Coffeespoons

Read:6/18/09 5/5 stars Russian author, penning a novel criticizing the bureaucracy, and writing it in the 1930s in Stalinist Russia. What are the chances of it getting published? Almost nil, if not for the perseverance of his wife. I began reading what is considered as Mikhail Bulgakov's masterpiece for two reasons: 1) The blurb said it was a satire: the devil visits Moscow with his retinue, and the city is in disarray. 2) It was in the 1001 Books to Read before you die list. The story starts out with two of Moscow's most famous contemporary literatteurs discussing the non-existence of God in a park. Enter a tall and dark gentleman who joins their discussion. The conversation turns bizarre when the gentleman starts relating how he was discussing that particular topic with Pontius Pilate. Moreover, the strange gentleman, whom the two Muscovites identify as a "foreigner," openly laughs when the two poets stress their belief that the devil does not exist. The conversatio...

TEASER TUESDAYS is a weekly event, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading , where you ‘tease’ others with a little bit from the book you’re currently reading, making them want to read it, too! Feel free to play along! You simply... My teaser: "Seated at his kitchen table, Leo stared at the sheet of paper. Three words were all that remained of the document that had resulted in Suren Moskvin taking his own life: Under torture, Eikhe ." The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith I loved his first book, Child 44 .

This weekly event is hosted by J. Kaye of J. Kaye's Book Blog . Post the books you completed the past week, the book/s you're currently reading, and the book/s you hope to finish within the week. I did a bit better this week. By that, I mean I finished what I intended to finish. This is proving to be a good exercise. Now, if I can only get to work on my reviews... Books I finished last week: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman Currently reading: The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith Books I hope to finish this week: The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris

Read: 6/16/09 5/5 stars What does a woman want? Security is a common answer. What does a adolescent Latina woman growing up in America want? In this story, her own house. The House on Mango Street is a short book--all of 110 pages. Yet it took me around three days to finish it from start to end. Why? You know when you have to put down a book at certain portions because you just have to stare off into the distance and take in or think about the beauty or the pain that you just read? This is why I couldn't breeze through this short book. It wasn't meant to be breezed through. It is sparse, beautiful, and powerful. And the emotion that grips you when you read it is not something that goes away after you've finished reading it. It will stay, and you will think about it and perhaps wonder how a few simple sentences can make you feel so much. The narrative is broken into very short chapters, some comprising only 2-3 paragraphs. Actually, the book is a series of vignettes told fr...

I recently stumbled across two trailers of movies I dearly want to watch. Naturally, they're book related. Here's the first: Finally, they've released the trailer of Time Traveler's Wife ! Been waiting for it since last year, and now, I see it on the horizon.:) Except I'm a bit disappointed with this trailer. Sure, Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams look extremely attractive, and the cinematography is immensely charming. But I feel the trailer doesn't have much narrative force. It's as if it was intended for existing fans of the book. I'm not sure how it'll draw in people who've never heard of the book before or have no background into the story. Where's the dramatic build-up? Where's the hint to the story's most crucial moment? Or am I expecting too much? I sincerely hope the actual movie does it more justice. In contrast, here's another movie that, I think, does a better job with its trailer: I had never heard of the Julie/Julia Proje...

or, The Continuing Confessions of a Recovering Bookaholic Today, I actually took the time to leave my perch in front of my laptop for 7 hours in order to meet up and have dinner with a good friend. Said dinner was to take place in a mall here in Metro Manila. If you know the malls here, you'd know they are humongous, with each one boasting of 2-4 bookstores (not counting the magazine stores). Anyway, the mall we were going to is beside another more humongous mall. On days when I can be found in either mall, I usually drop by both to pass by every bookstore I can find. That comes to around 7 bookstores. Today, given the limited time I had before I was to meet up with said friend (around 2 hours), I stuck to only one mall and went to three bookstores in that mall. Before I made the unconscious/conscious decision not to give in anymore to book binging, I frequented all the bookstores I could find. After I had made the decision, ... I still frequented all the bookstores I could find. I...

TEASER TUESDAYS is a weekly event, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading , where you ‘tease’ others with a little bit from the book you’re currently reading, making them want to read it, too! Feel free to play along! You simply... My teaser: "I beg your pardon," retorted the stranger quietly, "but to rule, one must have a precise plan worked out for some reasonable period ahead. Allow me to enquire how man can control his own affairs when he is not only incapable of compiling a plan for some laughably short term, such as, say, a thousand years, but cannot even predict what will happen to him tomorrow." The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

This weekly event is hosted by J. Kaye of J. Kaye's Book Blog . You just post the books you completed the past week, the book/s you're currently reading, and the book/s you hope to finish within the week. I think it's great for keeping track of your reading. Not that I think I'm going to be able to post a lot of books in the completed reading part (I read slow). But it's fun to set goals for the books you want to finish by the current week. So here goes... Books I finished last week: none, unfortunately Currently reading: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros Books I hope to finish this week: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman

I have 107 books in my TBR. And that's only counting the ones I can actually see. The rest of them are hidden away in two drawers. So if I include those, I probably have something closer to 150. I'm well aware that there are people out there who probably have twice or thrice the number of books on their TBR. Some of them are my friends.:) However, I wanted to clarify that, personally, this is an extreme high for me. Let me explain... I've always been a bibliophile. My mother read to me as a child, and I remember reading on my own by the time I was three. I had two books-- Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella . My favorite was Little Red Riding Hood . My mom read it to me so often that I memorized the first page. Then, when I could finally read it on my own, I realized I didn't have to memorize the rest of the pages so that the story could always stay with me. I could read the words! I remember the joy I felt when I flipped to the second page, got through it with my br...

More interesting stuff I found online: Right on the heels of my guest blogger's review of a young adult novel with a teenage homosexual superhero, I read this news article about a group seeking the right to burn a gay teen novel , Francesca Lia Block's Baby Be Bop . I didn't think one could "sue for the right to burn" a book, nor that burning books was still an option in today's world. I mean, would you seriously burn a book even if you hated it? Brings to mind a very lucid quote I read recently: If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading are precisely those that challenge our convictions. ~Author Unknown Ever heard of the novel "The High-Bouncing Lover"? What about "Baa! Baa! Black Sheep"? No? I'd say, thank God for that. Those two were the working titles of The Great Gatsby and Gone With The Wind , respectively. Robert McCrum reveals...

I have my first guest blogger! Not that I was actually looking for one yet, but she offered and of course I said yes! Why? She is a very good friend. She's an amazing literature teacher and a talented poet. She's already a published poet. Three of her poems have been included in Crowns and Oranges: Works by Young Filipino Poets , published by Anvil and just released a few weeks ago. So, ANINA ABOLA , my friend and one of the up and coming Filipino poets of our generation, has written this review and has asked me if I could post it on my blog, considering that my blog is predominantly a book blog. Haven't read this one, but based on her review, I'd love to: Review by: A nina Abola Perry Moore 's HERO is a coming-of-age story of Thom, a high school basketball star. Sounds pretty vanilla. Until you factor in: A father who used to be a superhero (but now disgraced because of a catastrophic rescue attempt) and a mother who mysteriously disappeared....

Yesterday, I spent the wee hours of the morning listening to these two songs over and over again. Why? For no particular reason but that they made me laugh. So today, I couldn't help but sing the songs over and over. The first video I discovered while blog-hopping. My apologies, though. I honestly don't remember whose blog I found it on, though I did try to look again. I'm counting on someone to remind me.:) The second one, I found while I was checking out the related videos on Youtube. I have to say, I'm already in love with the guy. He's damn funny and quite a good performer. Kristin Chenowith's a great singer, but Ben Hensley I think does her one better. Oh, and you're right--this has nothing to do with books. But I figure since I spent most of the past two days online and not reading a book, I might as well have something to show for it.:) Hope you enjoy them, too!

Finally. After a whole day of tinkering around with the blog, and trying my hand at html, I've put enough stuff into the new blog so that I can announce it to the world. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present... BOOK WATCH! What is it? Well, it's the blog version of this newsletter I started last year in my workplace. I teach high school English, and getting our kids to read was always an issue. So, we figured that maybe, if we make good enough examples of ourselves as readers, the kids would take to it more. It seemed that we spent a lot of time thinking of good reading programs for the students, but in a school with 120+ teachers, it just seemed appropriate that we also target the faculty and staff for some of these reading programs. Anyway, so I thought of starting this newsletter called Book Watch . For the first issue, I chose three books, then I surfed for short reviews of the books. I laid out the text and graphics (the book covers) using Microsoft Publishe...

I know this isn't really about books, but I'm an educator, and I couldn't help but post it where I can find it easily and where I know people I know are more likely to view it. I just saw this immensely inspiring and provocative video today. Robinson is a fantastic speaker; but more than that, he poses interesting questions and ideas about educational systems. I know it's long (20 mins, approximately), but I hope you stick around for the entire speech. It really is mind-blowing.

Been wanting to post these tidbits for a while, so pardon me if some of them are old news already. Is technology ruining some of our favorite plot devices? According to this New York Times article, yes. Imagine if Romeo and Juliet had cellphones. The whole miscommuunication snafu would never have occurred, and we'd be one Shakespearean tragedy short. Carlos Ruiz Zafon's new book, Angel's Game , has been released. I haven't read it yet, to be honest, but I did come across Zafon's article, in which he talks about his intended quartet of novels, and why novels are still the best form of story-telling . The Publisher's Association is coming out with a new campaign to boost book sales . The concept? Bookaholism . No, the concept is not new to some of us. However, as a widespread marketing campaign, with chosen slogans to be pasted on book covers, I wonder how this will work out. Apparently, there is some concern about promoting a certain kind of addiction. So, Geo...

Read: 6/3/09 5/5 stars Another murder mystery set in Russia that I love. Although the last one of this category was Gorky Park , which I read around 15 years ago. In 2008, Child 44 made waves in the book world after a fierce bidding war over it during the London Book Fair . And, as a testament to its hype, director and producer Ridley Scott bought the film rights for the book even before the book fair. Child 44 made news again when it made the Man Booker Prize longlist last year. However, it wasn't all good news as a few critics decried the entry of what others term an "airport novel" into the prestigious list , thus edging out better written literary works. Strictly speaking, it is an airport read. The book is fast-paced and engrossing, capable of being consumed in one sitting. But the book is not another Da Vinci Code (read: "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"). Set in the 1950s, the book's success lies in the fact that, amidst the murder myste...

Because they're just so juicy... Dead to the World Read: 5/31/09 4/5 stars One word: Eric. The Nordic vampire who has more power than Bill, and definitely more gallant. This is the book in the series that I've been waiting to read. Here, Sookie discovers Eric beside the road in the middle of the night, running towards her house. His memory was stolen by a coven of witches who want to take control of Eric's area, both economically and politically. Yes, it sounds lame and contrived. But who cares? It's Sookie Stackhouse!:) Anyway, Eric is not the vampire that he once was--he's gentler, more sensitive, and more inclined to reveal his emotions to Sookie. And, whether he has his memory or not, he's not a wimp. So, the anticipated romance between the two flares up, now that Bill is out of the picture. And I just love it! Dead as a Doornail Read: 6/3/09 3/5 stars One of the sub-plots of the previous book is Jason's disappearance.Turns out he was kidnapped by a were...