Coffeespoons

If there's one thing I haven't missed in all these years of maintaining (or not) this blog, it's the annual best read post. And here it is! This year, too, I opted to summarize my reading year via a deck, which you can check out on Slideshare or here, if you're so inclined. To see all books I read this year, head on over to my Goodreads 2015 shelf. Honey's 2015 Year in Reading from Honey de Peralta As I mention in a Facebook post, I would love to do a more in depth reading habit analysis on a much bigger data set, so if you know of anyone who needs help with something like that, let me know. Anyway, on to my Ten Best Reads of 2015... The Neapolitan Serie s by Elena Ferrante - Ok, this is cheating because this is actually four books. But I promise you, they are a force of nature. It is basically the story of the friendship of two women, set in mid-20th century in Naples. But the women and the characterization...beyond words. If you are a woman...

At Tweedle Book Cafe , one of the new and hip book cafes to open in Quezon City, Metro Manila. I've been here twice: the first was to check it out; the second was to read. And boy, did I read. So, I concur: it's a good place for book lovers to hang out.  I will never make it as a food blogger. My inclination when my food arrives is to put it in my mouth. It only occurs to me to snap pictures after I've eaten maybe half of the dish. So, this isn't Coffeespoons turning into a food blog. Rather, this is Coffeespoons finding its voice again and finding time to write again. And since book cafes are becoming a thing here in Metro Manila, I thought it would be a fitting confluence to talk about reading and book cafes in a blog called Coffeespoons. I am a red-blooded reader. That means you tell me that there's a cafe that has a lot of books and purports to have an atmosphere that readers will love, I am there. But I've always been intrigued by the concept of a...

From my Goodreads' Challenge page . The last five books I've read, to date, 16 Mar 2015. I powered through a three-book erotic romance series last Saturday. It was the Cityscape series by Jessica Hawkins , which I found by Googling for edgy romance novels (don't ask). But, boy when you ask for edgy, they give you edgy. So I chose this series which seemed the right kind of edgy for me at the time (true love via an extramarital affair; not really an unfamiliar theme in more serious literature). I liked the series. Sure, there was a lot of back-and-forth from the female lead; an alpha male who is perfect, as they usually are; and loads of sex which was hot but, if translated to reality, would be exhausting. Nevertheless, I got sucked up by it. (NOTE: One does not power through three books in less than 18 hours if you're not sucked up by them.) I'd like to point out, though, that I feel these covers are a bit misleading. I mean, you'd think that this was B...

The ambassador with some of his Czech scifi books. On January 23, I trooped to Uno Morato for a meeting with the Czech ambassador to the Philippines, his Excellency  Jaroslav Olša, Jr. , not to discuss matters of state, but to meet a him as a lover and reader of science fiction, too. I am hardly what you'd call extremely versed in scifi. My SF&F phase reached its bloom in my late teens, so I am merely a dabbler now. But when Paolo Chikiamco --speculative fiction writer, founder of Studio Salimbal , and friend--invited me, I was not going to say no. The Czech ambassador, his Excellency Olša, arrived at Uno Morato in a flurry, carrying plastic and paper bags with books. He was exuberant, interested, and interesting. He stumped us by revealing knowledge of Filipino sci-fi authors whom we had not heard of or barely knew. He wrote about Philippine scifi in Locus Magazine . He brought some old Filipino sci-fi books. He brought Czech sci-fi books, some of them extremely love...

Happy 6 years, Coffeespoons! For better or for worse.:) I missed my 6th blogiversary (yes, that's still a word). Yup, I am a lame blogger, not worthy of the name. Or so I keep saying. But you know what? Who the hell cares? My heyday of blogging was 2009-2010. I posted often, read and commented on other blogs every day, joined bloggers' events, pushed for some local face-to-face blogger events of our own. The years after that, I've had to deal with realities such as: if you're very, very busy with work, family, and advocacies, then yes, that's going to eat into your blogging time. So now, when I think I might have more to write about beyond book reviews, I find I'm just a casual blogger. Now, if I write, I write as an exercise. I write because it pleases me and if there is no audience, that is exactly what I had in mind when I started the blog. I'm not going to beat myself up over not having as much free time as I used to back in 2009. But I do admi...