Protect-a-Book

I love book-related miscellany, so my friends and family are constantly on the lookout for bookish odds and ends for me. One day my siblings were out shopping and found me this nifty item from a clearance sale at Living Well (by Gourdo’s): Protect-a-Book, for only P35 (less than $1) each. I nearly forgot about it as I had buried the two packs underneath my bookfair loot, but I was clearing away some stuff tonight and tore into them with glee.

You ought to know (if you don’t already know) that I can’t read a “naked” book; I always compulsively cover a book in plastic before I can read it because I’m paranoid about spills and dents and that sort of thing. I also don’t dog-ear pages, so I’m forever running out of bookmarks as I tend to leave them  (or receipts, or tickets, or clothing labels, or anything that can fit flat) inside books. This compulsion makes this book thingy perfect for me: Protect-a-Book is a slip-on, clear plastic book cover that’s actually three products in one: book protector, bookmark, and magnifier.

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Click, Clack, Moo


I’ve been looking for a copy of the Caldecott Honor book Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type (by Doris Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin) for my picture book collection for a couple of years now. It’s been elusive, and I was beginning to think I would have to get it full price so I didn’t count on finding this wonderful Click, Clack, Moo: A Book and Playset for only P85 at my favorite bargain book haunt.

Housed in a red barn is a board book of Click, Clack Moo, which tells the hilarious story of disgruntled cows who learn to use a typewriter to express their grievances in a series of notes addressed to Farmer Brown.

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The Clone (or what I brought home from MIBF Day Two)


As my longtime readers would probably know, I’ve been looking for new lighting gadgets for my bedtime reading, as my Harry Potter Lumos Lightwedge is hopelessly out of commission (battery leaked and stuck to the very narrow terminal and won’t budge!) and I managed to disembowel my Really Tiny Book Light after just a couple of months (the flimsy light is now in two broken pieces; what a rip-off).

I didn’t get to spend much time at the Book Fair today (mostly busy working at the co-located events and running after people to interview), so I only got a couple of books (will tell you about them in another post) but I managed to spot a  “Light Panel” (read: Lightwedge clone) in one of the booths.  I was pretty desperate because I have been living without a reading light for some months now and it’s been driving me crazy, and the thing was only P100 so I decided to get it.

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Mockingjay Giveaway!

I meant to do this earlier, but September is always the busiest month in my year so this month’s posts have been sporadic at best…

Anyway, I have an extra copy of Mockingjay, the final book in the Hunger Games trilogy, a complimentary copy from Scholastic (because I co-moderated the discussion at the Mockingjay launch party), so I’m raffling it off.

Check out the mechanics after the cut.

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Nutcracker finger puppets!

The last two weeks have been particularly stressful, and I’ve gone on a bookish rampage (*guilty)* that doesn’t seem to show signs of letting up — not with the Manila International Book Fair coming up in a couple of weeks.

I was trawling at one of my favorite branches of a bargain bookstore today and found a Nutcracker finger puppet set! Now you know I collect all sorts of bookish miscellany – book gadgets, bookmarks, bookish toys, and practically anything book-related – so when I saw this battered box on the shelf, I couldn’t resist getting it for my collection. It was pretty cheap, too, at only P65, an awesome deal for four adorable finger puppets! Just in time, too, as September marks the start of the Christmas season here in the Philippines.

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