The Joy of Meeting Other Bloggers, which leads to The Joy of Getting More Books

Triccie, owner of Libreria, is the second from the left. Photo courtesy of Kenneth Yu of Philippine Genre Stories (gentleman at the far right).

Last Saturday, I was finally able to snatch some time out for myself in order to join the second Filipino Book Bloggers' meet-up. I blogged about the first meet-up here, and this second meet-up was last Nov. 13. Fortuitously, it was held in Libreria at Cubao X. I say fortuitously because Triccie, Libreria's owner, is a book friend and I had been planning to go visit her newly reopened book shop but had never found the excuse to break away from my self-imposed work-home cycle. The meet-up provided me with the excuse.

Libreria's entrance. Photo from Kenneth Yu.

And so, nearly three hours late (because I did have work that day), I finally made it to Libreria to find everyone comfortably chatting around the bookstore's center table and sipping their freshly-brewed refillable coffee. They were book bloggers. With coffee. In a bookstore. I could've been five hours late and I think they would've still been there, cozily sipping their coffee and talking shop (books and writing).

From left to right: Kyusireader, Artseblis, Guy Gone Geek, Asia in the Heart, me likes art, and Taking a Break. Photo from Kenneth Yu.

Chachic from Chachic's Book Nook and Rhett. Not in photo but present were Blooey from Bookmarked! and yours truly. Photo courtesy of Kenneth Yu.

Actually, once I finally got settled, I realized that they weren't really sitting comfortably all throughout. Periodically, someone would break away from the conversation, stand up, and start browsing through the shelves again or bound over to the cashier to buy one of those yummy cookies and brownies sold in the store.   Surrounded by the wonderful books in homey Libreria, who would blame them? And so I did the same: jumped up once in a while to look at the books and buy food.

Because I was late, I didn't get much opportunity to weigh in on the discussions and because I was so hungry and kept eating, I barely remember what we talked about. But these summaries from the other attendees can sure help you out: Chachic's, Jason's, Blooey's, Michelle's, and Kenneth's.

Naturally, I ended up buying books. But I was trying to exercise restraint, hence I only got two: Zadie Smith's On Beauty and Bernard Schlink's The Reader. And so the night ended many, many hours later after two dinners and two purchased books. Sometime during first dinner, by the way, Tina of One More Page was finally able to join.

Yesterday, too, I had the opportunity to meet-up with another fellow book blogger from the Philippines, my NYRB Reading Week co-host, Mrs. B of The Literary Stew. It was the first time for us to meet each other, despite several email exchanges, and I am happy to report Mrs. B is as lovely and charming as the blog she owns. We met at Fully Booked High Street, talked about book bloggy and non-book bloggy stuff, then got down to the business of selecting the winners for the reading week.

Unfortunately, I am not a photographer (as I suppose you can tell from those photos I just took from Kenneth), so I have no visual proof. I do, however, have proof in the guise of books we swapped. From Mrs. B, I got two new NYRBs, Stefan Zweig's Beware of Piety and Gyula Krudy's Sunflower, as well as Light Boxes by Shane Jones.

However, before she arrived, I'd already scoured the bookstore in order to spend a couple of gift cheques that I'd gotten as a gift. And so, goodbye restraint and happily! I got myself 3 books from my wishlist: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters.

My collective loot from both meets with other book bloggers.

I have to say, I love meeting up with fellow book bloggers and enabling each other's passion for (or addiction to) books.