Coffeespoons

Hello. Still around. Or maybe I should say, finally around. Presence is a tricky thing, isn't it? You're here, but not here. Even when you want to be here. Anyway, I am here now. Determined (or at least convinced) that I should carve out some time to go back to writing. And to me, writing means blogging. Because that was most of the writing that I did for me. The other writing that I did for me would be Facebook status updates, but let's be honest: those disappear into the ether. And though you might get hundreds of engagements because of them, they're always tenuous at best. Now blogging...is tenuous, too. But less so than Facebook status updates, so let's stick to this. I have so many things that I've wanted to write about, that I've wanted to say. And because they are legion, I'm not going to touch them lest I freeze up again. Instead, let us begin from zero... Imagine me as a new blogger. Eager to share books that I love with the world. Fois...

Aren't the covers pretty? There, I've been wanting to put these covers side by side and post them online for the past few weeks. These are the covers for the ebook editions of Philippine Speculative Fiction (PSF), Vols. 1-4. And yes, we published them. The ebook editions, I mean, as the print ones were independently published by Dean Alfar and company since 2005. The covers were made by our production editor, Adam David , and our artist, Lester Banzuelo (better known to others as the drummer of Fuseboxx . Yeah, we cool like that. Or, at least, he is.). I remember passing by Adam and Lester's workstations as I was walking to our office pantry when I had to stop because I saw the covers on their screens. I think they were working on the Vol. 4 cover by then. When I saw the sinister Christmas-y cover, I believe I felt what can only be described as "kilig" (rough English translation: "to be tickled pink"). I would've giggled, but I was trying ha...

Read: 4/8/09 4/5 stars I had little intention of reading this book before I had seen the movie. However, since my tutee started reading it and I thought it would be great to use it in one of our activities, I promptly went through five bookstores in two cities just to find a copy. Why did the four other bookstores in one city not have a copy? I honestly do not know, given it's such a popular work already courtesy of the multi-Academy winning movie adaptation. So, like what usually happens, I've read the book before seeing the movie. Unlike what usually happens, I liked the movie better than the book. "Q&A" (I much prefer to use the original title) is a highly readable and entertaining work. It carries the same premise as the movie--a boy from the slums of India becomes a contestant on a quiz show and goes on to win the biggest prize ever won by any individual in any game show. His veracity is doubted, however, because authorities reason out that a boy of his backg...

Read: 3/9/09 4/5 stars This month, my book club, Flips Flipping Pages, has decided on a Japanese theme for our monthly book discussion. As opposed to the previous months wherein a specific book was assigned, the March book is actually any Japanese literature book, "literature" loosely referring to any printed work. So, though i considered trying to pass off the two manga books I had read as Japanese lit, a couple of weeks ago, I lucked into this book in one of my favorite UP used bookstores. I had never heard of the author nor the book, which makes it very surprising that I bought it as I rarely buy anything I have not heard of before. Truth be told, aside from the blurbs and the comments at the back identifying the author as a recipient of Japan's Imperial Prize in Literature, I bought the book because the back cover also stated that the book has sewn bindings. As someone who often buys mass-market or trade paperbacks with perfect binding, I was attracted to owning anoth...

Read: 3/2/09 5/5 stars Kiran Desai, daughter of Anita Desai, wins a Booker Prize for this, her first novel. And so the daughter gets what her mother has only been shortlisted for twice over. I have never read Anita Desai, mind. But this book, barring my occasional bemusement at the Booker's seeming desire to make up for their sins as colonizers, is a beautifully written piece of work and one whose win I will not question. The Inheritance of Loss is set mostly in Nepal, but partly in the US (and very minimally in Britain, through flashbacks). The cast of characters involves mostly natives of Nepal, in varied states of alienation from their nationality and themselves. Take Sai--an orphan who has to live with her grandfather, who was once a former judge and educated in England. They live in a small town in the mountains, in a house that spoke of former wealth amidst a population that is generally destitute. Sai prefers to speak English, though she is a native of Nepal. There is also a...