Reading something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue
Remember a few months back when I blogged about our book club Flips Flipping Pages sending a gift to Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins?
Thanks to our friends from Scholastic, we were able to send Suzanne Collins a miniature Philippine flag and a photo from our April Hunger Games book discussion.
But wait — the story doesn’t end there! I opened my email today and found this awesome photo in my inbox:
Last Sunday, I was pushing the shopping cart to the checkout counter of the supermarket when my brother intercepts me and leads me to the toy section, where he points to a stack of boxes at the end of one row. He knows I collect book-related memorabilia (mostly toys) and spotted a great bargain for me: The Balancing Cat in the Hat for the super low price of P50 (a little over USD 1)!
I was already gleeful from my successful book-shopping expedition, and this discovery was a perfect ending to that day. We couldn’t wait to get home and try it out.
Last week, I decided to finished reading the rest of the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson.
I found the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo an engaging read — it took a while to get into the story but absolutely compelling when it hit the groove. I admit I was a bit apprehensive about the rest of the series, because I kept hearing opposite opinions about it. One side emphatically insisted the series gets better in books 2 and 3, the other side insisted, with equal gusto, that the first book was the best of the bunch.
I liked the first book enough that I thought I’d miss out if the next two books did turn out to be better, so I went ahead and got myself the next two books in the series. There were no more trade paperbacks available anywhere (my TGWTDT s a trade paperback) so I settled on the UK mass market paperbacks, which looked like they had better paper and binding than the first, and they’ve held up pretty well through the first reading — spine creasing not so pronounced — although now they’re crying out for me to “upgrade” them. I hope bookstores would restock the trade paperbacks; I don’t know how long I can resist getting the nice hardcover set tempting me from the bookstore window!
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!
I’ve been following Meg Cabot’s Queen of Babble series for some years now, but was only recently able to get ahold of the third book, Queen of Babble Gets Hitched via some very kind moochers on BookMooch.
Lizzie Nichols has always been a charming protagonist, and I’ve enjoyed reading the first two books in the series — Queen of Babble, and Queen of Babble in the Big City. Lizzie is a a twenty-something with old-fashioned sensibilities, and a talent for restoring vintage dresses. The series follows her life (and lovelife) as she ventures out of her hometown and away from her family to make it on her own.
