Vivaldi’s Virgins

Antonio Vivaldi, also known as “the Red Priest,” is regarded as one of the most greatest Baroque composer, and is widely popular even to this day. He has over 500 concertos to his name, the most famous of which are the four violin concertos, “The Four Seasons.”

Vivaldi has always been one of my favorite classical composers, so the book Vivaldi’s Virgins by Barbara Quick caught my eye at the NBS book bazaar a couple of years ago. I finally got to read it last month, because I badly needed a Q for the A-Z Challenge.

Continue reading “Vivaldi’s Virgins”

Mockingjay leather bookmark

A curious little thing made its way to my desk this morning, in a mysterious white envelope with my name on it…

I opened it and let out a squeal of delight — it’s a limited edition Mockingjay leather bookmark! :)

Continue reading “Mockingjay leather bookmark”

Snapeday!


Last weekend, I was feeling bad about finally taking down my Harry Potter Christmas tree when a friend was trying to console me by saying there would be other Harry Potter holidays. I happened to glance at the calendar and realized Severus Snape’s birthday (b. Jan 9, 1960) was coming up, and quickly asked my HP partner in crime, Dianne, what we were doing to celebrate his birthday this year.

The two of us normally go out to dinner and drink to Severus Snape, but we wondered if we could pull off a small party this year. Luckily, our favorite weekend hangout, Libreria Bookstore in Cubao X, graciously agreed to host us, and with under a week to pull things together, we made plans for Snapeday.

Continue reading “Snapeday!”

Jose Aruego Roundup

When I was in third grade, our class was sent to the audio-visual room for a storytelling session of the picture book Juan and the Asuangs. The story was frightfully fascinating — a young boy named Juan outsmarts several asuangs, which are Philippine mythical creatures, often of the blood-sucking variety. I have not seen that book in about fifteen years, but I still remember one particular spread: Juan defeats the manananggal (a female asuang who is usually in human form until sunset, when she sprouts leathery wings, tears her torso away from her lower half, and hunts for her next bloody meal) by grinding up some bawang (garlic) and siling labuyo (small chili peppers) and pouring the paste into the cavity of the creature’s lower half.

To this day, that story still stands out in my memory, but there’s another reason why: our class met Jose Aruego right then and there!

Continue reading “Jose Aruego Roundup”

Love in the Time of Taffeta

As you guys may have read last month, my book club, Flips Flipping Pages, kicked off the Christmas festivities with our very own [bloody] prom, a totally fabulous prom night that made up for all the bad prom nights we had, or, for some people, the ones they missed going to.

Around that time, I wanted to read something prom-themed, so I picked up a copy of Love in the Time of Taffeta by Eugenie Olson, which the cover promised to be “a moving story of prom, bad behavior, and sequins.”

Continue reading “Love in the Time of Taffeta”