Coffeespoons

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...

Quantity-wise, 2013 wasn't an awesome reading year for me. Read the least number of books in the five years that I've been counting the books I read per year. It was a measly 34 . Still, at the beginning of the year , I did think of reading less. Or more accurately, not to pressure myself to read a lot for the sake of reading a lot, what with the increasing demands of work and family and, oh, life. And though I did sign up for a challenge at the beginning of the year, somewhere towards the middle, I figured I'd just read what I wanted to read. I think not having a lot of time does that to you. So though quantity-wise, it wasn't a great year, I'm kind of happy with what I've read this year. Mainly because each minute spent reading was a hard-fought minute. Hard-fought. I carried books around for days without reading them, on the off-chance that I could get a free and relaxed minute to actually read. I spent more time in our bathroom than I had right to, jus...

Filipino Friday is an online meme which started in the Filipino Book Bloggers  website, but is now used as an online activity in preparation for the Filipino ReaderCon . This is the prompt for this week's Filipino Friday: Hello, Reader! Let’s get to know you, and more importantly, what kind of reader are you? Laura E. Kelly released an infographic about Reader species — under what Domain/Class/Family/Genus/Species do you fall under? Give examples, and feel free to talk about why you belong to that species. Who knows, you may find readers in your own genus. ;) From Laura E. Kelly I've never liked being labeled, even though I may be the easiest person to label. I recall seeing this infographic before. I went through it and found too many cross-overs that seem to be addressed by the over-all term "cross bred reader mutt." I frankly think most readers are mutts. But in the interests of finding something within the species, I'm going to go with th...

Books I plan to give away during National Children's Book Day July 16, apart from being the birthday of two of the loves of my life, is also National Children's Book Day (NCBD) here in the Philippines. The NCBD is an initiative of the Philippine Board of Books for Young People (PBBY - my, this post is turning out to have too many acronyms, isn't it?),  which is headed by fantastic librarian blogger  Zarah Gagatiga . Tomorrow's highlight is the awarding of the Salangga Prize for a children's book writer, and the Alcala Prize for an illustrator. And though the NCBD is just a day, the PBBY has been encouraging people to do something for it since a few weeks ago. They've also been doing capsule interviews of some children's book authors and illustrators, care of blogger Xi Zuq , who's also suggested ways of celebrating NCBD. I'd like to celebrate the NCBD myself by doing something I've always wanted to do. So, this is what I posted on my ...

Why I liked Crashed (Junior Bender #1)... because Nancy Pearl included it among her "under the radar" reads for this summer , and I do like trying books not many people have read. Then again, this isn't really a reason why I liked the book. More like a reason why I'm inclined to like it, so... because the plot's tight and moves along quickly, and the writing's smooth and witty. because of who Junior Bender is--a crook (with a heart of gold, of course) who does detective work for other crooks. And in addition to being a career criminal, he's a career reader. Sold.  I highlighted a few sections. Read and see if you don't like him, or at least, how he spends is off-work days. “It’s true. Like it or not, I’m a professional burglar.” “You mean, like full-time?” She stretched the words out derisively. “Well, you see, that’s one of the nice things about being a burglar. You only work a couple of times a month.” “What do you do the rest ...

Because I've avoided John Green for a long time... since everybody seems to be talking about him... and the thing with authors or books that everyone's talking about... is that sometimes you want to avoid them... after all, if a LOT of people like them... that means they appeal to the masses... which means that it appeals to a pedestrian taste... but you don't want to be associated with anything pedestrian... because you're different, damn it, and you're smart... you think... smarter than the hoi polloi... so you avoid the book/author... until you can't because... you're actually curious... and you end up buying the book... but at the back of your mind, you think, "There must be something wrong with this book... and I'm going to find it. And call it out for everyone to see... or agree with a really smart detractor... because we smart folk need to stick together... and ...