Coffeespoons

Yesterday, I gave an overview of my reading year in 2014 (with charts!). It was mostly data, so here's the part where I talk about actual books that I loved this year: my yearly ten best reads. Been doing this since I started the blog in 2009, and if you're interested in finding out what books made it to my list each year, feel free to check out my best reads of the year label. Anyway, on to my most enjoyable reads of the year. "Enjoyable" is how I qualify my best reads, given that the term "best read" is such a subjective matter and highly susceptible to mental, psychological, and emotional status at the time of reading. So, if the book leaves me with a glow during and after reading, or made me say internally (occasionally externally, too), "Holy shit, this is awesome." then that usually makes it to my best reads list. And without further ado, in the order in which I read them during the year... Locke & Key (the entire series) ...

I read 88 books this year. That's 38 more than my personal target for Goodreads' 2014 Reading Challenge. I wanted to under-promise so I could over-deliver. Thankfully, I did. I usually sneak in one more book around Dec. 30 or 31st, but I'm not going for it this year. It's been a year full of pressure, so I'm not inclined to add a contrived pressure on the last day of 2014. Above is the screencap of all the books I read this year, care of my Goodreads Reading Challenge . A pretty nifty feature, if you ask me, especially for the data conscious types. If you'd like to see what I've read this year, head on over to the page . Speaking of data-conscious types, I am, just a little bit. When I discovered the Ultimate Reading Spreadsheet , I promptly downloaded it. It was a bit of a chore, though, to type in all the data for every book I read, which leads me to the other nifty thing about Goodreads: you can export all your bookshelf data as a csv file, which...

The theme for this year's Filipino ReaderCon is "Readers Turned Writers," so I think it makes sense to ask this question for one of the Filipino Fridays , doesn't it? If you want to join Filipino Fridays, head on over to the Filipino ReaderCon site and take part in the fun. This week's complete prompt goes... As a reader, have you ever thought about writing a book? What kind of books/stories do you want to write? Or are you now a published author, and what compelled you to go fulfil this dream? How was your journey from reader to writer? How did you go about getting your book out there? I believe I'm more of a reader than a writer. When I say that, I mean that I've never had the inclination to write a story. I was never one of those kids who kept a notebook of stories or submitted stuff to the literary section of the school journal. Nope. I liked to read. So, no. I don't think I'm cut out to become a creative writer, because I'v...

Brushing off the cobwebs on my blog to join in the yearly Filipino Friday series of posts, which signal the run-up to the Filipino ReaderCon . The Filipino ReaderCon will be held on Nov. 14 this year, on a Friday, a departure from our usual Saturday schedule. But, there will be book discussions held on Nov. 15, Saturday, in conjunction with the November Komikon . The other difference this year is that the ReaderCon will be part of the Philippine International Literary Festival (PILF), organized by the National Book Development Board . The PILF is going to be on Nov. 12-14 at the Bayanihan Center, Mandaluyong, and the ReaderCon is going to be the third day of the LitFest. So, we've become official, baby. Let's see how things turn out this year so that we can find out if we're going to do the same thing next year. Anyway, back to Filipino Fridays! I'm two days late, as you can see, but one does what one can.:) The prompt this week is the followi...

The nice people from Fully Booked invited me to the Tintin Shop Manila launch last June 25. I've been the recipient of many kindesses from Fully Booked, all because I shop at their store a lot, so I figure I should return the kindness by posting the pictures I took during the event. I am leagues away from being an awesome photographer, both in terms of composition and just actually remembering to take photographs. So, anything here that looks sucky is entirely my fault and should not reflect on the awesomeness of Fully Booked BGC's Tintin section, which, I am told, can more than rival the Tintin Shop in Singapore. The reception table. Feel free to use the hashtag #tintinshopmnl on Twitter .

Below is a Facebook conversation I had with a few friends about the #weneeddiversebooks hashtag last May 2. Yesterday, the topic was brought up again on Twitter with a different set of people. A friend mentioned this conversation, and someone who wasn't in it originally asked what we talked about. Now since I really hate that discussions like these get buried on Facebook, I'm posting it here so that it's easy for me (or anyone who's interested) to find it. To minimally protect the privacy of the people originally in the discussion, I've only left their initials. --------- Posted by Honey de Peralta, May 2, 2014 I have what might seem like a really stupid question, seeing as how I've also been promoting the hashtag, but who exactly is the "We" in the "WeNeedDiverseBooks" hashtag? Because it originated as a reaction to the BookCon all-male, all-white panel for kidlit writers. So I get it why US and Western readers and writers s...

So, here's the presentation I showed during my section in National Book Development Board's Limbag Kapihan for writers. In it are the results for the Filipino Reading Habits Survey I conducted last Feb. One caveat I will emphasize: this is an informal survey, and I am no statistician. I am, however, a very curious individual, and I like facts and statistics. Hence, the survey. The rest of the caveats you'll find in the presentation. The first few slides are mostly pictures of the different activities Filipino readers are up to, at least those within my zone of awareness. And I think while I was showing these, my main message was: Can we please stop saying that Filipinos aren't readers? Please. Look at the pics. Look at the sites. Look at the stats. I mean, sure, our readership isn't like the readership in other countries, but I would say it's a stretch to say Filipinos don't read or don't read a lot. Anyway, I'll let the presentation sp...

Partial result of Question 4 In case you're a Filipino reader in my network and haven't seen this yet, well, here it is: The Filipino Reading Habits Survey Here's the introductory spiel of the survey to explain who is doing this and why: Hello. I'm Honey de Peralta, a former editor, some-time author, full-time publisher, and all-time reader. I'm doing this Reading Habit Survey in preparation for a panel discussion organized by the National Book Development Board - Philippines on March 3. In it, I'll be sharing what I know about the Filipino reading groups but also Filipino readers.  And so, I'd like your help in representing Filipino readers well. If you could take 5-10 minutes to take this survey, I'd really appreciate it. I'll be closing this survey on Feb. 28 and will be sharing the results with the public (via my blog, http://fantaghiro23.blogspot.com) on the evening of March 3. I'm hoping it'll give us and other members of t...

Happy Birthday, Coffeespoons. ( img src ) It's been five years to the day since I started this blog. Though I've progressively gotten worse at maintaining it (only 10 posts last year!), I'm keeping the blog. Coffeespoons was born at a time I rediscovered my love for reading. I was starting to become bored with my job, which counterintuitively didn't leave me with a lot of time for reading (I was a high school English teacher), I was taking up my masters in Anglo-Am lit, and I joined online book groups and an online/offline book club . In other words, I filled whatever emptiness there was with books. So it only seemed logical to start a book blog. There is less emptiness in my life now, mainly because my work never bores me. Exhausts me, yes. Challenges me, leaves me reeling, but at least I'm not bored. Hence, the infrequent posts.  But through Coffeespoons and the many other things that came before and after it in my reading life and advocacy, I ...

Official Poster - 3rd Filipino ReaderCon, created by Trizha Ko ( img src ) It's been a little over a month after the 3rd Filipino ReaderCon , and friend and book blogger, Ron Lim , who also happens to write for Manila Bulletin, has just come out with an article entitled "Readers Unite." His intent was to feature the Filipino ReaderCon and the past three years of its existence. It's a lovely article, and I urge you to check it out . Ron sent me interview questions which I answered in my usual long-winded fashion. Owing to the exigencies of space, word count, and unity, I suppose, everything I said can't be included in the article, so this being my blog, I figured I'd just make the responses public.  The FilReaderCon is an event that happened because of the desire and work of so many people, so though the germ of the idea started from a few, it never would've happened had not all the writers, book bloggers, and book club members rallied to sup...