Week 23 - Heaven is For Real

I'm grateful that my friend recommended this book to me...Though a short read (I can't put it down!) it's enlightening, inspiring, poignant and a tearjerker (at least for me it was).

Heaven is For Real

by Todd Burpo

4 Books

I've seen this post in tumblr where users come up with their 4 top favorite books/reads...So here's mine...

I'd like to finally put down my 4 books... so I won't forget and come up with another 4 books! haha...

From order of which I read/purchased first to my latest read

The Notebook

by Nicholas Sparks

I remember having to buy 2 copies of this because I lost or lent?

my first book to a friend

(which was never returned)

and gave this book as a gift to 2 of my friends...

That's proof how much I love this book!

I read and knew about this even before

I watched and liked the movie version...

Tuesdays with Morrie

by Mitch Albom

This book of his made me a fan!

I have all of his books but this is surely my favorite!

The Time Traveler's Wife

by Audrey Niffenegger

For the life of me I can not recall what led me to buy/read this book...

I think it's because of the author's unusual name! haha...

I also read her 2nd novel...

but I still love this one more...

And finally... my latest read...

One Day

by David Nicholls

Now this I particularly remember being recommended by my friends

whom I was book shopping with at the time...

Another one of those classic books adapted into film -

good thing I read the book first

before watching and liking the movie version!

Incidentally all 4 books have movie versions of their own

fortunately for me I read the books before watching the films :)

So what's your 4 books?

Week 22 - The Catcher in the Rye

It seems like I post my new read whenever I'm done with it... But for this book in particular, I am ALMOST done... just a few more pages... and I know my "suffering" will be over! GAH!

(I started with this last September 1)

I seriously do not get this book! This seems so pointless or plotless or "what's the point of all the ramblings?!" kind of novel. It really seems to me now that this classic novel has been overrated! I'm just reading it for the sake of finishing it! (reminds me of this same book "On The Road" which is also pointless for me and I haven't finished reading yet till now!)

I just want this classic novel to be marked "as read" in my reading collection... but you won't hear me "recommending it"... I liked "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" more than this one and some other young adult novels I've read...

The Catcher in the Rye

by JD Salinger

Week 21 - The Perks of Being a Wallflower

It's been a long time since I started a new book...

and finally I chose to read this light fare...

thanks mostly to this gal who made it a little bit more interesting

Yup! It already has a movie version! and can't wait to see

Emma Watson's face in the movie theaters again

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

by Stephen Chbosky

Week 20 - Twenties Girl

I finished reading my last book in roughly a week... It was not that engaging as I expected though and hmmmm I found the book, Cosmopolis kinda weird honestly...well I hope the movie version would be better...

*****

Twenties Girl

by Sophie Kinsella

Hey! How apt that on my 20th week I chose one with similar name! I didn't realize that haha...

For my next read, I decided to pick up a light fun read... In fact it was so light that by the time I posted about it I'M ALREADY DONE READING IT! LOL Yup! I finished it in 2 nights.

I don't expect anything less from Sophie... she really writes funny, upbeat and light novels - based on the novels of hers I've read so far.

Week 19 - Cosmopolis

I loved loved loved! my previous read-a novel by John Green and is now in my list of favorite novels! (An Abundance of Katherines)

*****

The only reason why I'm interested to read this book is because it now has a movie adaptation starring Robert Pattinson... so sue me! haha

Cosmopolis

by Don DeLillo

Week 18 - An Abundance of Katherines

For my new book read this week, I chose one with my namesake because... it's pretty obvious it's all in the timing! (if you know what I mean haha)

An Abundance of Katherines

by John Green

so sue me if it's another easy-read young adult novel! haha

Week 17 - Looking for Alaska

As of this writing, I'm still not done with the other book I'm reading (On The Road) and it might really take time for me to finish that one so sue me! I really just had to pick up a new one!

*****

For some weird reason, I like reading young adult fiction nowadays, maybe because I'm getting older or something and just want to relive the past or my life is just turning a little bit mundane or boring or whatever the real reason is, I picked up this one based on a tumblr post I was going through when I was searching for book recommendations... or I'm just making up excuses hahaha

Looking for Alaska

by John Green

Week 14 - Eleven Minutes & The Lovely Bones

Since I overlapped and finished 2 books the last time - I was still reading Life of Pi when I started on the The Curious Incident... - and it's been almost a week since I started on a new book so now I'm overcompensating and reading 2 books at the same time! One is an ebook and the other is a paperback I borrowed.

*****

Eleven Minutes

by

Paulo Coelho

AND

The Lovely Bones

by

Alice Sebold

I started reading both books last night and it seems like they have certain things in common - both protagonists are female and they seemed to have been disillusioned in one way or another...Maria's motivation behind her "profession" is because of her bitterness against love and I particularly am drawn more to the character of Lindsey the sister of Susie (The Lovely Bones) because I seem to relate with her especially when it comes to expressing feelings or the lack of an appropriate outlet for them... well it's quite difficult to explain unless you really know me

It seems that I will enjoy reading both books... I just hope they won't end tragically since they both had a bad start already haha...

Week 12 - Life of Pi

Done reading The Graveyard Book over the weekend! Now that is a quick read and a light one and an easy read too! haha Unfortunately for me I read an ebook version so I didn't get to see the illustrations unlike my Coraline book... I might just buy the book when I find it on sale haha

*****

Let's try and differentiate...easy read from light read from quick read...My friend told me that there was a difference... light doesn't necessary mean quick read or a thin book...some thick books might be easy reads because they are page turners and you're done within a day...do you catch my drift? But honestly for me they're all the same anyway...when I say easy read or a light read or a quick read...they may pertain to and the same kind of books...

But maybe after I re-start reading Life of Pi... I may finally be able to learn that this is no easy read for me - it took me this long before I decided to start reading it all over again (this has been a "current read" in my goodreads.com account for months haha)!

Life of Pi

by

Yann Martel

Week 10 - By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept

Since my last book, All The Pretty Horses, made me break my challenge - I finished reading that just last Sunday because I was either too busy and wasn't too engrossed in it - I thought of choosing a "lighter" book to read (that makes me rethink including the Millenium trilogy in my book challenge now that is a long read for sure!)

*****

I'm choosing a lighter read for my next book and I do hope I stick to this...

and don't be too surprised but I really haven't read this one

by Paulo Coelho

By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept

Week 9 - All The Pretty Horses

I finished the Percy Jackson series way before my deadline - the series is OK if you're the type who wants to discover and memorize lots of character names and in this case Greek names and Greek stories like you're reliving your high school days and taking a quiz after reading it - I just stuck to my timetable and am now starting a new book this week...

*****

Remember the pile of books I borrowed from a cousin in the province, which were apparently old books shipped by my dad to them?... Well my next book is one of those books...and after googling it...I of course did not know that there already was a movie made based on it - starring Matt Damon and Penelope' Cruz (I might just find that movie some time). Let's see now how much I would like reading a "western" story...

All The Pretty Horses

by

Cormac McCarthy

Weeks 5, 6, 7 & 8 - Percy Jackson

I finished reading Speak yesterday and it made me thankful that my high school was quite normal, uneventful and boring but still had its moments... Thank goodness the book had its resolution because I thought the villain won't get his comeuppance!

*****

Since it's the Christmas season, school's out so that means I have a short 2 week vacation of sorts till next year and to kill some time - in between checking journals of my students - I thought of reading children's books for my book challenge - well maybe a little bit "young adult" to be more precise...

I'll continue reading the

Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Well I have a month to finish the series, so I'd get back next year!

Week 4 - Speak

I finished reading The Reader way ahead of my limit of 7 days! I think this is the 1st time I liked the movie better than the book... Well that's me...

*****

A few weeks back we visited our relatives in San Pablo, Laguna and I noticed in my cousin's room that there were books littering her cabinet... I investigated and asked who owns them and can I borrow a few... Of course I was thinking of options for my book challenge what else?!

And when I saw this book... This really struck me as familiar... right then and there I went online and checked whether this book SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson is the same movie of Kristen Stewart a few years back.. What I had on hand was this one and not the movie-tie-in book cover then I would have immediately have my answer yeah?

So even if it took me some time to decide what my next book would be - I've been toying with the idea of finally reading Dante's Inferno! I've been borrowing it from our school library and still haven't continued reading it! So I'll forfeit that! haha if I change my mind I have it on ebook anyway and can read it thru Stanza in my iTouch - and I thought why not read this story about a high school student who chose to be mum for her own reasons and defense mechanism...

Let's see how this book will change my impression of American high school students...

Week 3 - The Reader

Just so you know... I was done reading Her Fearful Symmetry last Wednesday (oops, 1 day more than my limit) and it was quite a weird interesting story... that's all I can say... for sure I liked her debut novel way better than this one.

I was planning on reading a classic novel and started with a few pages... though I'm not sure whether I'll continue on with that or just return it to our school library...

I was also caught up uploading and syncing files in my new toy which I really plan to use mainly as an ebook reader...

and so....

I decided to start reading

THE READER

by Bernhard Schlink

on the iBook in my iTouch...

GAH! GOOD LUCK with that!

I hope my eyes can survive this! haha

Oh and you may find that I started late with my new week in my book challenge...

as I said I was sort of preoccupied with stuff...so I'll just limit myself to reading a new book within a week!

So still it's a 52 week book challenge! haha

Excuses excuses huh...

Spur of the moment adventure to a book fair

I was really planning to go to this year's Manila International Book Fair @ the SMX, Mall of Asia

over the weekend with my sis and cousin - but instead I headed off to the book fair right after work Friday, after I discovered that my officemates were heading there too with their family! Hitch a free ride too why not?! haha Had to take advantage of the group pass we got from our school library anyway so we went...

We had few hours till closing time and were able to buy a few books...

but personally I only had one book in mind - the paperback version of One Day by David Nicholls... And after quickly running down a few aisles, I went back to the National Bookstore and spent most of my time there... I can't find the book and I just had to ask the cashier - bummer! No One Day! Grrrrr! In between fuming over that miss, I bumped into Romaiel of Twilight Coven Philippines and chatted up a bit about The Hunger Games and Mockingjay, I still was eager to buy at least one book from the booth...and so I ended up buying this!

I have his complete books I believe and this one is Mitch Albom's latest

It's so cool and tiny it could really fit inside my bag!
I still had time to spare and saw this booth with a crowd milling around it. Their books and items were being sold at P99! So why not? I might just buy something from there...And I did!

Doesn't seem like me huh? haha

and No! it's not buy one take one either but P99 each!
On to the booth across this one, which also sells books at P99 and some cute colorful journals... My eye was caught by this colorful candy colored book


I don't care that it's for teens! I just bought this one because it's GREEN!(Hey that rhymes! haha)
To know more about the author Melody Carlson and her True Color seriesgo to my related blogpost here
After meeting up with my officemates and hearing the announcement that the exhibit will be closing already for the night, we headed out and looked for some place else to eat.We crossed to MOA, which had lots of people - expected of course since it was on a 3-day weekend sale... And I saw that Fullybooked was having a sale of their own too!I really had to take the chance and look for One Day...
and my search was over!

I don't care even if I bought the more expensive paperback version! haha

Wow! I wonder when I'll get to finish reading all of these new books of mine (incidentally I'm still not done reading Eat, Pray,Love and the movie will be showing soon! Gah!) Oh well! There's no time limit...It's no contest anyway... What's nice about having books on hand is that you can always go back to them whenever the mood strikes you... So yeah I expect to be busy reading these books (it's better than watching TV which I seldom do anyway haha)
Till the next book fair!


To see more photos click here