Reading something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue
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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!
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!
Crazy over the cut-price sale!
Aug 8th
The annual National Book Store Cut-Price sale is on!
I’ve been shopping at the NBS cut-price sale since I was in college, and I always manage to take home a great haul over the three-week sale season. I’ve even developed a strategy for it over the years — I’ve learned to pace myself, because otherwise I’ll just go crazy (not to mention broke).
I spend the first week scoping out a couple of branches, and I usually don’t buy anything (unless it’s something I absolutely must have for my collection); I just check out the books on sale. And then I do my first round of shopping at the one branch, where I do the bulk of my cut-price purchases. Over the next few days, when I have the chance, I drop by the different branches, and see if there are one or two books I still want to buy. And then, at the tail end, I drop by another branch and scrounge for more books — sometimes the prices drop towards the end of the sale!
Book Parade!
Aug 2nd
When I was in grade school, my favorite time of the year was Book Week. We had our DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time, and I remember we would goof around, literally dropping whatever we were holding and racing for the reading corner of the classroom. There was also one year when our class put on a “Little Mermaid” play, and I originally played Flounder, and then I had a wardrobe malfunction wherein my mishappen blue and yellow crepe paper costume fell to pieces during rehearsal (I had no idea how to make a fish costume — I stapled the crepe paper all around me and I think I ended up looking like Boo from Monsters, Inc. in her monster suit) so I ended up playing Scuttle (the seagull) at the play.
The part I looked forward to the most was the mini-book fair (yes, I was a bargain book hunter even way back in grade school) where some booksellers would lay out books on long tables and there were some really nice books to be had for as low as P5, P10, and P15. Every year I would get a hundred bucks from my dad to spend at Book Week, and then I saved my allowance for the week (I spent all of recess browsing through the books anyway!) so I could buy myself more books! I got a lot of books from those book fairs, including comic books (Peanuts, Family Circus, Grimmy, and Rose is Rose), trivia books, Sweet Valley books (of course!), and those little square origami books with free folding paper in them!
Anyway, this flood of memories was unleashed when I saw a bunch of photos on my brother’s computer. My brother Enzo teaches English and Religion classes at the Tuloy sa Don Bosco Foundation, an organization for poor, abandoned, at-risk, and homeless children. Last month was Book Month at the school, and they had a lot of book-reading activities, topped off with a book parade involving all their students. These kids don’t have very much, but check out the photos — they definitely prove that a little imagination goes a long, long way!!!
From one book lover to another
Jul 29th
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Here’s a story that made my day.
A few months back, I had blogged about a bunch of bookmarks I found at a bargain bookstore. Among those I featured was a beautiful bookmark featuring some unicorns prancing in the night sky. It was the only one in the tray of bookmarks that wasn’t based on an actual book, and it was smaller than the rest,but I’ve always loved unicorns and I liked the softness of the painting featured in the bookmark.
Bookish Blackout!
Jul 16th
On Tuesday night, I was pounding out a blog entry when my mom told me to go to bed because there was a storm brewing (typhoon Basyang). I was actually packing up my stuff already; the chilly wind was blowing into the living room and I was getting goosebumps. Of course, because I’m now paranoid, I had to check that I had no books at flood level before heading upstairs.
I’d no sooner climbed into bed when the power went out, and the wind started howling something awful, rattling the window panes and galvanized iron roofs from nearby. Our dog Macky started whimpering from the stairs so I grabbed my flashlight to take him up to the room. Our cat Missy was already burrowing into my mom’s blankets for warmth (she hates being cold).
I fell into a fitful sleep, worrying about falling trees and flying rooftops, and woke up to the sound of my brother telling my mom the upstairs bathroom was a mess — the window was open and the ceiling was detached, hanging by the wiring of the lamp in the center. I got out of bed and there was sludge all over the toiletries!
Still no power by then so I marched off to the bathroom downstairs to get ready for work. There were a few inches of floodwater in the street so I had to tiptoe across the sidewalk!
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