When in Manila, you can meet some of the best book authors in the world. Being a bookworm myself it would be a very rare opportunity to meet the authors of my favorite books, or meet a book author of any book you could find in a library. It’s quite amazing how some people can spend most of their time scribbling and end up with a pretty awesome piece of literature.Even though I really love reading, in my 22 years of existence I have never met an international book author and it was my first time to do so last June 25 at the Fully booked Bonifacio High Street. It was the book launch of A Moment in the Sun, the latest literary endeavor of the Irish-American author, independent film director, and screenwriter John Sayles.
On the outside the book was a chunky piece of literature with almost a thousand pages, quite intimidating, but the cover was gleaming and the stack of books on the counter looked like gold bricks from afar. The cover art was superb and it felt like it was a book that contained recipes of magical potions, in short A Moment in the Sun looked enchanting. The book was an omnibus of three separate books namely Manifest Destiny, A Moment in the Sun, and The Elephant.
As always the most exciting part of a book launch is hearing the author himself read out lines from his masterpiece. As John Sayles started reading excerpts from his book, it felt like you were listening to an e-book. I literally wanted to close my eyes and play the whole thing in my head, all his words where coming alive! I realized one thing that day, a good author is definitely also a really good story teller.
I did a little research on John Sayles and found out that John Sayles was already an author of a number of novels namely: Dillinger in Hollywood: New and Selected Short Stories, Los Gusanos, I-80 Nebraska, and The Anarchist’s Convention and Other Stories. John Sayles also won several awards such as the O. Henry Award in 1975, the John Steinbeck award, the John Cassavetees award, the Ian Mclellan Hunter Award and a Lifetime Achievement by the Writer’s Guild of America. He also wrote the screenplay for The Spiderwick Chronicles.
John Sayles was recently in the Philippines last February 2011 to promote his Indie movie, Amigo which starred veteran local actors such as Rio Locsin, Bembol Roco, Joel Torre, and Ronnie Lazaro who was also at the A Moment in the Sun book launch to support John Sayles. The movie, just like the book, the movie focused on the Filipino-American War. John Sayles clearly has a huge fascination for the Philippines and for this period in our history.
Although I’m more into books about wizards and vampires, a few pages into A Moment in the Sun got me hooked already. I have still a long way to go to finish reading this book but I think with all the good feedback and response I’ve read, this book will definitely exceed my expectations.
Over all, the book launch was great and it felt like entering history class again, this time it was more interesting. I’d also like to give a shout out to JC Pullan of fully booked who was really nice, more power to fully booked!
When In Manila, don’t forget to visit Fully Booked!
Fully Booked – Bonifacio Global City High Street
Tel. No.: (632)858-7000 / 858-7036 thru 38
