Coffeespoons

Forty-five minutes before the clock strikes 12 here, and 2013 steps in. So, I've enough time to finally post my ten favorite reads from 2012. I actually read a lot of good books this year , but it's been a custom on this blog to post 10 of my favorite books for the year. My main criteria for choosing these books: I ponder on them until now and still have warm feelings when I see them. The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson - I found this story of a family of performance artists hilarious and moving, especially with the kids having to deal with their crazy parents. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides - I loved Middlesex, but this one, my God. It is beautiful. The language, the characters, the description of the house and community. House of Mirth by Edith Wharton - I still feel bad about Lily Bart. She was a rebel, but things just didn't work out her way. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot - This is the book that made me want to read mor...

Some of the books I read this year And in the photo finish of photo finishes, here's my year in reading, 2012 edition. At the beginning of the year, I jokingly said in one of our book club threads that I'm targeting to read 10 books this year. I didn't want to pressure myself to reach a certain number of books read at the expense of relishing reading or choosing books that I actually want to read. That happened when I used to set my reading target to 100 books for the year. Now, according to my Shelfari bookshelf , I read a total of 55 books this year, give or take. I say "give or take" because I really wasn't sure how to count the comic book issues and graphic novels. Also, there are a few indie comics and books that I haven't been able to add to my bookshelf. In any case, I'm happy to say I exceeded the 10 book goal.:-P So, the books I read in 2012: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt Miss Pereg...

( img src ) Earlier today, I was thinking of all the things I've been planning to do. It started with me wondering why I'm not a full-time mom, because I occasionally find myself wishing that I were. Of course, aside from the fact that I have to earn a living, I also enjoy my job tremendously. So, the desire to be a full-time mom is really a function of time. I would love to have enough time to do all the activities I'd like to do with my kids and do my job well. But it's not as if my family and my job are the only things I want to do. I'm not even talking about bucket list things here, although I do hope to spend a few weeks in each major European city one day. I'm talking about simple, doable things like my hobbies (reading) and my advocacies (reading) which I haven't gotten around to because there are only so many hours in a day. There are all those books I've been wanting to read. Books in my physical TBR, books in my Kindle's TBR, books...

The books for our non-fic read-along Over at our Shelfari book club, Flips Flipping Pages , a friend, Shani, and I have announced our new non-fiction read-along project . The project was born out of our combined geek minds, minds that like talking about pop psychology, technology, marketing, maybe a little philosophy, and other such nonsense. Seriously, we just wanted to read more non-fiction and talk about it. So, we've lined up the following books for our non-fiction read-along. One book per month: December - The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr January - Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer February - You are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself  by David McRaney What was intended as a two-woman read-along became something we opened up to our other book club members, tho...

Top Row L-R: Smaller and Smaller Circles , It's a Mens World , The El Bimbo Variations Bottom Row L-R: Texticles , Joaquinesquerie , sample of Pop Stories for Groovy Kids cover This is a post I've been promising to write for a few months now. So, it's a day after my birthday--new year, new life and all that jazz-- and I'm finally getting off my bum to finish it. Let's call this the year that I do the things I've been planning to do for a long time. Caveat # 1: This list is based only on the books I've read and really loved. Unfortunately, I haven't read as many Filipino books as I'd like. Caveat # 2: I suppose some of you know I work with a publishing company. And so, though I do love many of the books we published, I've decided on not including them in this list for now. Would like to reserve them for another post (if I do finally get around to that). So, these books are not published by us. Caveat # 3: Though I may know the writer...