Mish-mash: ReaderCon FF4 + RR November 2013

I’m just a tad late for this weekly and monthly post. I’m going to combine this post because I might forget one or the other, plus I think I made a way to connect these two topics. Let’s see if I can get away with it.

So a Filipino Friday on a Saturday! :D

readercon2013-ff

This is Still Reading, Right? Do you read (or have at least tried to read) books in other formats aside from print? How was your experience with these different book formats?

I have answered this several times, but let me talk about how things have changed now. Ever since I got Hannah the Kindle Paperwhite, I’ve been using it more often than I actually read print books. I realized that in the past three months, I’ve read the assigned book club book in my Kindle. Most of the books I finished recently were all in ebook form, which goes to show how much I’m enjoying using the Paperwhite. I mean, I used Astrid the Kindle a lot, but after some time I stopped using it because…I’m not really sure why. I have a feeling it’s the front light feature of the Paperwhite that hooked me in — it’s just so useful.

Plus, I seem to read ebooks faster than I read print books.

And then I looked at my actual print book TBR, and I feel a little bad, because I’m not making a dent at it at all. Not that I’m still pressured to get rid of all the books in my Mt. TBR. It’s just that I was starting to miss the feel of print books. And dog-earing actual pages.

So that is why for my November Required Reading, I have decided to go for print books. :)

Required Reading: November

Just two books! Two print books! :D

November 2013

  • The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater – I had this in my November 2012 reading list because it had November written all over it (I mean, the story was set in November) but I got hit by the slow reading bug that month so I never even touched it. This time, I’m going to try to really read it. (I started already, fyi.)
  • The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster – Our book club’s book of the month. I love anything New York, so I’m quite excited to read this. Plus I heard good things about this. Lady Liberty approves. :D

Of course I will probably read something from my Kindle again, but that’s already a given. I’m going to try to read more print books at the last two months of the year, just so I can dog-ear properly.

Back to formats: other than ebooks, I have listened to a few audiobooks. I just get distracted too fast so I don’t always listen to them. I find that enjoy audiobooks more when it’s a “reread”, and it’s a book I loved — case in point: Jellicoe Road. Even the audiobook broke my heart. And I can’t dog-ear with audiobooks! (Yes, that’s really important. :P)

It is exactly one week till the ReaderCon! It’s going to be a busy week, but I am so, so, so excited for November 9! I hope you are too! The 3rd Filipino ReaderCon: What Do Readers Want? will be on November 9, 2013, 8:00am to 6:00pm at the Rizal Library – Ateneo de Manila University. This event is held in partnership with Rizal Library and National Book Development Board (NBDB), and sponsored by Buqo, Fully Booked, Adarna House, Scholastic, Flipreads, OMF Literature, Hachette, Simon & Schuster and Island Merchants Corporation, with media partner When In Manila. I’ll see you, yes? Say hi! :)

 

Required Reading: November

Where did October go? I seriously do not know. I knew it was just crazy (but good!), and now it is November and I am still going crazy. I had planned to blog several times here, really, but gah, all I want to do when I go home after work is sleep. Sleep. Sleep. And I think I will still be busy until 2012 ends. :( I feel like I’m going to crash at any time and like I would need a Nolan N90 helmet to stop me from getting too burned out. Gah.

But I will still try to read, I promise. I always do. I think it’s one of the things that keep me sane. :o

I realized that I didn’t have a Required Reading post last November because I was too busy with NaNoWriMo. I almost didn’t want to have a post for this year because I am still busy, but I realized — what the heck. It’s not like there are brand new books on my list anyway. And nothing’s stopping me from trying, right?

But first, October!

  • The Viewless Dark by Eliza Victoria (4/5) – Totally creeped me out. I liked it! I have a bunch of Eliza’s book pending for review. One day I will write about all of them!

I’m still in the middle of The Historian and Isle of Blood, and honestly I don’t know when I will be able to read them, but I am easing pressure on myself. Because it’s never fun to be pressured, yes?

Required Reading: November

On to this crazy, crazy month!

November Books

  • The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova — still ongoing, and I’m halfway through! :) I can definitely finish this before the discussion.
  • The Complete Adventures of Charlie and Mr. Willy Wonka by Roald Dahl – this is for our December discussion, and I kind of want to get tot his earlier than usual so I won’t cram. We will be discussing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , but since I saw this book has both Charlie stories in, I decided to get this one instead. This should be an easy read, right?
  • The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater – only because November plays a big part in this novel. I have no idea if I will be able to crack into this, though.

Here’s to trying this November. It will be crazy, but I will definitely try. :)

Shiver

Shiver by Maggie StiefvaterShiver by Maggie Stiefvater
The Wolves of Mercy Falls # 1
Publisher: Scholastic
Number of pages: 390
My copy: paperback, review copy from Scholastic

the cold.
Grace has spent years watching the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—watches back. He feels deeply familiar to her, but she doesn’t know why.

the heat.
Sam has lived two lives. As a wolf, he keeps the silent company of the girl he loves. And then, for a short time each year, he is human, never daring to talk to Grace…until now.

the shiver.
For Grace and Sam, love has always been kept at a distance. But once it’s spoken, it cannot be denied. Sam must fight to stay human—and Grace must fight to keep him—even if it means taking on the scars of the past, the fragility of the present, and the impossibility of the future.

* * *

I decided to finally pick Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater from my TBR pile because of recommendations of some book bloggers who said that this book is a good Christmas winter read. Fine, winter isn’t really a thing here in the Philippines, but it’s been strangely hot lately when the weather is supposed to be cool, and I wanted something that would make me feel a little bit cooler, even if it is just fiction.

When Grace was 11 years old, she was one of the victims of a wolf attack. How she survived was one thing, and this should have made her wary of the wolves that lived by the woods in their back yard, but instead this has pushed her into an obsession. She can’t stop thinking about the yellow-eyed wolf, the wolf that “saved” her. Sam lives two lives, but he’s never stopped observing Grace, the girl he loves. He never talked to her, until one shooting accident somehow changes him back to human and Grace had to save her. Now that they have talked, and spent some time together, they cannot deny the attraction. But Sam feels that this may be his last time being human, and he and Grace have to fight for their love even if it meant opening up ghosts of their past and dealing with the things that threaten to tear them apart in the present.

I was surprised with Shiver. I don’t read a lot of paranormal romance books anymore, much less books about werewolves. I could read about vampires and angels but werewolves aren’t my thing — the last time I read an exclusively werewolf book was in 2010, and I didn’t really like it.  I thought Shiver would be sort of like mindless reading that isn’t really fluff and I felt that I needed that during the holidays. However…I was pretty surprised at how much I ended up liking it. This is my first Stiefvater book, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. My friends have said that she has this way of writing that’s very atmospheric, and they were right. There is an ease in her words that make it so easy to sink into, making it easy to accept the world of Mercy Falls and mingle with the different characters. Shiver‘s prose is both sad and lyrical, which makes some room for some very nice quotable parts. For example, I thought this description of the insides of the bookstore they went to was lovely:

As the hours crept by, the afternoon sunlight bleached all the books on the shelves to pale, gilded versions of themselves and warmed the paper and ink inside the covers so that the smell of unread words hung in the air.

The romance factor was pretty sweet and a lot intense, and I’m not sure if I should classify this as instalove. It seems like it, but also it doesn’t feel like it is, if that makes sense. I liked how it unfolded though, with all the shivering romantic tension and kisses and moments spent together. Of course I’m not particularly fond of how they were always left alone, although I liked how they noticed the absence of Grace’s parents in the narrative, even if I wished there was some change to that in the end. The he said/she said form was a good move IMHO, and I really liked reading about Sam’s struggle between his wolf and human self.

There’s an overall sad tone in the book that makes it not really fit for Christmas. It was kind of a slow read, too. Part of it was my savoring of the words, but the other part just kind of made me wonder where the story was going, because there’s no real sense of immediate danger for Sam and Grace, just the sense of an ending for what they just started having. I almost gave up on it somewhere when I was 2/3 in, but I’m glad I didn’t because I really liked how it ended. I’d like to think of my own possibilities at where their story is going after the last page. But since I have a copy of Linger on my TBR, I may as well read it sometime. But if you ask me, I thought the ending was really enough.

So yeah, I was pleasantly surprised with Shiver. I liked it. I’m going to let Linger …well, linger on my shelf a little longer, and I will also try to acquire a copy of The Scorpio Races since all my blogger friends have raved about it. But one thing is for sure: this won’t be my last Stiefvater book. :)

Rating: [rating=3]

Other reviews:
Chachic’s Book Nook
Good Books and Good Wine
Book Harbinger
The Book Smugglers
Angieville

In My Mailbox (16): Free and Awesome Stuff

 

I got a bunch of books a few weeks ago, but I was too lazy to make an IMM post. I was at home, but I was just plain lazy — sorry about that. :) I got some pretty awesome stuff the past weeks, some of them free, so I figure it’s time to write one. But better late than never, right? :)

Bought:

 

  1. Deadline by Mira Grant (Fully Booked) – I also got the Kindle copy of this one first, but I can’t pass the print one up of course. Like my print copy of Feed, this is mainly for borrowing. :D
  2. The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan (Book Depository) – I ordered this about three weeks ago as a reward for finishing an article. It took a while to get here, and I dropped everything else to read this when I received it. Talk about excited. :) I have a line of people waiting to borrow this already.
  3. Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews (Fully Booked) – I got this at the same time as Deadline but I only got to read it during the rainy weekend. So much Kate + Curran goodness! :)

Won:

  • Audiobook of Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson (won from Helen’s Book Blog) – this is my first audio book ever, which I won during the Twitter party during Armchair BEA. Thankyou so much, Helen! :)

For review:

Last Friday, Blooey invited some local book bloggers for a dinner with some people from Scholastic. It was such a fun night eating and talking about books and blogs and travel and everything else in between. :) It was also the first time I had dinner with publishers and received books for review too! Yay free books (almost as exciting as cool grad gifts). :D

Scholastic Books

  1. Shiver and Linger by Maggie Stiefvater – now I’m not a paranormal romance person anymore and truth be told, I have no plans of reading these books. But Chachic and Tarie told me it’s good, so I’m hoping I will like it well enough too. :)
  2. The Cry of the Icemark, Blade of Fire and Last Battle of the Icemark by Stuart Hill – I have no idea what this is about, except that Blooey blogged about it recently. I’m glad they gave us the entire set, though, because at least I won’t have to scramble for the copies. :)

The fun thing is, not all book packages were the same. While I think all of us got all the Icemark books, everyone else got different stuff, depending on what we’ve read. Case in point: Chachic and Tarie got Linger because they’ve already read Shiver, while Aaron didn’t get any of Stiefvater’s books because they’re not his type. Thanks again to Blooey for inviting us and to Joyce and Roselle from Scholastic for the dinner and the books. :)

Photo c/o Tarie

And that’s all for the past weeks’ haul. I have another book buying fast happening now to prepare myself for my big trip this August, so no additions to my TBR unless they’re gifts. Not to worry, anyway since I still have a very big reading mountain to conquer. :D I’ll be back tomorrow for my mid-year recap, so for the meantime, do share in the comment section what you got this week. :)