Thanks to all those who joined the Mockingjay giveaway. I’m sure you’re all eager to find out who the lucky winner is, and I’ve finally (figuratively) drawn the name out of the hat!
Year: 2010
Back to the Underland
Last month, I blogged about how much I loved Suzanne Collins‘ Underland Chronicles after I read the first three books right before Mockingjay was released. I must confess the series took me by surprise; way before I discovered the Hunger Games series, I’d been seeing the Underland Chronicles in the bookstores and never really thought of picking them up. Then I managed to forage two books out of the bargain bins, and when I finally decided to read them, I found them utterly engrossing!
I read straight on from books 1-3: Gregor the Overlander, Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, and Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods. I had trouble finding copies of the next books in the series, Gregor and the Marks of Secret and Gregor and the Code of the Claw so I momentarily had to stop reading the series, but some wonderful friends at Scholastic (yay, thanks Ms. Joyce and Ms. Roselle!) gifted me with books 4 and 5, and as soon as the craziness of the past couple of weeks subsided, I happily dug into the remainder of the Underland Chronicles.
The weird wonders of the wanderer’s world
At the height of stress, I often choose trivia books over novels, because I’m not in the proper frame of mind to concentrate on plot, and I really can’t afford to read more than a few snippets at a time. Last week was pure madness (in my world), but one book got me through it: The Traveller’s Companion.
Whenever I could find time to just sit down and catch my breath, I’d open it and read a page or two, and it was quite a relaxing exercise, and by the end of the week, I had finished the book!
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MIBF 2010: The Loot
I’m tired but I’m grinning like a bandit, because I made off with a lot of loot on the last day of the Manila International Book Fair, making up for the odd book I was able to squeeze in during the first days of the event.
The five days of the book fair was quite crazy for me, because aside from my work at the book fair, I also had work for all of the co-located events happening in the function rooms on top of the exhibit hall, and with one event opening every day it took all of my energy just to keep up with the schedule. I didn’t even have as many photos of this year’s book fair as I did last year; I simply didn’t have the time!
A Good Year (Flips Flipping Pages September book discussion)
Today I took a break from the Manila International Book Fair for a much awaited occasion — the Flips Flipping Pages September Book Discussion: Peter Mayle‘s A Good Year, paired with a mini wine appreciation seminar at the Cyrano Wine Shop.
I’m afraid I didn’t have time to reread the book, with the MIBF under way, but I read it last year. Unlike the others, I had very low expectations before I read “A Good Year.” I read Mayle’s Chasing Cezanne and expected it to be a thrilling art heist, but it had to be the most lackadaisical chase ever, as the team in pursuit of the forged painting stopped to dine at practically every restaurant they walked past! Figuring plot isn’t one of Mayle’s strong points, I set out to read A Good Year just to enjoy it. And I did. I enjoyed reading about the Provencal wine industry and its quaint practices, and Mayle can write the copy of an ad for garbage bins and I think I’ll still enjoy his prose.
Anyway, while the group in general was disappointed with the novel, we all enjoyed the wine appreciation seminar!
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