Tickled

Last year, I was floored. This year, I am tickled. Yup, this oft-neglected, but much-loved (by me) book blog is a finalist once more in the Philippine Blog Awards 2010, for the Arts & Culture category. Hurray, hurray!

As before, I am humbled and surprised to be a finalist. But, to badly paraphrase dear old Tennyson, mine is not to make reply, mine is not to reason why.

And so, I sincerely dedicate and share this nomination with the other Pinoy book bloggers, who, in each one's unique way, are pushing the reality of the Filipino as reader further into our country's and the world's consciousness. I salute all the Filipino book bloggers I've ever had the pleasure of reading and meeting online or offline for doing what they can to promote our local literature, local publishing, and local readership. You know who you are.:)

They may not be doing it consciously, but the very fact that they write about books, local or foreign and engage in great bookish discourse with other readers and authors, I believe, is promotion enough of the Filipinos as readers and even of Philippine publications. I'm really very proud to be part of the book blogging community.

Kudos also to Sasha & the Silverfish, a fellow finalist for this category and a fellow Filipino book blogger. Warms my heart to see two book bloggers among the five finalists.:)

Finally, though she isn't a book blogger, I'd also like to congratulate and cheer a dear friend on. Anina of Irrational Fits of Beauty is also a finalist for the Beauty & Fashion category! If she wanted to, Anina could be a better book blogger than many of us, given her background and brains, but her current passion is make-up.  And why not? Really smart women mix in the ditziness with the smarts. In my opinion, it makes them real.:)

So, good luck to all of us, and thank you to all of you!

*UPDATE (12/12/10): Well, I finally got my finalist's badge, so I just changed the one on top and the one on my right column. A bit late, but an improvement from last year, since now there's actually a finalist's badge, instead of just the Nominee one. Thank you, PBA 2010.:)