scholastic – Page 10

Loot!

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, and I hardly had time to sit down to blog over the weekend… or the past few days, as things are going crazy outside of my blogging life. But in the meantime, here’s a photo from our weekend raid at the Scholastic warehouse sale!

(Sorry, no warehouse photos, we just went ga-ga at the sight of the books… typical!!! Haha, when you’re with a pack of bargain book hunters, you have to move fast or miss out on the spoils! )

loot

The figures:

1 Sunday morning
1 warehouse sale
4 book addicts
2 hours of browsing
over 70 books
3 bags nearly splitting at the seams (at P795 each)

Totally exhausting, but so much worth it!

My loot:

Twelve books, coming down to a grand total of P360 (around US $7), petering out to P30 ($0.70) each. And four of them on my wishlist too!

Squee!

Am in the middle of composing a long-overdue review series, will have it up soon, I promise! :)

Catching Fire (and the HG fever continues!)

I know this is way overdue, as I finished Catching Fire three weeks ago. But the book fair, the two storms (and the great flood) that hit the country, my trip to Singapore (more on that on a future post!), and rearranging the house (ugh, reshelving my books, and still resuscitating those that went under during the flood) have kept me pretty busy and this is the first weekend I’ve had to myself in a long time.

If you’ve just discovered my blog, well, I read Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games (Scholastic Press) about a month back, and to my surprise, it slaked that craving I had for a really good read, and about time too, as I’d spent more than half of the year looking for a book to wow me.

Several days later, I got ahold of the I had newly-released sequel, Catching Fire, and finished it just before I had the thrill of watching the Hunger Games Live Action Role Play (LARP) at the Manila International Book Fair, organized by Scholastic and National Bookstore with the New Worlds Alliance.

(Spoiler free!)

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The Hunger Games LARP (Live Action Role Play)

After Harry Potter, it was hard for me to imagine myself getting all worked up over another book series… until I read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (read my review to find out why).

I was skimming through the special events listings of the Manila International Book Fair when something caught my eye: The Hunger Games Live Action Role Play (LARP), set on the last day of the book fair, sponsored by Scholastic, Inc., National Book Store in partnership with New Worlds Alliance.

Now I normally don’t go to the last day of the book fair because I’m all shopped out by the time Saturday rolls around, but I made sure to be there this year, even though I’d read Catching Fire well past midnight the night before, because I just couldn’t put it down, and ended up red-eyed with all the crying and desperate to fast forward to 2010 when the third book is set for release (Aieee!!!).

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A rough guide to the Manila International Book Fair

mibf11

Three days to go until the Manila International Book Fair! A lot of people have been asking me for tips about the Manila International Book Fair, so I decided to create this (unofficial) guide based on what I’ve seen over recent years.

I’ve been attending the MIBF for five years running now, covering events, shopping, and just generally enjoying the flurry of bookish activity around me. And every year, the exhibitors offer something new, and there is always a different lineup of special events to look forward to.

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The Hunger Games

It’s been nine months into 2009 and I’ve been hard-pressed to find a book to really wow me this year, and I must say that I did not expect it to be a book I would not normally go for.

I’ve been seeing Scholastic’s The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (book #140 for 2009) at the book stores for some time now, but I’m not a big fan of dystopian themes because they’re often depressing, so I didn’t feel compelled to pick it up.

When I was given a chance to review the book, I was apprehensive, especially after learning it came highly recommended by Stephenie Meyer and Charlaine Harris, two authors I don’t particularly care for, as I abhorred the Twilight series (no secret there) and have no intentions of reading the Sookie Stackhouse series.

So I finished The Hunger Games in three hours flat this afternoon — and even Ateneo (my university) winning the basketball game (for top seed) against FEU this afternoon couldn’t tear me away from the book except for quick glances at the screen for the score — and I still can’t get over how much this book has affected me, so here I am, writing this rough cut review (am writing another for Manila Bulletin later on when I get my thoughts organized) to pour out some raw emotion after reading the book, before I read what anyone else has to say about it, and before I forget the roller coaster experience I just went through.

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