Filipino Friday: Surprise, Reader!

This is already a tradition. If there's a Filipino ReaderCon, expect a Filipino Friday a month before the conference begins.

Surprise, Reader! Hello, it’s the first week of Filipino Fridays 2014! Whether it’s your first time to participate or not, tell us a bit about yourself. More specifically, tell us about your favorite book discoveries for this year. Any author you have started reading this year that you can’t get enough of? A book you didn’t think you’d like, but you ended up liking/loving? Any book series that you just have to get your hands on? Have you discovered anything new from Filipino authors this year?

 So, here goes.

My 2014 reading year can be described in one word: ROMANCE. Thanks to Tarie Sabido for introducing me to Rainbow Rowell. After reading Eleanor and Park, I read Fangirl, Attachments and Landline.

Another joyful reading discovery is Sophie Divry's The Library of Unrequited Love. The librarian narrator is sarcastic, snotty and very French. I read a book by a Malaysian author this year as well. Tan Kwan Eng's The Garden of Evening Mist is sentimental but honest. I love the language and the dreamy narration of the main character. When it comes to the brutal parts (setting is World War 2 in the Asia Pacific), the author's elegant handling of language cushioned me to safer landings. Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking is a memoir I thought I wouldn't like. But her way of making meaning about death afforded me a mirroring of my own relationship with my husband and my perception of life in general. It is one of those books that will grow on you as you read along.

This year I got hooked on reading more ebooks too. I have a slew of erotic romance novels saved in my Kindle reader. Cora Seton, JA Huss and Melanie Shawn are but a few of my favorite reads. As for Filipiniana titles, I loved Shine by Candy Gourlay; thrilled over Edgar Samar's Janus Silang although I stopped somewhere in chapter 4 to give in to my kids' demands that they read it first; and right now, I am falling in love with Nick Joaquin all over again. Gotita De Dragon, an anthology of his short stories, is my kind of magic realism.

Until next Filipino Friday!