Reading something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue
I’m back! Sorry this has taken a while but I lost the original entry and had to reconstruct it.
All for the best, however, as the blog’s been transferred to a new server so there should be less issues pulling up the page from hereon out.
So, here it is, in case you missed my feed flooding on July 31st, here’s how our day went.
I’m totally swamped with work, but it’s the eve of Harry Potter’s birthday, and (aha, and it’s nearly Thursday) so I’m celebrating with a trip down memory lane: how we rang in the final installment of Harry Potter, unearthed from an old cd of photos that luckily outlived Multiply.
I was scheduled to interview Tahereh Mafi (author of “Shatter Me,” “Unravel Me”) last Saturday prior to her bloggers’ forum at Powerbooks, and was delighted to find Ransom Riggs (author of “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”), who had flown in with her, had come along to check out her events as well. When I asked if I could interview him with Tahereh, Ransom graciously agreed, so I had a lovely hour chatting with these two YA authors!
Doing a joint interview was a great idea, not just because of the limited time before the start of the bloggers’ forum, but also because Tahereh and Ransom are friends, so they were very candid the whole time! From their books to their writing, down to what they’ve experienced of the Philippines so far, we certainly had a lot to talk about, and it was an amazing experience.
Before I left on my Angkor Wat vacation in late July, I got to interview New York Times bestselling YA author Alyson Noel, who was in Manila to promote her latest book, Fated, with a book signing organized by National Book Store and Powerbooks.
It was a rainy night, but we paid no heed to the downpour, as we were having a sumptuous Filipino dinner at Cafe Juanita. Alyson very gamely tried out the spread of local dishes, including crispy pata, kare-kare, torta and many more, while we discussed our mutual love for Judy Blume (squee!), the Hispanic influence on Filipino culture, and of course, her books and her work as a writer.
Just came from dinner at Cafe Juanita with YA author Alyson Noel and the lovely folks of National Book Store (and Powerbooks), who have brought her over to Manila to meet and greet her fans and talk about her latest book, Fated.
Alyson Noel is a prolific NY Times bestselling author, most famous for her Immortals series (Evermore, Blue Moon, Shadowland, Dark Flame, Night Star, and Everlasting) and Riley Bloom series (Radiance, Shimmer, Dreamland, Whisper). The multi-awarded books are translated in 37 languages and have sold over 6 million copies worldwide. Both series are optioned for movie adaptations.
