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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An Abundance of John Green

One of the things I love about my book club, Flips Flipping Pages, is how it opened up new worlds of reading for me.

In the past, I was averse to reading books other people raved about, mainly because I like discovering books on my own, and with the exception of my cousin Dianne, I don’t know anyone who has the same taste in books as I do. The more a book was foisted on me, the more I resisted it, and if I was interested in a popular book, I usually chose to read it long after the hype had gone down.

Making friends with other readers made me realize a bunch of things. One, I was missing out on a whole lot of books. Two, people with entirely different tastes in books can like a same book, or even find different elements to like in one book. And three, you don’t even have to like a book to find it interesting!

Of course, this realization has had its repercussions: the inability to walk out of a book store empty-handed, the triple-layered shelves of TBR books, and transforming from a strict monobookist to a juggling polybookist, but because there are other people as pathologically addicted as I am to books, I don’t really mind.

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The Doodles Diet (review + giveaway!)

As some of you may probably know, I have not had meat for over thirty days now, because of a no-meat Lenten pact we’ve got going at work.

Today’s book is something that has actually made the past few weeks a bit easier for me: The Doodles Diet by Deborah Zemke.

I found this book one day when I was in a bad mood because I happened to pass by a rotisserie and went weak from the wafting smell of golden roasted chicken and shiny cutlets of pork. I consoled myself by entering a book store, and luckily, there was a little bargain sale going on at one of my favorite National Book Store branches (Harrison Plaza, if you must know — awesome bargain section!) and I found this book… (and two more bags full, but who’s counting?!?).

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