32nd Manila International Book Fair, the first of many parts

I’m still trying to catch my breath, but I know you’ve been waiting to hear about the 32nd Manila International Book Fair, and I do want to tell you about it, so here it is, my first book fair post.

It’s been a whirlwind couple of days at the MIBF, and I generally spend each day out there getting work done: accompanying guests, processing requests, and even catching up with office work, and then (when things go according to plan) the actual hunting and gathering takes place in the evening. But Wednesday night was spent having dinner with the Flippers (after raiding the book fair of course) and gabbing until the wee hours), hence no reportage from me; while last night I was with my Geek Fight team (who’d raided the MIBF, and amassed even more books than my book club friends, imagine that). Hence it’s Day 3, and I’m pounding this out on my lunch break.

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More Maurice Sendak

I’ve been a Maurice Sendak fan ever since the book Where the Wild Things Are was read to us in grade school, and for years now, I’ve been trying to complete my Maurice Sendak collection.

I’m a little bit closer to that goal this year, as I’ve lucked out on a bunch of Maurice Sendak books in the past months: Alligators All Around: An Alphabet; The Moon Jumpers; The Miami Giant; I Saw Esau: A Schoolchild’s Pocket Book; and finally, Making Mischief: A Maurice Sendak Appreciation, books #56-61 for 2011.

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The Insult and Curse Book

I love books filled with useless bits of information, so I was ecstatic to find  Weird Wills and Eccentric Last Wishes from a bargain bin, and I set about to collecting the rest of Michelle Lovric’s trivia books. So far, I’ve gotten Deadlier than the Male,How to Insult, Abuse and Insinuate in Classical Latin and Eccentric Epitaphs.

The latest addition to my Michelle Lovric collection is The Insult and Curse Book, a compilation of colorful statements that will probably come in handy whenever I’m in a bad mood.

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Regarding the…

I’d seen the “Regarding the…” series books at the bargain bookstore for some time, but I kept passing up on them until my cousin Dianne (a.k.a. book addiction enabler) raved about them… And then they became harder to find, proving my bargain bookstore theory yet again: the probability of finding a particular book in a bargain bookstore is inversely proportional to the urgency of your need for it.

Anyway, I lucked out and managed to find two: Regarding the Fountain and Regarding the Bathrooms by Kate Klise, illustrated by M. Sarah Klise. These were among the first books I read this year, but I lent them to someone and only got them back a few weeks ago.

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Kiki’s Delivery Service


Kiki’s Delivery Service
is one of my favorite Studio Ghibli films, and I’ve seen it several times, but I never knew it was adapted from a novel until I found a worn copy at a bargain bookstore. It came in handy, too, as it was the perfect length for the  FFP 24-Hour Readathon we had earlier this month.

Kiki’s Delivery Service or Majo no Takkyu-bin by Eiko Kadono (illustrated by Akiko Hayashi) is a children’s fantasy novel first published in 1985, and its popularity prompted the anime film adaptation by renowned animator Hayao Miyazaki in 1989. This English translation  by Annick was published in 2003.

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