Friday, August 31, 2007

Anyone See A Good Book?

Dammit, I know: I haven't gone to the Manila Book Fair since it opened last Wednesday. And for a bibliophile, that's like tempting an addict with a buffet of cheap-ass drugs at a nearby crack house.

It doesn't help that there are sales galore in almost all bookshops that aren't part of the said book fair. And ironically, it's not like there will be a lot of stuff I can buy at the fair. Or that I'll have the money to buy anyway.

(In other news, would you like some cheese with that whine?)

Maybe (hopefully) this Sunday, I'll be able to go. Unless I can do a raid before then...

UPDATE: Well, managed to go last Sunday. A lot of people, families galore with their kids, at the event but not as many as I remember it last year (based on my fuzzy memory). Too bad that Fully-Booked didn't join this time. (Though like andrew, I also hit their flag-ship before going to the fair. Great minds think alike!)

On a good note, I managed to get a copy of dean's short story collection (which is set to launch on September 29) as well as kyu's latest issue of Philippine Genre Stories. On a bad note, I wasn't able to splurge on local story collections as they weren't available (except for Vince Groyon's, which I wasn't able to pick up as well).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ohhh...sounds interesting! As a book lover myself, I am looking forward to reading your next entry on what you saw at the book fair.

Anyway, I'm not sure if you've read this one but I like it for its astute observation on human behaviour. It's called, "I am a cat" by Soseki Natsume. The story is told from a cat's point of view.

I suppose it would be something to look for at the fair.

Andrew said...

I hope you were able to go the Book Fair. Knowing you (by knowing myself!), you'd probably pick up a few interesting titles here and there.

One thing I will say though is how I didn't undergo last year's stressful "Oh my God, what will I buy??" dilemma, which can be a good thing but is also an indicator that it wasn't as fun as it was last year.

Fully Booked's absence was felt, I think, which is why I hit the flagship store afterwards, and Powerbooks had a really lousy selection of fiction titles. NBS was even better, if you can believe that!

Charles said...

The problem with Powerbooks is that all the genres where lumped into the fiction section so finding specific books you wanted was difficult. National Bookstore on the other hand not only appeared to have more shelf space but kept the genre arrangements.

banzai cat said...

m: hehe well, am too lazy/busy at the moment to post about it. However, suffice to say, I usually don't have that high expectations about the Book Fair being how the books aren't that less expensive and I'm such a cheap bastard. But I do like going/being there: as a bibliophile, must worship at the appropriate altar, yes? ;-)

As for "I am a cat", it definitely looks interesting. (Though strangely enough, I think I've been recommended this work before. Hmmm...)

andrew: Haha unfortunately, what I did promise to do this year, I wasn't able to do since the books I was looking for weren't available (except for dean's collection and kyu's digest). Aside from that, however, I wasn't able to go into impromptu-buying move because of (a) there weren't that many interesting books for me, and (b) I was penny-pinching at the moment. Can't have it all.

charles: Ah, so you noticed that too? Yeah, the Powerbooks shelves sucked major hoover, which is why I enjoyed more seeing the new books in National.