Puerto Gallera for three days or pay half of your monthly rent or feed a family of four for a month or more. The books we buy say a lot about how we see ourselves, especially for the third world web designer. After all, there is your meager wage to contend with and the availability of free inspiration on the web that we have to compare it to. To buy a book on design or on any artistic field that might serve as your reference and inspiration is to invest in yourself. "Am I worth it?" "Am I a bona fide designer with a capital 'D'?" "Is this just a job or a vocation?" "Am I taking myself too seriously?" Those are the questions that go through my mind every time I visit the art section of PowerBooks or drool over what Amazon.com has to offer. Three thousand pesos is a lot of money. Three thousand pesos, no matter how you spend it, is a statement on what you value more in life.
Why spend on a book when you can read off the web or download the PDF version? Books have very little system requirements, work on any operating system and don't need a power supply. They are tangible and collectible. Books have no bandwidth limitations and are printed in 300dpi. But the most compelling reason for owning a book is that you get to appreciate 700 years of continuous design history. Print has a lot to teach the new digital medium. Of course books are also vulnerable to everything to which the dead trees they came from were; fire, moisture, termites and people. And if a tree has to die for your reading habits, it better be for a damn good book.
Expensive as it may be, the act of buying a book is by far the easiest part. The time to read a book often gets elbowed out by immediate necessities and gratifying distractions. I am talking about deadlines, laundry, television, friends, sex, funerals and all the other events that seem to fill our days. The hectic urban lifestyle favors particular forms of literature and certain formats of reading materials. Poetry and short stories are perfect for in between MRT train stops and design magazines are great for dentist waiting rooms. Coffee table art books may be impossible to lug around but being filled with pictures are a breeze to absorb. Thick and heavy and cursed with small print, PHP and JavaScript bibles are only for the well lit office cubicle. Graphic novels and comic books are best read by the bedside, unless you want them dog-eared and torn to shreds with constant borrowing. Epic novels? I'm a slow reader. Self-help books? I've got real friends to talk to. Religious materials? I already have my JavaScript bible.
What makes a good book? I'd say off the bat that it would be any local book designed by Felix Mago Miguel and Robert Alejandro. Who cares if it's about kilawin recipes or whale watching or even bed time fables, the books these guys design are all gorgeous. Bookmark, Anvil and GCF are responsible for publishing most of the good coffee table books from the Philippines. Experimental local magazines "Ink" and "Fly" never fail to advance the bleeding edge and if you've got the dough, go for "Comm Arts" and "Wired" as well. Salman Rushdie, Ben Okri and Banana Yashimoto are all very good fiction writers. There are many Filipino anthologies for short stories and poetry, some quite outstanding. How about you, what's on your reading table? What's your wish list?
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