Guilty pleasure

Oh no. What have I done.

I looked down. At the pen and paper in my hands.

Yet another list of book titles drawled out in my lazy script. Dozens of titles and authors lined up in pieces of paper. No, nothing harmless about that.

Where are the other lists? Lost in my black hole of a bag, lost in the folds of my notebook, lost in the depths of my over-thinking mind.

It's a mannerism, a coping mechanism, above all, a guilty pleasure.

The OCD in me is itching to tick off one book after the other because... that's what lists are for! I cross out one, two if I'm lucky, but never did I follow through.

But my carefree spirit says otherwise and tells me to just give in to my bibliophilic instincts. Let it take over me and, without so much as a second glance, I will know which trove is destined for me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I feel like a hopeless case. All I have are endless titles and names rather than pulpy paperbacks. I'm swimming around in an ocean of lists.

Sometimes I think I'm more frustrated with the fact that I can't have all the books I want soon enough.

In the words of Matthew J. Bruccoli, scholar and F. Scott Fitzgerald biographer : "You don't buy books as an investment. You buy them because it gives you pleasure to read them, to touch them... to see them on shelves."

Is there anyone out there who feels the same way?

September's slut

We sit through days willing the Earth to rotate faster, wishing Mondays turn to Fridays, to skip the tawdry parts that have become essential in our lives. Still, we look back and realize how fast time flies. Days that dragged on now seemed weightless.

I barely had enough time to cozy up with September when it's about to fold into itself again until next year. My relationship with September is more than a dodgy one night stand - though it was great. We went on a date at The Night Circus, gave me a bouquet of orange Hemingways, had a bottle of Bradbury talking about What happened to Anna K. all night. As we lay side by side, Maugham playing softly on the background, I felt The Unbearable Lightness of Being. ;)

September books from MIBF, Booksale & J. <3

A bibliophile's dream

Every bibliophile's dream is to have a room full of books - four walls covered from floor to ceiling - like Karl Lagerfeld's, but most of us don't run House of Chanel. Though I'm lusting over his library, I prefer cozy sunlit spaces with a comfy couch or a wing chair for a reading room-slash-home library. Looking at books, and spaces for books, over at weheartit makes me happy as a feather floating in the breeze.

Curling up in bed with a good book tastes delicious just by thinking it, especially when it's drizzling.

Still, nothing beats having a room you can shut the world out and lose yourself in another. It'll be your sanctuary, a shrine for books and reading, your two-cents worth of escape - sweet all the same.

Until then, I'll be daydreaming. Or dreaming, given the hour.

PS. Every bibliophile also dreams to visit Shakespeare & Co in Paris and stay a week or two at the apartment above and help in the bookstore by day. Maybe I'll put that in another post.

Goodnight!

33rd MIBF 2012

One of the things I look forward to in September? The Manila International Book Fair 2012!

Been hearing about this but never actually been to one. Will definitely make it a point to come this year. I'm already saving up! 

Come fly away

I get fascinated by the most random things/persons sometimes. It could be sparked in a split second - read somewhere, heard somewhere, saw somewhere - then I forget it until something comes up.

This is overdue but I wanna do something for Amelia Earhart's 115th birthday (July 24th, thank you for the memo, Google!). Amelia Earhart was one of the first women to fly a plane in the 1930s. She lived with determination and strength, especially being a woman in that era. Though women were beginning to have their way by that time, still she had to prove herself. She mysteriously disappeared after attempting to fly around the world in 1937. No one knew what really happened until now - some theories claimed that she was cast away on an island where she eventually died.

Who would've thought such a fragile woman could fly a a plane by herself? Photo from National Archives.

Earhart wrote books and there are books written about her.

Read lusts for the bibliophile

Since my work meant reading tons of news from the internet everyday, I also get to wander around a bit. I came across several interesting articles about books and writing! It's my escape from countless territorial disputes, international issues, economics, market shares, and all that. Just wanna share them with you.

Photo by Ourit Ben Haim/Underground New York Public Library

Am I the only one who doesn't want to "Keep Still and Obey Mr. Grey"? Why Fifty Shades is a "Best Seller".

Do you read books because of the writing style or the plot? What makes a good book, then?

Be a poet! Just tilt your head sideways at your bookshelf and ta-dah!

For every bibliophile who likes to carry their book around, you know you want one.

It's nice to know a lot of people still read paperbacks, even in subways - and that feeling when you don't care even if you miss your stop so you can go on reading.

Happy reading! :)

Will work for books

Novelists write a great deal about paperbacks with creased spines, falling pages, missing covers, and the readers think it's beautiful, romantic even, and it says a lot about the character's personality. I love the thought of it, but in reality I'm pretty fussy about my books. 

I like my books..


- Plastic covered. I have a thing for plastic-covering. I even have my own step-by-step procedure which I follow religiously!
- Signed with my initials & the date I got the book. For gifts, I include the name of the person who gave it to me.
- Marked with highlighters for quotes
- Dog-eared, in small folds, if a highlighter is not in hand
- Not creased, the spine and the cover. But there are exceptions to the rule, like books I got from Booksale. I love them the same!

PS. I keep the receipts and use them as bookmarks! 

I feel like I'm such a dork!


Every one of my books holds a certain memory, a feeling, time, place, persons. I'm not one who goes around getting every book that I want. I have to work for it and I give up certain things, like clothes and shoes and make up! Haha! But nothing beats the feeling from a good read! 


How do you like your books? :)

Novels without the prose

I judge a book by its prose. I love how words weave together - how they leave me with a delicious and intoxicating feeling - sometimes more than the novel itself. But great prose can turn any story into a great read, I suppose. And I'm one who likes to get waist-deep into books, that feeling of familiarity with the places and the faces through a mental movie reel.

The thought of novels told through pictures was a bit disconcerting for me (not exactly graphic novels). Then fate showed me these two books which I Googled and searched on Goodreads now I'm lusting over them! 

and

Chopsticks and The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt are novels in scrapbook format. I love the idea of using bits  and scraps of memories to tell stories and adore Caroline Preston for using vintage ephemera from her grandmother's attic and antique shops to make a novel set in the 1920s. I envy her for having bits of the era I wish I lived in! 

I think photos are as beautiful as words! These novels will surely be delectable, don't you think?

Covers and titles

I took my little brother to see The Avengers yesterday (watched it for the 2nd time) but were an hour and a half early so we made a badly needed trip to the bookstore! We're the two bookworms of the family.

A few covers and titles caught my lustful eye.

1. Chopsticks

I read from reviews that this novel comes with photos and illustrations, more like a raw scrapbook. The plot is intriguing, "it's up to the reader to decide what is real, what is imagined, and what has been madness all along." It has an artsy feel combined with music, the "The Sky Is Everywhere" kind. Reminds me of the movie Crazy/Beautiful, one of my favorites!