Reading something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue
Here’s another thing my cousin Dianne brought back for me from her trip to New York: A pack of “Great Writers” playing cards! The front looks like a regular deck, but the design on the back features a caricature of famous writers.
Before reading on, can you try guessing who is who?
I don’t normally read science fiction, but I always take FFP’s monthly book discussions as a challenge when I’m not comfortable with the assigned genre or author. Because our book club grants the moderator the power over the monthly assignment, I’ve been challenged a fair deal in past discussions, as some of the book assignments are far from my comfort zone.
I think, though, that Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness is one of the book assignments I’ve dreaded the most — I’m just not into unpronounceable names and anything that needs a map! Le Guin’s introductory section, where she explains what science fiction is about (not merely “extrapolation,” but a “metaphor”), is actually helpful. I also like her statement (cautionary warning, perhaps?) on novels:
“In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we’re done with it, we may find—if it’s a good novel—that we’re a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it’s very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.”
Continue reading “The Left Hand of Darkness (FFP June Book Discussion)”
I’ve been lurking around National Book Store Greenbelt 1 for some time now, because it was under renovation for a few months. It’s one of my favorite branches — I ‘ve been going there since I was a kid — because it’s nearest my house, it’s not overcrowded, it has all the supplies I need (heavy gauge plastic cover, a large pen selection, an expanded art section), and it always has a corner for bargain books.
Tonight I finally found out what they were keeping under wraps: the Philippines’ flagship Moleskine Shop!
I’ve been a Moleskine user for years now (watercolor pad, cahiers, and recently, my Moleskine Passions book journal), and I must say, there’s no beating the quality of a moleskine, from the handcrafted leather, the acid-free paper, the sturdy back pocket, and the signature garter band and ribbon bookmark. It’s great that there’s a Moleskine Shop-in-Shop here now (there are several already across Asia) for Moleskine fans in the Philippines.
The past month has been just fab in feeding my Art Spiegelman fangirl frenzy. First I found that enormous Art Spiegelman book on bargain at a book store sale after last month’s book discussion.
Then my cousin (and bookish partner in crime) Dianne got me an autographed Maus II (and a Strand notebook, and a Great Writers deck of cards) from her trip to New York. And then Flipper friend Mike (who actually made an Art Spiegelman fangirl out of me when he lent me his Maus set) brought me back an Art Spiegelman Strand totebag (and a Strand button pin) showing Maus “stranded in a sea of books”!
Spotting a sale sign at a bookstore always activates a panic button in me. It never fails to elicit that heart-pounding, wide-eyed excitement at the prospect of finding a book to add to my shelf, and after years of practice I think I’m fairly proficient at spotting a gem in the bargain bin. Still, I can never get enough of that heady feeling of getting a great book at an outrageously low price.
Just last month, after the Art inFiction book discussion, the Fully Booked Greenbelt branch was on sale, and because there was a line for our dinner table at Chili’s we couldn’t resist the lure of the bargain tables laid out in the storefront. Something shiny caught my eye as soon as I reached the table. Bingo — In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman, and, hold your breath, at 80% off, marked down from P958 to under P200! (around $4, never mind that it’s a bit scuffed, it’s a ginormous board book!).