Num8ers


Chicken House is one of my favorite British children’s book publishers. I’ve enjoyed many of their novels immensely, including Cornelia Funke’s The Thief Lord, Dragon Rider, and the Inkheart Trilogy; Elizabeth Kay’s Divide series; Stuart Hill’s The Cry of the Icemark; and The Mysterious Benedict Society, and I have a whole bunch of Chicken House books still waiting to be read on my shelves.

Chicken House was founded by publishing great Barry Cunningham (as in the subject of J.K. Rowling’s quote, “If it wasn’t for Barry Cunningham, Harry Potter might still be languishing in his cupboard under the stairs…”) in 2000, and it specializes in new writers, artists and ideas. Chicken House joined the Scholastic group in 2005, further cementing their hold in international children’s book market.

I’ve always found Chicken House books to be quirky and highly original, so I received a review copy of Numbers by Rachel Ward, I knew I was in for an interesting read.

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Signed!

An author’s signature increases the value of a book. Signed first editions, especially by famous authors, can cost an arm and a leg (the Holy Grail of the moment is a signed first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, at £8,000 to £10,000), and while there are no hard and fast rules in book valuation, a signed copy is more valuable than an identical unsigned one.

For me though, the potential value of the book is secondary; the biggest thrill from getting a signed copy is being able to come into contact with the author (or illustrator) of the book, whether directly (through the rare book signings that happen in this part of the world) or indirectly (e.g. rummaging through the bargain bins and hitting paydirt!).

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Filipino Friday: Reading Habits

The Filipino Book Bloggers have been doing Filipino Friday posts for some time now, and I’ve been dropping in from time to time but Friday’s often quite busy for me so I tend to see the posts belatedly. Tonight’s the first Friday I’ve been home early in a long time, and  I’ve been mulling about what to blog about tonight when I saw Jhzunagev’s Filipino Friday Post over at Darchwonders (a recent blog discovery that I’m really enjoying so far) and it seemed about time I joined in.

Chachic, the founder of Filipino Book Bloggers, presented the option of answering the whole Reading Habits meme, so here, I’m revealing all my deep dark reading secrets!

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The Spook’s Apprentice

I’ve had a copy of Joseph Delaney’s The Spook’s Apprentice for a couple of years now, and only remembered it last week, when I was digging through my shelves of TBR books for some books to read for Halloween. I remember I looked through a list of books that other Harry Potter fans were reading post-Harry Potter, and this book, the first in a series called The Wardstone Chronicles, came highly recommended.

I hadn’t planned on a Halloween theme for the 24-hour Readathon, but I got home late that day from seeing the Galeón de Andalucía at the South Harbor and had no time to pre-select books for the Readathon. Since the pile of scary books was already sitting on my desk, I just grabbed a bunch of them so I could sign up in the nick of time.

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The Pop-up Book of Phobias

I finally got my copy of The Pop-up Book of Phobias (created and written by Gary Greenberg, illustrated by Balvis Rubess, pop-ups by Matthew Reinhart) from BookMooch, just in time for Halloween. If you’ve tuned in since the last 24-Hour Readathon, you’ll know I’m on a scary book kick, so you’ll be seeing a lot of scary books here from here on out!

I first discovered this book in the library of our BookMooch fairy godmother Triccie (she’s opening a bookstore this week: Libreria at the Cubao Expo!), who has an enviable (yes, I drool everytime I’m over at her house) collection of pop-up books! I wanted my own copy  for my small — but growing! — pop-up collection, and just my luck, a copy came up on BookMooch a few months back!

This pop-up book showcases popular phobias, i.e. irrational, intense and persistent fears of certain situations, activities, things, animals, or people, in macabre 3D images. The cover photo at the very top of this post is the spread on acrophobia, or the fear of heights.

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