Reading something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue
The Red Pyramid
Sep 2nd
Egyptian culture has always been a special interest of mine since I was a high school sophomore, when most of our subjects for the year were tied up with Afro-Asian civilization. One quarter of that school year was devoted to Egypt, and I remember being fascinated with the history of pharaohs in Social Studies class (my personal favorite was Hatshepsut!), and Egyptian mythology and the concept of afterlife in Literature class.
I actually like Egyptian mythology over Greek mythology so even though I wasn’t all that fond of the Percy Jackson series, I was eager to try out The Red Pyramid, the first book in Rick Riordan’s new series, The Kane Chronicles.
Quarter Quell Live Action Role Play (LARP)
Aug 30th
Yesterday’s Mockingjay Launch Party was such a blast!
I’m still wading through hundreds of event photos, and am in the middle of writing an article about the event for Manila Bulletin, but I know you’re all waiting for one thing, anyway: the major highlight of the Mockingjay Launch Party — the Quarter Quell Live Action Role Play (LARP)!
Last year, the Hunger Games LARP at the Manila International Book Fair was a huge success, and I was lucky to be one of the few people to cover it. Of course, this meant the Mockingjay launch party wouldn’t be complete without a LARP, and Scholastic upped the ante this year with the Quarter Quell!
24 tributes representing the 12 districts of Panem participated in this year’s Quarter Quell LARP, competing for exciting prizes from Scholastic and National Book Store.
Here’s a recap of the Quarter Quell LARP (based on the events in Catching Fire) which is easy enough to replicate in case you’re planning your own Hunger Games party!
The Mockingjay has landed!
Aug 28th
(first published in Manila Bulletin)
The long wait is finally over for fans of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, as “Mockingjay,” the final installment in Scholastic’s hottest property since Harry Potter, was released worldwide this week.
Since “Mockingjay” was announced in December 2009, fans have kept an eye on the countdown clock as they held their breaths on the fate of the series heroine, Katniss Everdeen, and the nation of Panem. Much of the fandom is based online: fan pages, countdown counters and badges, miles of fan fiction, online book clubs and book discussions, and blog tours.
“Mockingjay” has been so highly anticipated that even those in the literary circles were scrabbling about for advance copies, but to no avail. Scholastic kept it under wraps, more closely guarded than “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” that furor ensued all over the internet when Andrew Sims, administrator of Harry Potter fan site mugglenet.com, tweeted that he got ahold of a copy nearly two weeks before the release.
And when a video of Suzanne Collins reading the first few paragraphs of “Mockingjay” was posted on the internet one day before the release, fans all over the world hung on to her every word.
Have you read Mockingjay yet?
Aug 26th
I just wanted to post a note to say that I finished Mockingjay last night after I quarantined myself from the internet for about four hours. It turned out to be a good decision because spoilers were flying around (how rude of some people).
Then I wrote a spoiler-free review that will be published in Manila Bulletin on Saturday — quite tricky because I didn’t want to reveal important information about Hunger Games and Catching Fire either! I’ll post the review here when the issue’s out.
Meanwhile, the Mockingjay launch party is on Sunday (squee!) and I’m busy prepping for that — I can’t wait!
Toodles for now, and to all Mockingjay readers, happy reading!
Paper book covers
Aug 24th
In an attempt not to stray into any Mockingjay spoilers online, I’m composing this post to distract me, and to keep me from opening a certain file that is, erm, burning a hole in my hard drive, so to speak… I can’t wait to get my copy of Mockingjay tomorrow, but in the meantime, here’s something I discovered over the weekend: paper book covers!
There was a sale at a one-price Japanese store and my sibs and I wanted to go because we were expecting to take home a huge haul. The sale turned out to be bitterly disappointing, but I hated going all the way out there for nothing! There were a bunch of sorry looking bargain bins which contained weird odds and ends — miniature bundt tins, plastic flowers, fleecy headbands, and other remnants — and I was halfheartedly rooting in one of the bins when I found some packs of paper book covers for only P25 (about $0.50) each, so I went from bin to bin and came up with four packs.
1st Scholastic Clearance Sale!
Aug 23rd
Here’s an announcement from Scholastic, one I know my bookish friends have been eagerly awaiting:
Cats!
Aug 22nd
I read T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats last year and found out it was the book on which the musical Cats was based. I didn’t think I would get to see the musical on its Manila run because the tickets are fabulously expensive, but a couple of orchestra tickets magically fell into my hands on Friday afternoon, courtesy of my boss (thank you! thank you!), so my sister and I got to watch the musical that same night.
Cats is one of the longest-running shows in the history of musical theater. Its composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber, counts Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats as one of his favorite childhood books, and most of the musical is based on the cats in Eliot’s verse, except mainly Grizabella the glamor cat (who has grown old and gray) and a few other cats, who (presumably) were written in to tie the story together.
Mockingjay Launch Party!
Aug 19th
Calling all Hunger Games fans!
Join Flips Flipping Pages, New Worlds Alliance, Scholastic Philippines, and National Book Store as we celebrate the release of Mockingjay, the highly-anticipated third book in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. It’ll be an afternoon of fun fandom on Sunday, Aug. 29th, 1-5 pm at NBS Bestsellers, Robinsons Galleria, packed with activities for all Hunger Games fans!
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