Tag: Flips Flipping Pages book discussion

A Good Year (Flips Flipping Pages September book discussion)

Today I took a break from the Manila International Book Fair for a much awaited occasion — the Flips Flipping Pages September Book Discussion: Peter Mayle‘s A Good Year, paired with a mini wine appreciation seminar at the Cyrano Wine Shop.

I’m afraid I didn’t have time to reread the book, with the MIBF under way, but I read it last year. Unlike the others, I had very low expectations before I read “A Good Year.” I read Mayle’s Chasing Cezanne and expected it to be a thrilling art heist, but it had to be the most lackadaisical chase ever, as the team in pursuit of the forged painting stopped to dine at practically every restaurant they walked past! Figuring plot isn’t one of Mayle’s strong points, I set out to read A Good Year just to enjoy it. And I did. I enjoyed reading about the Provencal wine industry and its quaint practices, and Mayle can write the copy of an ad for garbage bins and I think I’ll still enjoy his prose.

Anyway, while the group in general was disappointed with the novel, we all enjoyed the wine appreciation seminar!

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Suzanne Collins meets the Flippers!

Remember a few months back  when I blogged about our book club Flips Flipping Pages sending a gift to Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins? 


Thanks to our friends from Scholastic, we were able to send Suzanne Collins a miniature Philippine flag and a photo from our April Hunger Games book discussion.

But wait — the story doesn’t end there! I opened my email today and found this awesome photo in my inbox:

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Making its way to Suzanne Collins…

… is a little gift from our book club, Flips Flipping Pages!

It’s a framed photo of our Hunger Games book discussion a couple of months ago, and a small flag of the Philippines, a little something to show Suzanne Collins that she has fans in the Philippines! :)

Thank you, Scholastic Philippines for giving us the opportunity to send our greetings to Suzanne Collins!

The Left Hand of Darkness (FFP June Book Discussion)

I don’t normally read science fiction, but I always take FFP’s monthly book discussions as a challenge when I’m not comfortable with the assigned genre or author. Because our book club grants the moderator the power over the monthly assignment, I’ve been challenged a fair deal in past discussions, as some of the book assignments are far from my comfort zone.

I think, though, that Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness is one of the book assignments I’ve dreaded the most — I’m just not into unpronounceable names and anything that needs a map! Le Guin’s introductory section, where she explains what science fiction is about (not merely “extrapolation,” but a “metaphor”), is actually helpful. I also like her statement (cautionary warning, perhaps?) on novels:

“In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we’re done with it, we may find—if it’s a good novel—that we’re a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it’s very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.”

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