Flips Flipping Pages book discussion

Blindness (FFP March Book Discussion)

I’ve never read any Saramago, but my copy of Blindness (mooched over a year ago) has been sitting in my TBR for over a year. I knew some of my book club friends count this book as one of their favorites, and I’ve been told this particular novel is a good starting point for Saramago, but I put off reading it because I wanted a fresh reading for the scheduled book discussion (in other words, I habitually cram for the book discussions).

Flips Flipping Pages‘ selection for this month was Blindness by Jose Saramago, moderated by Peter and Gege, both big fans of the novel.

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Cien Sonetos de Amor

I was also fourteen when I “met” Pablo Neruda — it was that same high school literature class that introduced me (and forty-three other teenage girls) to the wonderful world of this man’s poetry, and I don’t think any of us were quite the same again.

I will never forget the first time we watched Il Postino, because that’s the time I found out I needed to wear glasses. We were in the school AVR watching the subtitled movie, and I was the only one not laughing along with everyone else — because I couldn’t read the subtitles! I got my glasses within the week, but I wasn’t able to enjoy the movie until college, when my Great Books Class watched it after taking up Antonio Skarmeta’s Burning Patience (the novel on which Il Postino was based).

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The Joy Luck Club

I was fourteen when I first read Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club, which was required reading for our Afro-Asian Literature class in sophomore year in high school . I remember reading the book, watching the film in class, and then writing a paper analyzing the tenets of Confucianism and Taoism as applied to the stories in the book.

I had to dig out my yellowed copy of Joy Luck Club last month, because our book club was scheduled to read it in time for a discussion that was synced with Repertory Philippines’ staging of the theatrical adaptation.

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The End of the Affair (FFP November Book Discussion)

Last Saturday was the Flips Flipping Pages November book discussion featuring Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair.

Earlier in the day, a bunch of us met up at the University of Santo Tomas to view the Lumina Pandit exhibit (more about that in a separate post!), which took us through the history of books in the Philippines. We then proceeded to the Gayuma restaurant in UP Village for the discussion to be moderated by Fredda.

I must confess that I wasn’t able to finish the book before the day of the discussion (gasp!). I’d borrowed my boss’ copy of the book (it was hard to find in the local bookstores) but I thought it would be an easy read so I kept putting it off until it was too late. That morning I tried my best to finish the novel, but I didn’t want to be late for the exhibit tour so I read in the cab, but by the time we had lunch after the tour, I still had one third of the novel to go. And then for some strange reason, on our way to the discussion, Gege’s car overheated and we had to take it to a roadside garage, and so I ended up finishing the novel right there!

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Pillars of the Earth: Flips Flipping Pages October book discussion

I was dragging my feet about reading this month’s selection, Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth (henceforth to be referred to as POTE), primarily because I didn’t expect to like it. I first mooched a copy of the book when Patti, one of my BookMoochers Pilipinas friends proclaimed it as her all-time favorite book and my curiosity was piqued, but I had the book languishing in my TBR for over a year until I lost my first copy in last year’s flood. I got a replacement a several months later, but I have to admit that if it wasn’t assigned for the book discussion, I wouldn’t have picked it up.

I’m not one to shy away from chunksters, but given the length of the book (973 pages), I started POTE one week before the discussion, figuring I’d have to read around 200 pages a day. I read the first chapter late Thursday night, and finished a few more chapters on Friday night.

On Saturday, I read the book after breakfast and on to the afternoon. I had planned to go to a friend’s bookshop opening that night, but it rained heavily and I got stuck at home because the street was flooded, and all my plans went awry. I figured I might as well make a dent in the novel (I was waiting for the street to clear out, but it didn’t until late that night), and I was reading and reading, and before I knew it, I had finished 900 pages — right up to the end of the book!

I hope you’ll indulge the lengthy post; it’s possible this book may be my best book for 2010 and I want to share the experience with you. Don’t worry, no spoilers!
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