Bob Ong

Pseudonymous author of transformative best-sellers like “ABNKKBSNPLAko?!” (adapted into a movie by Viva Films in 2014). His newest book—his 10th—is 2014’s “Si.”

Currently on the table beside my bed is Elie Wiesel’s “The Trial of God.” I discovered it in a bookstore when I was still a cash-strapped student, and the blurb got me hooked instantly. I spent years looking for it again but succeeded in finding it only recently. It’s an ongoing love affair.

Will also most likely take me some time to finish, but the second book is Bill Bryson’s “A History of Nearly Everything.” It’s so wonderful it’s like learning everything again for the first time. Fries your brain in the most awesome way.

The third book, which I’ve just reread, is Rhod Nuncio’s “100 Aklat sa Aking Pagkamulat: Pagbasa, Dagling-suri, at Paanyaya.” It’s the only book of its kind that I know of, and it’s doing our local publishers and the Filipino reading public a service by listing noteworthy Philippine books. I consult it to familiarize myself with the best works of our prominent writers. And it also serves a dual purpose as a book-sale shopping list. It’s a necessary publication, and I hope we’ll have more of such, if only to know the literary grounds we’ve already covered, and the long and challenging journey that lies ahead.

Nick Deocampo

Award-winning filmmaker, film scholar, author and director of the Center for New Cinema

It is purposive reading I do. The books I read support the writing projects I am engaged in. While they may not be of interest to many, I find nonfiction/academic books more inspiring and intellectually stimulating to read. I’ve got three to mention among those I’ve finished reading or those I’m presently reading:

“The Imperial Screen: Japanese Film Culture in the Fifteen Years’ War” by Peter B. High, for the book I am presently finishing on the history of cinema in the Philippines during World War II. (Finally, a history of wartime cinema is written. Watch out for it!)

“The Time-Image (Cinemas 1 and 2)” by Gilles Deleuze, for the new book on Philippine film theory that I will start writing this summer.

“Ang Tungkulin ng Kritisismo sa Filipinas” by Virgilio S. Almario, a newly released book that grips me by its lucid historization of criticism in the country, and makes me want to write a history of film criticism; one day if I do, this is the book that inspired me to write it.