Month: July 2011

Rereading HP, part 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

It’s nearing July 31 again, and my cousin Dianne and I are celebrating Harry Potter’s this year by rereading the entire series.

Dianne and I have done many crazy things in the name of Harry Potter (okay, and Severus Snape): joined — and won — a Harry Potter diorama making contest (me);  dressed up as Luna Lovegood and Nymphadora Tonks in a public party (costumes assembled from scratch); had custom made “In Snape We Trust” t-shirts made before Deathly Hallows was released; lined up for the Deathly Hallows release AND the Beedle the Bard midnight release (only a handful of people, us included); stopped watching the Harry Potter movies (Dianne before me); put together a Harry Potter Christmas tree (me); collected Harry Potter books in various editions and languages; threw a birthday party for Harry Potter; and celebrated Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday and Snapeday!

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Torment, Passion, and Lauren Kate

I was lucky enough to have squeezed in dinner with Lauren Kate on Friday night, despite the busy schedule for her National Book Store Passion tour. The Manila event kicked off yesterday at Glorietta 5, and Lauren is having another one today at Ayala Center Cebu.

I had a great interview with Lauren last year, and thought it would be lovely to catch up with her after a whirlwind six months (she’s been on tour, mostly). But traffic was horrible last night (I stressed all the way to the interview) and I could see Lauren had a full weekend ahead of her (and a lot of books to sign!), so I mainly ran through the questions that had been plaguing me as I was reading Torment and Passion, which I finished overnight in time for meeting Lauren!

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Read, Write, and Travel with Moleskine®!


The new Moleskine collections are here. Stop me from going on a rampage!

After being unveiled at Salon Internazionale del Mobile in Milan in April, Moleskine’s new Writing, Travelling, and Reading collections are finally coming to the Philippines, via National Book Store.

The new collections are designed by Italian designer Giulio Iacchetti, and are specially created to be perfectly compatible with each other, and with the Moleskine notebooks and planners through special clips and holders. All the new items bear Moleskine’s signature aesthetic: mostly black, elastic band, smoothly rounded corners, and the “in case of loss” label.

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Sweet Valley Marathon

My gut reaction after reading Sweet Valley Confidential was to banish it from my memory, and restore the Sweet Valley I grew up with and loved.

Because my collection of Sweet Valley books (including those signed by Cynthia and Brittany Daniels when they came over and I giddily lined up with my friends at National Book Store for the book signing) did not survive my childhood, some foraging was in order. I found some reissued copies of SVH released in 2008, and some e-books of SVH 1-12 apparently encoded by some hardcore fans. Later on, I managed to hunt down some actual SVH books, and one SVT. I spent one whole Saturday a couple months ago reading them!

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Before Ever After book launch at National Book Store

A couple of weeks ago, I got a package containing an uncorrected proof of a book entitled Before Ever After.

Curious, I leafed through the press materials that came with it and found out that the author, Samantha Sotto, is Filipino, and the book launch is on July 27, 6 pm at National Book Store Glorietta 5.

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