Coffeespoons

Having around 19 books to review, I have decided to clump some of them together--most logically, books from the same series. So, here's the real review for the Mortal Instruments. (In case you were thrown off by my previous post not being about the Mortal Instruments.) I have tried not to spoil any of the books, so that leaves me with the broadest strokes for the summary. However, I might not be able to help but reveal a few things in the collective review at the end. For this, I apologize. But, if you're anything like me, knowing what happens in a book won't spoil your enjoyment of it. I hope. Book 1: The City of Bones Read: 22 A ug 2009 4/5 stars Clary, a fifteen-year-old girl living in New York, goes to a club one night with her best friend Simon and witnesses a murder perpetrated by three teenagers. Thing is, the boy murdered appears to be a demon, and no one else sees the three teenagers aside from her. These three teenagers turn out to be Shadowhunters, warriors who...

(picture via @kongkong622, via blitzmacalma ) When we had to leave our home last Saturday because of the epic flood that hit Metro Manila, I packed the most important of my belongings into a plastic bag which I placed inside my already loaded backpack. I wasn't about to risk them getting wet. These most important things were the following: my wallet, my cellphone and charger, and my hardback copy of the third book in Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments Trilogy, The City of Glass . Not that The City of Glass has become my favorite book in the world and the one book I'd take with me to the hypothetical deserted island. It was just that I hadn't finished it. And I knew I would need a distraction from the things happening that day. I thought it was pretty apt that I was reading a series entitled The Mortal Instruments . This thought had nothing to do with the books themselves. It had more to do with the fact of my family and I watching a lot of our life washed away in the...

So. 2009 Philippine Blog Awards. I'm a finalist for Best Arts and Culture Blog. Hence, the title of this post. I could try to be cool and blase about this, but that's not me, so....THANK YOU! Who? Not sure... I'll just start thanking everyone--my family, my friends, my book club, my fellow bloggers and book bloggers, the judges. And if you're reading this, then the thank you goes out to you, too.:) Actually, I believe I owe my gratitude to God, life, the universe, and everything (yes, Douglas Adams, I thank you, too, for lending me your line.) Let's not rehash why I'm blogging . Suffice it to say that I am grateful that my life and my choices have led me here. So, with or without the acknowledgement, I am happy. But, I gotta admit, the acknowledgement is great!:D And now I can say, "I'm a blogger." without feeling weird about it! ('Cause before, it just used to be, "Well, I blog...") Ok, enough giddiness. Here's where I tip my ha...

As you know, this blog has been silent for the past two months or so. I blame my job, which I think I did mention in my review of Up the Down Staircase . Since I went back to teaching full-time, I realized that I couldn't spend 8 hours (and more!) on a job and still maintain all my blogging activities. In my guilt and general too-much-on-my-plate-ness, I would go days and days without even visiting my blog and checking out others' blogs. A friend told me it smacked of teenage mentality (avoidance and all), to which I cheerfully replied, "Why, yes. Yes, it does." However, if I could characterize my state in my non-blogging days, I'd say I was like an inflatable doll slowly losing air. And I didn't really understand why until I read this paragraph from I Capture the Castle (which I haven't finished reading, for the record) , the story of Cassandra, who lives in a crumbling castle with her poor family and who strives to hone her writing skills by keeping a jo...

It might seem like cheating that my first post after two months is sort of a meme, but, what the hey...I found it interesting.:) Found this nifty little exercise at A Commonplace Blog. Using only books you have read this year (2009), answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title. (I went for honesty instead of humor, though I really did want to put Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore for "You and your friends are:". Just to clarify, that isn't true.:D) Describe yourself: Alias Grace (Margaret Atwood) How do you feel: Something Blue (Emily Giffin) Describe where you currently live: No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy) If you could go anywhere, where would you go: The King's English (Betsy Burton) Your favorite form of transportation: Peter Pan (J.M. Barrie) Your best friend is: Something Wonderful (Judith McNaught) You and your friends are: Knights of the Kitchen Table [Time Warp Trio#1] (Jon Scieszka) What’s the weather like: Stormbreaker (Ant...

Read: 19 June 09 5/5 stars I guess it's pretty apt that this is the first book I'm going to review after a long, unwanted blogging hiatus. My short disappearance from the blogging scene is due to only one thing--I've gone back to teaching. Theoretically speaking, of course, blogging and teaching can mix. Realistically...well, those of you who are in the business of teaching (high school, at that), know otherwise. And so, I take a break from the humdrum of my teaching life to engage in my other love--blogging. And fortuitously, this book allows me to both blog and talk about teaching. Bel Kaufman's Up the Down Staircase is a hilarious novel about the life of an idealistic literature graduate during her first year of teaching in the public school system. And, trust me, this situation has a lot of potential for hilarity. But I've always believed that, for things to be truly comic, there must be depth and lingering pain behind it. In this respect, Up the D...

Read:6/18/09 5/5 stars Russian author, penning a novel criticizing the bureaucracy, and writing it in the 1930s in Stalinist Russia. What are the chances of it getting published? Almost nil, if not for the perseverance of his wife. I began reading what is considered as Mikhail Bulgakov's masterpiece for two reasons: 1) The blurb said it was a satire: the devil visits Moscow with his retinue, and the city is in disarray. 2) It was in the 1001 Books to Read before you die list. The story starts out with two of Moscow's most famous contemporary literatteurs discussing the non-existence of God in a park. Enter a tall and dark gentleman who joins their discussion. The conversation turns bizarre when the gentleman starts relating how he was discussing that particular topic with Pontius Pilate. Moreover, the strange gentleman, whom the two Muscovites identify as a "foreigner," openly laughs when the two poets stress their belief that the devil does not exist. The conversatio...