Author: Sumthinblue

The Air Up There (Picture Book Roundup #13)


Some of my favorite book have themes of flight — The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois; Tuesday by David Wiesner; and Peter Pan.  Maybe it’s because my zodiac’s an air sign, or maybe i just like the carefree, leisurely feeling that flying themes generate.

This month’s picture book roundup covers books dealing with flight, clouds, and other above-ground subject matter: The Flying Locomotive by William Pene du Bois; The Little Cloud by Eric Carle; Night of the Gargoyles by Eve Bunting, illustrated by David Wiesner; Sadako by Eleanor Coerr, illustrated by Ed Young; and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz commemorative pop-up by L. Frank Baum, engineered by Robert Sabuda.

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Love gone awry

Since I joined the A-Z Challenge, I’ve crossed out three names on the list already. I first crossed off Trenton Lee Stewart with the first two books of the Mysterious Benedict Society, which I enjoyed tremendously. I managed to cross off two more: Emile Zola with For a Night of Love (Z); and F. Scott Fitzgerald with The Rich Boy (F).

The two books are published by Hesperus Press, a sophisticated imprint I’m growing fond of (I have Jonathan Swift’s Directions to Servants and a couple other books from Hesperus Press). Hesperus specializes in hard to find novellas and short stories of famous authors, with each book running to only 100 pages or so. I got a bunch of them on sale last year, and while I don’t normally like mass market paperbacks, Hesperus books are a welcome addition to my library — I love the concept behind the imprint and the elegance of the book design.

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More Book Geekiness

Remember when I won Book Geek of the Month last year?  Well, today they gathered all the monthly finalists once again for one final showdown: The Fully Booked Ultimate Book Geek Challenge!

I had to miss this month’s book discussion (and The Shadow of the Wind is a favorite of mine, too!) but it turned out to be very well worth it — I ended up taking home the title of Ultimate Book Geek.

I won’t spill the details just yet — am writing an article about it for the Saturday issue of Manila Bulletin (Students and Campuses), so the story will have to wait until then :)

2010 is shaping up to be another awesome year of books!

Ultimate Book Geek -- receiving my certificate and the whopping grand prize from Fully Booked's events manager Ms. Aimee Diego

The Pigeon (Patrick Suskind)

I’m a big fan of Patrick Suskind’s novel Perfume, and I never thought I’d come across another one of his works, until I got a notification from my Bookmooch account that a copy of his novella, The Pigeon, was available for mooching. It turns out another local moocher (and a reader of this blog!), Iya, had just put up a copy in her inventory, and I wasted no time mooching it (Thank you Iya!!!).

Suskind is one of the most interesting [living] authors I’ve encountered — there is very little information about him available; he has shunned the literary scene, and he doesn’t grant interviews or allow photos of himself to be taken.

Perfume is Suskind’s best known work, but has also written the bestselling play Double Bass; the novellas The Pigeon, The Story of Mr. Sommer, and Three Stories and a Reflection; as well as a 2006 essay collection entitled On Love and Death.

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The Mysterious Benedict Society


I’ve been really curious about the Mysterious Benedict Society series ever since I saw the first book on the bookstore shelf. I lucked out on a copy of the first volume last year, and then got the second volume as a Christmas present from an officemate, and at the start of the year, I figured it was about time I read the books.

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