Introduction “They don’t read Camus.” My friend Mar-Vic Cagurangan, editor and publisher of Pacific Island Times, wrote this note on the blank page of a book she once gifted me when we were young journalists in the 1990s. I tried to recall if the book she gave me was an Albert Camus. I don’t remember but I presumed it was. When Mar-Vic asked me to write a column in the Pacific Island Times, we resumed our journalism careers together after years of being geographically apart from each other. “They don’t read Camus” is our inside joke that has bonded our friendship and has survived decades, like a secret society code. It stood for so many things, one of them our love for books and literature. We are in the older versions of ourselves today, and we have many books waiting to be read. We can’t read a much books the way we did when we were younger, but we will always aspire to read the same way we hope to write until we still have thoughts to put in writing. One day while chatting about books, Mar-Vic suggested that I should publish my own book. I have written a chapters, contributed pieces in and edited books in my more than 30 professional years. But I don’t have my own. Hesitantly, I agreed. I remembered the day I discovered ─ a few days after my father died ─ what appeared to be the beginning of a manuscript for a memoir that he had been writing. It was beautiful. It would have been a great book. This book is what my dad would have wanted to see. And so I compiled some of my favorite pieces for this book project, beginning with the very first one that recalled my experience being offered a job as editor of the digital portal of a television network, which I graciously turned down as I was not prepared to go back to the newsroom after so many years of freelancing and doing work engagements other than journalism. Most of the materials in this collection of anecdotes are based on personal experiences that I often thought twice about sharing, but then I decided to write them anyway. My favorite pieces are the ones that tug at my heart every time I read them. Many are musings and reveries about the mundane, the absurd and the extraordinary. This is why I titled my column “Daydream,” my favorite pursuit when life gets too serious and I want to escape for a while. -------------------- Award-winning Filipino journalist Diana G. Mendoza recently released her debut book titled "They Don't Read Camus," a collection of 31 select essays from her monthly column "Daydream" published in the Pacific Island Times. Most of the pieces are based on her personal experiences that she often thought twice about sharing. In this collection of essays, Mendoza reveals her musings and reveries about the mundane, the absurb, and the extraordinary. "They Don't Read Camus" covers many aspects of Mendoza's life, including her career, her childhood, her lust for coffee and reading, her escape from religion, her aversion to materialism and her gratified reclusion during the pandemic lockdown. "They Don't Read Camus" is available at amazon books and other online resellers.