Breathing Pages

Kiera Cass, author of the best-selling novel The Selection and The Elite, is going to the Philippines for two book-signing events, courtesy of National Book Store. It's going to be held in two locations -- Manila and Cebu on August 3 and August 4 respectively.

For the Manila stop, it is going to be at the National Bookstore branch in Glorietta 1, Makati. The event starts at 4pm but registration starts at 10am. While, for the Cebu stop, it's going to be held at the Ayala Center Cebu Activity Center by 3pm. Registration starts by 12noon.

You may RSVP in the Facebook event page.

Who else is going? :D

... and I cannot tell you how much it excites me to have it lifted. I haven't been buying books for myself for roughly six months. I'm down to my last three four books, namely:

1. Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha (one of those books on my to-read list)

2. Heather Graham's Death Dealer (very random find, found this hiding in my shelf)

3. Susan Scott's Fierce Leadership (very random find, want to read something non-fiction every once in a while)

4. Martin Lindstrom's Buy-ology (a book given to me in 2011 by the company I work for)

In order to complete my five books for July, I picked one book from my to-sell list.

5. Kimberly Willis Holt's Dancing in Cadillac Light (a random find, liked the title)

That's my final list and by August, I'm set for John Green! Yay!

I'm proud to say that this is one of the things that definitely worked out for me. Back in 2012, I barely read anything due to work. This year, I decided to give myself some form of break from work. (Haha, I'm a work-a-holic.) I wanted to get my old hobbies back such as reading and here I am! I managed to read over 33 books in the past six months and I can't be any happier even though, I admit that I was pressured into reading more than one but hey, I enjoyed the ride the books gave me.

So here's to July and my last five. Happy reading to all of us!

Keep on reading,

Anj

After almost a year of it sitting on my shelf, I finally read "The Best of Me" by Nicholas Sparks. (I am now one step closer to lifting my book buying ban. /insert evil laugh here)

I started reading around 4pm, with minor pauses because of work. I finished it at around 11:56pm. My reading speed is not that bad. Then again, it's never about speed. It's about the book and how it makes you stay in one place with it. This one just got me seated upright and reading non-stop.

(I placed a page break to hide the spoilers from the dashboard. Just click on read more to continue reading.)

Love Me Forever by Mike Baker, published in Love in Vein edited by Poppy Z. Brite (p306)

In this particular article, Book Riot presents to us 100 books which, if all are read, would make the reader a "well-read" one. The article defines being a well-read person is a person (American, at least) who can understand English, who has read many Western Literature books and a number of world literature books under several (or all) genres and time, and who wishes to experience the reading experience many others have experienced.

I consider myself as a person who breathes in pages of a book. I read as if I'm breathing; it's something that is natural to me and something I cannot give up at all. However, I do not consider myself as well-read given that I have yet to read many novels written by great authors of the past and of the recent day. With that being said, I would like to use this list as an indicator to see how far off am I from being well-read and what novels would I definitely be reading in the future. 

Without further ado, let's see that list...

I feel the need to talk about this particular short story from Poppy Z. Brite's Love in Vein. I am terribly disturbed by this story. This is the best story so far in the book. The best, I tell you. Powerful. Disturbing but very powerful and insightful in its own way.

This particular short story is about Chris, a bisexual woman who had many problems such as getting fired from a job that pays for everything, and being molested at a young age. She, then, meets Geraldine, a supernatural being. (She is somewhat similar to what Filipinos call an aswang or a mananaggal. I will not describe it further as it is a big part of the story.) Obviously, these two characters interacted intimately but that isn't the reason why I'm disturbed. 

The character, Geraldine, disturbs me. The idea of such a supernatural being really bothers me. (I know such things do not really exist but still...) I simply do not like the idea of conceiving just to feed. The character admitted to ruining happy marriages because she needs a variety of emotions -- not just anguish and pain but also of happiness and joy. I simply hated that.

The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2012 - Rich Horton (Editor), Neil Gaiman, Karen Joy Fowler, Jonathan Carroll, Rachel Swirsky  

I'm currently figuring out the order of the books I read last month. I normally take photos of  the books I read to remember when I finished reading it. This month was so... blargh... that I couldn't keep track. :(

So here it goes...

I marathon-ed Robin Wasserman's The Seven Deadly Sins series early last month. I finished Wrath on May 5, 2013, the day of my cousin's baby shower. Sloth, Gluttony, and Envy followed suit and by May 8, 2013, I was done with it, absolutely thrilled and all. The series is definitely different from the usual Gossip Girl-esque series in the sense that they are in the middle of nowhere -- no prep school and online scandals, just a small town with teenagers too big for that town.

I, then, read Countess Below the Stairs by Eva Ibbotson. It's one of her earlier works. Unlike her recent works, it's a YA book set in the past, complete with historical background. It's also nice to note that it has a Russian tone into it. I rarely read books set in Russia or had Russian characters so I was happy to read this all in one day. I marathon-ed it on May 11.

That means I reached 5/5 on May 11. Whoot for me!

My country had the elections on May 13, which is the day I finished Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey while waiting in line. I find the book interesting but not at par with her best works. I think Ms Austen isn't sure where to take the story and just mashed things up together. It still made sense, though. 

By May 16, I was done reading Creating Customer Service while reading Mitch Albom's Have a Little Faith. I finished the latter on May 22. I know I started reading Memoirs of a Geisha and Fierce Leadership but I never got to finish it before June 1.

I think that's the order and the dates. Yay for me. I only have seven more books to read before the book buying ban is lifted and I just finished one of them today. I can't wait to finish them all! <3 

I'm off to a good start.

This month's first read is a collection of short stories written by Charlaine Harris about her heroine, Sookie Stackhouse, called A Touch of Death. 

It gives non-TrueBlood fans a glimpse of the protagonist's life and the world she is in. I find it similar to Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series -- "human" protagonist who has relationships with supernatural creatures and who hates her "gift" but uses it for good. I cannot judge whether or not the level of sensuality is the same but from what I've heard of True Blood, it is. 

I'd give the book series a chance once my book buying ban is done. :D

Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom, page 44

First Impression of BookLikes: "Wow, it is the lovechild of Shelfari and Tumblr -- shelves and theme from Shelfari and blogging platform from Tumblr. This is an awesome lovechild!!"

I reached this site because of a tweet from Mr. Dawid Piaskowski, the CEO and co-founder of this site. I feel special. Whee~ :D

To start things off, my name is Angeli (Anj), 22 going on 23 this year. I like reading a wide variety of genres -- the fantasy novels in line with Harry Potter (no current fave besides Harry Potter, eyeing on the Wicked series by Nancy Holder because I have the third and fourth books), the slice-of-life young adult novels and book series (current fave is the Seven Deadly Sins series by Robin Wasserman), the classics (love Jane Austen to bits, Charles Dickens is my childhood fave), vampire novels (Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake series has my soul while Melissa de la Cruz's Blue Bloods series has my heart, no Twilight), and of course, romance-drama novels (Nicholas Sparks is my ultimate favorite writer). I read mostly fiction but I read business books from time-to-time because I want to learn more and improve in management. (I currently hold a management position in a retail company in the fashion industry.) Those are the books that you can expect to read about in this blog.

I am currently on a book-buying ban because I have accumulated around thirty-five unread books in the past three years which is a bad thing. Books are not things to be kept unread! It's a waste if one buys it but does not read it. I know there's a Japanese term for that. TSUNDOKU. Haha.

In order to encourage myself to read what I have and not buy more books (because buying more books makes the pile higher and my wallet thinner) for the meantime, I gave myself these rules:

1. 1. No buying of books until I read all of the books I accumulated in the past three years.
2. 2. Read a minimum of five books per month.

It's already May and I'm proud to say that I have been true to those rules. I've been reading five books per month since January. I've already read 27 books and so far, it's been an awesome ride. I still have eight books to go, not counting the ones I've decided to let go. (I'm currently selling a few books in Ateneo Book Market -- hehe, I live in Manila. I'll post about the books I'm selling in a few.)

I'll do my best to post the first 26 books I read and comment on them. I also intend to post ALL of my favorite quotes so stay tuned. :D

Happy reading,

Anj