Fast Forward


Darren Wearmouth - 2016
    And somebody offers the guarantee of a better life in the distant future... Would you take the chance? After recovering from near-fatal injuries sustained on a mission, Luke Porterfield is offered a second opportunity to fight terrorism by a private venture. He is stored in bleeding-edge technology before agreeing to the deal, and wakes to an uncertain fate. In a vastly changed and advanced world, Luke is tasked to defeat a deadly and elusive terrorist group. When his mission unearths a five-decade-long conspiracy, the explosive consequences force him into risking his life to save society. Fast Forward is a thrilling science fiction adventure packed with action, unexpected twists, and technologies destined to be part of our future.

A Short History Of The Philippines


Teodoro A. Agoncillo - 1969
    

Reportage on Lovers: A Medley of Factual Romances, Happy or Tragical, Most of Which Made News


Quijano de Manila - 1977
    Plus the portrait of a hip chick from then Swinging London as she discourses indelicately on a most delicate topic: the Filipino as Lover.

Bones of Contention: The Andres Bonifacio Lectures


Ambeth R. Ocampo - 2001
    Sidelin Philippine Politics and Society in the Twentieth Century: Colonial Legacies, Post Colonial Trajectories

Greed & Betrayal: The Sequel to the 1986 EDSA Revolution


Cecilio T. Arillo - 2011
    A country of “yellow fever” victimsAs the elitist image of the Aquino regime permeated society as a whole, its propaganda experts began to shape the political landscape as well, and transformed most of the unsuspecting citizens into consumers of its own brand of illiberal democracy symbolized by the yellow banner, the yellow ribbon, and the yellow confetti.Arillo’s Greed & Betrayal relived the events that marked the Aquino regime’s bungled presidency and how it systematically and repeatedly blamed Marcos, Enrile, Honasan, Laurel, Mitra, and others as the all-purpose excuse to hide its own incompetence, failures, and perfidy.This book also inspired the writing of Arillo's latest book, A Country Imperiled: Tragic Lessons of a Distorted History.

Dwellers


Eliza Victoria - 2014
    1: You don't kill the body you inhabit.Rule No. 2: You should never again mention your previous name.Rule No. 3: You don't ever talk about your previous life. Ever.Two young men with the power to take over another body inhabit the bodies and lives of brothers Jonah and Louis. The takeover leads to a car crash, injuring Jonah's legs and forcing them to stay in the brothers' house for the time being.The street is quiet. The neighbors aren't nosy. Everything is okay.They are safe, for now.Until they find a dead body in the basement.

Gun Dealers' Daughter


Gina Apostol - 2010
    But is her allegiance to the principles of Mao or to Jed, the comrade she’s in love with? Can she really be a part of the movement or is she just a “useful fool,” a spoiled brat playing at revolution? Far from the Philippines, in a mansion overlooking the Hudson River, Sol confesses her youthful indiscretions, unable to get past the fatal act of communist fervor that locked her memory in an endless loop. Rich with wordplay and unforgettable imagery, Gun Dealers’ Daughter combines the momentum of an amnesiac thriller with the intellectual delights of a Borgesian puzzle. In her American debut, award-winning author Gina Apostol delivers a riveting novel that illuminates the conflicted and little-known history of the Philippines, a country deeply entwined with our own.

Manila Noir


Jessica HagedornR. Zamora Linmark - 2013
    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.

A Blade of Fern: A Novel About the Philippines


Edith L. Tiempo - 1978
    Set in the exotic background of the little mining village of Nibucal in the southern Philippines, A Blade of Fern sketches a panoramic vista of rural life and problems of survival among miners prospecting for gold.The novel is in the tradition of the Romantic hero who runs away from a society he rejects to seek regeneration in a deeply natural environment.A Blade of Fern should be of interest to students of Philippine literature in English and the general reader.

The Best Philippine Short Stories of the Twentieth Century


Isagani R. Cruz - 2000
    Edited by literary critic Isagani R. Cruz, this collection spans from 1925 to 1998. In this book readers will meet both famous and unfamiliar writers in both conventional and unexpected renditions of the genre. Although many of the stories are acknowledged masterpieces, the editor also chose stories on the basis of their ability to represent a particular author or decade. The stories of the 25 men and women writers represented here depict a vast gamut of human experience and emotions that, collectively, produce a stunning portrait of Philippine life and society. Dr. Cruz is a professor of literature at De Lasalle University, where he is also publisher of DLSU Press. He is himself a multi-awarded author and columnist, and the founding chair of the Manila Critics Circle. In a country where English has been the medium of instruction since the turn of the century, it is but fitting for the Philippines to share with the rest of the world its own vibrant treasury of short fiction. This richly satisfying collection represents the very best to emerge out of the Philippines in our century.

Stupid Is Forever


Miriam Defensor Santiago - 2014
    People are puzzled how she can spontaneously make them laugh in the midst of national policy crises, and of real danger to her life as a corruption fighter.This book is a collection of jokes, one-liners, pick-up lines, conebacks and speeches delivered and/or curated by the beloved Senator. Also, inside are illustrations by Cj de Silva-Ong, Manix Abrera, Elbert Or, Rob Cham and more of the Philippines' best young illustrators.

Instructions on How to Disappear


Gabriela Lee - 2016
    Set in future Manila, a gleaming metropolis where one's paranoia may not be exactly unfounded and whose lashing sings tribute to Philip K. Dick. "Stations" takes on the ethical trappings of high technology adoption. "August Moon" relies on a succession of flashbacks to uncover, as well as obscure, the eventual doom of a woman who deems herself a "good wife," while "Eyes as Wide as the Sky" depicts a post-war world—scorched yet not wholly devoid of hope. These stories insist on the unreal becoming the real, the rational melding with the irrational, familiarity breeding strangeness.

Dekada '70 (Ang Orihinal at Kumpletong Edisyon)


Lualhati Bautista - 1984
    More than the individual story of a mother watching her sons grow and plunge into real life, Dekada '70 is an indictment of martial law, and here, Lualhati minces no worlds." - Female Forum, November 21, 1983

Bulaklak ng Maynila


Domingo G. Landicho - 1995
    Written with extraordinary insight, honesty, and a master writer's creative sensibility.

Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not)


José Rizal - 1887
    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.