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A few 2025 ARCs

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Nine ARCs from PRH Got me some ARCs from work, which I was planning to read before handing them out to the bookstores, but my time has run out, so am probably just posting them here for posterity (or however long the internet stays up). One thing I like keeping track of is Southeast Asian stories, being a Southeast Asian rep assigned to sell in Southeast Asia for a US publisher. Our team--the ones who sell to Asia--try our best (operative word: try) to keep an updated list of Asian creators and titles from our list. It's not as easy given the number of titles we deal with on a regular basis, especially as we do see more Asian representation from our lists. And this matters to us a lot, I think, to the booksellers we sell to, and to the readers. This batch has four SEA stories: 2 from the Philippines and 2 from Vietnam-- HOUSE OF MONSTROUS WOMEN by Daphne Fama - a gothic, haunted house horror story set in the aftermath of the People Power revolution in the Philippines, though not i...
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January 2025 Reading Wrap-up

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Image c/o Fable I read 8 books last month! I’m quite impressed by myself, lol.  Frankly, my only real “resolution” for the year was to do my darndest to pick up a book and read, instead of doomscrolling through social media. Because last year, I realized that I—perhaps with 50% of humanity?—spent a lot of time doing that. Hours in a day. And apart from knowing most of the memes and references because I was terminally online, I don’t know what else that got me.  Well, unending sources of anger, too.  So anyway, because I was mostly offline over Christmas and New Year for a family vacation, I realized it’s not really impossible to spend less time on social media. Granted, I missed some viral stuff and also wasn’t aware of everything going on in my large and small worlds, but it didn’t feel crippling. And then Zuckerberg’s kissing the Trumpian ring sealed the deal for me.  I’d say I was both successful and not in replacing doomscrolling with reading my books. Successful...
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Haemin Sunim in Manila

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Haemin Sunim was in Manila last weekend for a couple of events: one in UP, care of the UP Korea Research Center, and the other at Fully Booked BGC, who was responsible for inviting Haemin Sunim to Manila in the first place.  I spent a decent amount of time with Haemin, given the job, and I can honestly say his presence is kind, calming, and also quite fun. It was also the first time for me to be at an author event that began with a mindfulness exercise, and let me tell you, I think I needed it.  Haemin was also really engaged with and gracious to the people who had their books signed by him. After, he talked about how moved he was by people who told him how his books helped them. Honestly looking forward to when Haemin decides to come back, which I think he wants to when he has a new book coming out. And hopefully then, he gets to visit other places aside from Metro Manila. 
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Miscellany: scams, fanfic, author visits, and noping out of Meta

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Not much of an update these last few days. Unless we're talking about what's happening in the world. Which is extremely disturbing that I found myself giving into the doomscroll again, albeit on different apps.  But there are still other interestingnesses--still in the realm of books and publishing--that can distract from <gestures to everything> this. Among my faves in the last few days are: This news item about a company based in Cebu called Innocentrix (aka PageTurner Press and Media) who apparently ran publishing scams victimizing several people in the US --and perhaps elsewhere--by promising them fame and fortune through publishing in exchange for a lot of money. Their CEO and VP were arrested by the FBI last December. Is it weird to include this as a "favorite"? Perhaps. I'm not making light of what happened to the victims or the seriousness of the money laundering and fraud. But I suppose among the things I find interesting are that the news was repo...
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Silent Book Club - Manila, Reading Session

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Today, I joined SBC-Manila’s  silent reading session at Podium’s The Book Nook . First time for me to attend, though I’d long been lurking on the Discord server and, like a shy teenager, have always wanted to join one of the silent reading events.  I tried signing up to one of them before, but apparently, slots go quickly, and I never made it to before sign-ups closed.  Was lucky enough to get a slot for this one, though! This particular session was hosted by kutingtin , who I don’t think I’ve ever met personally, but know through IG and Discord. (We’ve met now.)  Have to say, Tin was a consummate host, well-prepared with constant and complete updates before the event, and a clear program during.  There was an intro, then we dove right in to the 1hr silent reading portion. And yes, everyone silently read for one hour. I think there were 30 or so people who participated!  After 1 hr of silent reading, we broke up into groups for half an hour of talking about...
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Aklatan 2020: Links to local pubs' Shopee pages

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I have resurrected this blog in support of Aklatan: All Filipino Book Fair , which to me, is the little book fair that could. Aklatan started in 2019, organized by the Book Development Association of the Philippines . You can read a much better history and context than I can provide at Ruel de Vera's Inquirer piece for this year's Aklatan . What you'll also read in Ruey's piece is that Aklatan is going online, given the--you know--pandemic. This is wonderful and laudable, and it hopefully signals the beginning (for some) and the doubling down (for others) of what I think is a necessary transition to more online selling, coupled with strategic digital marketing. The event will be held on Shopee from Aug. 16-18, 2020. To help out, I'm summarizing below the list of participating publishers (got this from the list posted by Howie Severino , but alphabetized), and where I could find it , the links to the publishers' official Shopee stores. Would be happy to update th...
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A reader reads

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Earlier, I read a tweet that said something like a musician must perform. Because that's what musicians do. I suppose in the same vein, a writer must write, a dancer must dance, etc. I guess, at this point in the lockdown/quarantine, I like the romanticism, the sense of purpose. I've told many people I haven't really been able to read. It's been 51 days since our lockdown started, and I've only been able to finish two books: Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Weather by Jenny Offill. The first took me three weeks to finish; the second, a day because I crammed it for book club (thank God for book club ). Like a few other people I know, I can't seem to concentrate on a book during this period. Any book. Many things have been written about our collective and personal anxieties during lockdown. I acknowledge all of this (likely, too, why I'm penning this at 1:41AM my time), More specifically, though, I feel I can't read because I find i...
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