• Oprah Winfrey chooses “Love in the Time of Cholera” as her next book club selection. A feature film based on the book is also set to be released next month in the United States. The novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez has always been a bestseller at the store. We are expecting a new batch of mass market paperbacks of the novel to arrive soon.
• The Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature will be announced on October 11. On the shortlist are: Claudio Magris (Italy), Les Murray (Australia), Philip Roth (USA), Thomas Transtromer (Sweden), Adonis (Syria).

Back in February, we hosted a book launch for Heartbreak, a collection of short stories from Cozy Reads Publishing. We are happy to announce that the young publishing company has come up with its second title (of a trilogy), another short story collection called “First Love: Unforgettable Stories of Getting Weak In The Knees And Falling.”

This cozy read is just as nicely printed as the first one. It has a shiny cover with eleven stories on thick creamy paper inside. Of the eleven, I enjoyed That Familiar Hand by Celestine Marie Trinidad the most. Of course all the stories are about first loves and this one was about that first feeling between two people in their sixties. Here is the complete list of eleven stories and authors:

Project Uno by Elyss G. Punsalan
- Three random words from the story: serendipity, returned, sign
That Familiar Hand by Celestine Marie Trinidad
- First line: His handwriting seemed vaguely familiar.
Room 101 by Belen Morabella
- The only line in italics: Why can’t you forget him?
Summer Interlude by Chona Suner-Narvadez
- Musical acts mentioned: Marilyn Manson, Black Sabbath, Mozart
A Certain Quality by I. P. Goze
- Theme song: Could It Be Magic by Barry Manilow
A Kiss Is A Kiss Is A Kiss by Karen Manalastas
- Lola says: Don’t be too hard on him.
What Ever Happened To…? by Sally Magdiwang
- Last line: Huy! Excuse me, are you still listening?
Meeting at San Agustin by Ana Maria S. Villanueva
- Last line: He didn’t ever want to let go.
Love, Digitally by Jason Paul Laxamana
- Online handles: Midnighter, Porkyupine
The Seatmate by Raymund P. Reyes
- Symptoms: daydreaming, loss of appetite, singing, restless tossing, pimples
Note to Self by Isabel Reoja
- Advice: Go for broke.

“First Love” is edited by Faye Ilogon.

Her A Wrinkle in Time was one of the first science fiction books I read. It was also one of the first books that upon reading the last page I found my heart and my mind exploding. This is the only way I can describe finishing a book with your heart beating fast and your thoughts going in every direction. Her books made the world seem bigger and the possibilities endless. She wrote with excitement, wonder, and compassion. We will miss her.

This is what J. K. Rowling said on her website after electronic copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows appeared on the internet and also after copies of the hardcover were sold over the internet by an online retailer. The author also expressed disappointment when a review of the book (even yet unreleased) appeared in the esteemed New York Times.

She urged fans to ignore the unauthenticated information that started to spread a few weeks ago. She also gave thanks to the newspapers and bookstores who protect the secrecy of the book until the very minute it is to be released.

If you don’t want to run into spoilers, be very careful where you go on the internet. Sites like Ebay have pages of the book for sale, you can also find spoilers in YouTube and similar sites.

Do not worry, true fans, in a very short time you will know everything!

This seems to be a good year for young adult fantasy fiction crossing over to the big screen.  Aside from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, here are other books that you can expect to see in theaters soon.

I remember reading Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising.   Maybe I was too young or I let my imagination run away with me or Susan Cooper writes a good story, because I know it scared me and I had to put it down a few times before I could finish it.  It is the story of a boy who finds out on his eleventh birthday that he is an Old One, someone destined to protect the world from evil.  The book is part of a series of five volumes.  The movie is scheduled to come out towards the end of the year.

Being released as a Christmas movie is Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass (known in the UK as The Northern Lights).  The story is set in a world that is like ours, but isn’t, where humans have animal companions representing their own souls.  Lyra, a young girl, becomes the bearer of a compass that can tell you the answer to any question.  The story has missing children, daring rescues, and armored polar bears.  It should make for a good movie.

Coming sooner to a theater near you is Neil Gaiman’s Stardust.   It is the story of earnest Tristan who promises to fetch his lady love a star they saw fall beyond the enchanted wall of their village.

Here’s a new website from the nice people of Read or Die.  They describe it as “…an online Filipino literary portal and community…hosts blogs, author and group sites, reading guides, reading lists, reading challenges, podcasts, news of events on literacy and literature, online book clubs and digitized publications.”

The site looks nice and neat and is packed with information.  Anyone with anything to say about the local reading culture can and should use it.  You can visit it just to read what’s new in the Philippine literary setting.  You can create your own blog to, let’s say, promote your new book.  You can join the forums and discuss books, events, writers, etc.

Gingerbread Girl, Stephen King’s new 21,000-word “long story” is appearing in this month’s issue of Esquire magazine.  The novella is the story of Em who runs from her husband to a secluded place in Florida where she makes the mistake of running into a neighbor inside a Stephen King story.

Another novel that previously made its first appearance in Esquire was Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  The magazine’s website includes an excerpt of the novella.

On the Road, Jack Kerouac’s novel about Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty (characters based on the author and his friend) and their trip across America, was published fifty years ago in 1957. It was actually written six years earlier in 1951 on a scroll. Amazing, isn’t it? Kerouac wrote the original novel in three weeks on ten scrolls each twelve feet long and taped together. The Kerouac scroll was auctioned off a few years ago for $2.2M.

To celebrate the novel’s 50th year in print, friends and fans of the author took turns reading the book cover-to-cover at Narupa University in Boulder, Colorado. The reading took 12 hours.

A picture of the scroll taken from the University of Iowa website.

Volume 2 of The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories was delivered to our store a few days ago and with the rain in the background, I thought today was a perfect time to do some reading.

It was an afternoon well-spent. We have to congratulate Kenneth (the editor and creator of the magazine) for getting over the second issue hurdle (which can sometimes be more difficult than getting over the first one) and giving us another digest of entertaining short stories by Filipino writers.

You’ll find that some things have changed from the first, but all the good things mentioned in our first post about the digest were kept intact: author profiles, comments from the authors on the writing process, a writing contest, etc. (One thing I did miss from the first one though was the front-to-back cover art spread since this volume has the art entirely on the front cover. Not a big deal, I just thought the cover art looked very nice as a full spread.) My favorite story this time was a mystery in a Philippine fairy tale/mythological setting called “Beneath the Acacia,” by Celestine G. Trinidad. I liked it because I thought it was funny and I enjoy mysteries.

It has to be said that we also love the magazine’s “sincerity.” The magazine truly does exist to showcase local talent, to give us an affordable and entertaining read, and ultimately to contribute to the effort to get Filipinos to read. As someone who has delved into the risky, romantic, and rewarding business of bookselling, this is something I understand and appreciate.

We have a feeling that the digest is going to be around for a while now that it actually has sponsors! Don’t worry, the ad pages will not take away from your reading enjoyment. The digest is available at Booktopia for P100. It’s very handy so you can put it in your purse or fold it into your pocket and whip it out anytime you need an enjoyable read.

Scholastic, publisher of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is posting 7 Deathly Hallows questions on their site as part of their publicity campaign.  They have just recently posted the second question and are expected to post a new one every two weeks until a few weeks before the release on July 21.

Here are the questions so far:

1. Who will live, who will die?

Harry Potter
Lord Voldemort
Snape
Ginny
Ron
Hermione
Neville
Hagrid
Draco Malfoy
Someone Else/Other

2. Is Snape good or evil?

Good and still a spy for the Order of the Phoenix
Good but in too deep with Voldemort
Evil and has always been a spy for Voldemort
Evil but only because Voldemort is back

We will be posting the questions as they come.  In the meantime, check out these bookmarks; there should be one for every question.  (The files are in PDF format and are about 1Mb each.)
Question 1 bookmark
Question 2 bookmark