Ruby Loves Adventure

The Book Bloggers - Photo from Chachic

Okay, I know I said I'm slowing down on blogging a few posts back but I found myself with some extra time this weekend so here I am trying to schedule some posts in hope that you guys won't get bored of me not posting anything ^_^

So, last Saturday, Mar 12th, I went to the Filipino Book Blogger meetup at Libreria. I was actually late for around 45 minutes because I was distracted at National Bookstore Cubao, looking for some excellent finds, but walked away with nothing. Booo. I was actually looking for some travel books but they were too expensive for me at the moment.

Anyway, back to the book blogger meetup. It was actually very informal, and we introduced ourselves and our blog. :) There was also a special guest: Mina V Esguerra, author of Fairy Tale Fail and My Imaginary Ex [among others]. Whee. I actually didn't know she was coming, had I known, I would have scoured the local bookstores for a copy of My Imaginary Ex. [although I think it is very very hard to find now].

We munched some popcorn: Cheddar vs Parmesan flavoured popcorn. What is the difference? Hmm.. Love the cheese though. Thanks for the popcorn, Chachic! Thanks for the donuts Celina :) 

So, some topics we discussed - the 24 hour readathon, and how the PH should have a browse-a-thon where people would read as much as they can for an hour, pass an exam, and the winner would get a copy of the book, the losers would pay for the book. Ha. Ha. Fun, given that Filipinos are known book browsers.

Book Piracy - on how photocopying reading materials for school [*gasp* I didn't know it was illegal! I was photocopying my reading notes throughout my university days!] and how it affects sales of authors. Mina was quick to note that if you get pirated, that means you're a best seller, and most people who download stuff for free has the intention of buying a copy eventually [which I guess, is true]

We also had this mini-debate about the Kinsella and Riordan books. Ha ha. Turns out most people didn't love the books that I soo adored. Oh well, everyone has their tastes :) I guess I'm more mainstream and how I rate the books is depending on my emotional connection to what the characters are feeling and/or how the book was written.

There was also one particular discussion that made me laugh out loud: how there was a blogger who "spies" on what the people are reading in a train station somewhere in America, and how the ereader makes it harder for her to check on the titles that people read. [Which, as we all pointed out, would be easier for those who love reading romance novels, and coincidentally, also lead to how romance novels are a girl's guilty pleasure - and the pages that are the most marked/well-read/dog eared in a romance novel are the steamy parts ;)]
Okay, that was some mighty rambling going on.

I also loved how book hoarding was discussed. And which I could so relate. It's like a shopaholic series, although instead of clothes, we all buy books, and we always buy them even if we have multiple books waiting to be read [hey, we will try to read all the books in our pile... eventually].

We also had a book swap - I got Garden Spells and The Guernsey Library and Potato Peel Society :) It was so much fun, also got some books from Aldrin. Thank you :) They are all featured in my In My Mailbox post for this week.

Note to self - I definitely should have some business cards printed. :)


Oh, for other accounts on the meetup, you can visit these:
Chachic