Recognized by industry insiders in the Philippines as “the man perfect to write this book,” the author has been at the helm of various publications, from Manila Standard’s The Good Life, for which he was lifestyle editor for seven years, to Manila Bulletin’s Sense&Style, in which he is the current editor-in-chief. He began practically as the “other editor” of Lifestyle Asia back when it was blazing the trail for glossy magazines in the early nineties. Blurring the distinction between instruction and inspiration, WHWN boldly takes the reader along the author’s adventures and misadventures in the publishing world. With a foreword by ruthless editor and bestselling author Jullie Yap Daza and with vignettes from the country’s top editors and writers, never has any book on writing in the Philippines been such a pleasure to read that it makes you want to “write here write now.”

    Here in this starkly beautiful volume, she has discovered a language sufficient to the terrors and the joys of the contemporary. The highest praise that can be given to any work of literature—and Dark Hours is most surely literature—is that it is contemporary. This is a very remarkable book.”—Lynn Emanuel

    As Hagedorn points out in her insightful introduction, Manila is a city burdened with a violent and painful past, with a long heritage of foreign occupation. The specters of WWII (during which the city suffered from U.S. saturation bombing), and the oppressive 20-year reign of dictator Ferdinand Marcos live on in recent memory. The Filipino take on noir includes a liberal dose of the gothic and supernatural, with disappearance and loss being constants."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)"This Southeast sampler is unique, possessing an overall gritty tone. Each slice of supernatural splendor pulls the reader in with their nontraditional heroes…Ultimately, readers get a strong taste of the real Manila and all her dark secrets, wanting more of while being slightly afraid of what she might do next. Manila is the perfect place for noir scenes to occur, and it is easy to get sucked into its deadly nightshade of doom."--Criminal Class PressBrand-new stories by: Lourd De Veyra, Gina Apostol, Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo, F.H. Batacan, Jose Dalisay Jr., Eric Gamalinda, Jessica Hagedorn, Angelo Lacuesta, R. Zamora Linmark, Rosario Cruz-Lucero, Sabina Murray, Jonas Vitman, Marianne Villanueva, and Lysley Tenorio.Manila provides the ideal, torrid setting for an Akashic Noir series volume. It's where the rich rub shoulders with the poor, where five-star hotels coexist with informal settlements, where religious zeal coexists with superstition, and where politics is often synonymous with celebrity and corruption.From the Introduction by Jessica Hagedorn:Manila is not for the faint of heart. Built on water and reclaimed land, it’s an intense, congested, teeming megalopolis, the vital core of an urban network of sixteen cities and one municipality collectively known as Metro Manila. Population: over ten million and growing by the minute. Climate: tropical. Which means hot, humid, prone to torrential monsoon rains of biblical proportions.I think of Manila as the ultimate femme fatale. Complicated and mysterious, with a tainted, painful past. She’s been invaded, plundered, raped, and pillaged, colonized for four hundred years by Spain and fifty years by the US, bombed and pretty much decimated by Japanese and American forces during an epic, month-long battle in 1945.Yet somehow, and with no thanks to the corrupt politicians, the crime syndicates, and the indifferent rich who rule the roost, Manila bounces back. The people’s ability to endure, adapt, and forgive never ceases to amaze, whether it’s about rebuilding from the latest round of catastrophic flooding, or rebuilding from the ashes of a horrific world war, or the ashes of the brutal, twenty-year dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos . . .Many years have passed since the end of the Marcos dictatorship. People are free to write and say what they want, yet nothing is different. The poor are still poor, the rich are still rich, and overseas workers toil in faraway places like Saudi Arabia, Israel, Germany, and Finland. Glaring inequities are a source of dark humor to many Filipinos, but really—just another day in the life . . .Writers from the Americas and Europe are known for a certain style of noir fiction, but the rest of the world approaches the crime story from a culturally unique perspective. In Manila Noir we find that the genre is flexible enough to incorporate flamboyant emotion and the supernatural, along with the usual elements noir fans have come to expect: moody atmospherics, terse dialogue, sudden violence, mordant humor, a fatalist vision.

    “Love is unpredictable.”Even if you’ve fallen in love a million times, you can’t claim, “Alam ko na ‘yan!” And that’s because “Ang pag-ibig kapag sineryoso, nakakabobo.”It’s really complicated, but you have to remember, “Sa isang relasyon dapat masaya ka, hindi ka stressed, hindi ka pressured.”Because “Love is such a wonderful feeling!”And to those who have not experienced what it is like to be loved, don’t worry, “Lahat ng kaldero, may nakalaang takip.”365 quotes: Read one love quote a day to keep the love troubles away.

    A passionate love story set against the ugly political backdrop of repression, torture, and murder, "The Noli," as it is called in the Philippines, was the first major artistic manifestation of Asian resistance to European colonialism, and Rizal became a guiding conscience—and martyr—for the revolution that would subsequently rise up in the Spanish province.

    At that time, new York was already the finance capital of the world. But during that period, around 650,000 serious crimes and murders were committed yearly in that city. No one could solve the problem.Then 2 police consultants experimented on making improvement in new York City's subway train system, used by almost 7% of New Yorkers, but where conditions then were horrible. The waiting platforms were poorly lit and damp, while the walls were covered with all kinds of graffiti. The trains themselves were filthy, the floors littered with trash, and were often late.First, they removed all the graffiti, and painted clean the platforms and the trains/ Then they posted plain-clothes policeman in all stations to arrest those who did not pay train tokens. In a few years, criminality in New York City declined sharply by 65%. Two little things-removal of graffiti and presence of policemen. By they changed the culture and the face of New York.Gladwell says "do not underestimate the power of little things." they can spur a revolution.If "little things"can change a city, they can change a country."Life is made up of little things. Greatness follows if we learn to be great in little things," says Charles Simmons.Because of his book, Gladwell has been cited as one of the World's 100 Influential people by TIME Magazine this year. And his book is changing the mindsets of people around the world.

    "As in the Noli, we have in Ang Tundo Man a story of individuals in love, unfolded against a carefully authenticated social background in order to dramatize the contemporary national experience."

    What emerges is the picture of a fascinating decade: the 1960s.

    She doesn't even know what her real goals are, aside fro simultaneously pining for and getting over smart, hot, talented, charming Gabe, whose glassy perfection both dazzles and depresses her. Then the universe deals her a wake-up call in three sure steps:1.) She starts an internship at a preschool, where the kids are chaotic but cute;2.) She finds an intriguing, potentially life-changing stash of letters addressed to her grandmother from her namesake grandaunt; and3.) She falls into a weird friendship with Luis, the boy with an infectious smile who seems determined to rescue her from Gabe-and from herself.Will this wake-up call finally push her life forward or is Natividad, much like her old-fashioned name, doomed to forever live in the past?

    All of a sudden, she finds herself pretending—unwillingly at that—to be his girlfriend to make his ex jealous.Now, not only does she have to deal with dirty looks from the girls in school who want Kenji for themselves, but her supposed boyfriend is getting on her nerves. He's hotheaded, never seems to agree with her on anything—and everything about him screams gangster.Has Athena gotten herself into more trouble than she can handle? Or has she actually found herself a boy she can call hers—gangster be damned?

    The 'holiday orphans' who dread Christmas and Easter, and Valentine's Day...The unsuspecting wives and the forgiving wives...And the one industry that has risen to the challenge to provide mistresses a safety net...

    This novel challenged its readers to solve or alleviate the festering wound of Philippine society: the widespread feudalism in the countryside. Francisco identifies the cause of poverty of the farmers and describes their helplessness in the hands of the landlord. He introduces characters of a different kind: one that does not allow oneself to be carried away by the flood of life, and instead acts according to one’s own principle and goal of helping others.

    The pieces that comprise Non-Fiction prove just how different, in ways both highly entertaining and deeply unsettling. Encounters with alternative culture heroes Marilyn Manson and Juliette Lewis; the peculiar wages of fame attendant on the big budget film production of the movie Fight Club; life as an assembly-line drive train installer by day, hospice volunteer driver by night; the really peculiar lives of submariners; the really violent world of college wrestlers; the underground world of anabolic steroid gobblers; the harrowing circumstances of his father's murder and the trial of his killer - each essay or vignette offers a unique facet of existence as lived in and/or observed by one of America's most flagrantly daring and original literary talents.

    The son of a legendary fisherman has to give up his studies and start supporting his family following his father’s accident. This kind of sacrifice is a universal problem faced by many children who are forced into child labor because of financial needs. It also tells the struggles of the son as he tries to establish his own identity and get out of his father’s shadow.

    This book details his return to live performance, and the journey that took him from an early retirement to his position as the most critically acclaimed stand-up in Britain.