In My Mailbox (6)

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Hi. My wallet is currently mad at me right now. I had to hide it away because it’s about to scream obscenities at me for…well, spending so much. I can feel it grumbling at me at the middle of the week, but as of today, it’s positively seething.

But, but, I have a very good justification why I spent so much this week. One thing is the Cebu vacation…and another…well, are books. :P It didn’t spend as much as if I buy a Branson Missouri vacation, anyway. That is a perfectly justifiable expense even if I know I have about what, 70 books that I have yet to read.

Yeah, yeah, like that means something.

So yeah, I’m doing an In My Mailbox post this week because I find that I have a pretty huge stash of books this week! Well, including Friday last week, since I kind of count that purchase as part of the weekend purchase, and it feels like I just bought it this week. In My Mailbox is a weekly book meme hosted by Kristi from The Story Siren, where bloggers post about what books received that week, be it via  mailbox, library or store.

And here we go. *throws wallet under the bag and ignores it angry screams*

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Sort of Reading Vacation

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Sorry for the lack of posts in the past days, I was on vacation. Last Friday, I flew to Cebu with some friends for a much-needed R&R. It was my third time to go there, but the second time I actually went around the city, and my first time to be the navigator. Challenging, but very fun.

I’ll be posting the details of my vacation on my personal blog, but I have to post the bookish part of my vacation here, of course. Ever since I keep on accumulating books in my TBR and I realize that I don’t have enough time to read them all, I’ve been wishing for a reading vacation. It’s kind of like a stay-cation (you know, a vacation somewhere out of town where you stay in and do nothing) but instead of just staying in, I read.

Preferably by the beach. With music. And good food. And lots of books, of course.

Ahhhh.

But I can only wish for that now, since I’ve been very busy lately, and I can’t afford an actual reading vacation.

Nevertheless, we didn’t let the sightseeing and all the food in Cebu to stop us from doing all bookish stuff. On our last day in the City, my friends and I trekked rode a cab to Ayala Center Cebu to eat the famous Cebu lechon and to go “home”. By home, we mean:

Fully Booked Cebu!

Of course we can’t miss visiting this! :) And it was a doubly special visit because we just had awesome gelato at Gelatissimo before going here. :P

Fully Booked in Cebu is just as neat as the other Fully Booked branches, but it was also cooler in some sense. Maybe it’s because it’s Fully Booked in another city, or maybe it’s really just because they seemed to have a lot more books than what I usually see in other branches. I mean, new books, sort of hard to find books and all that. Plus the place is small, but still so cozy and homey, it really feels like home. :)

I went home with the following:

Cebu Stash

  1. The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
  2. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (I’ll post about #SpeakLoudly soon enough)
  3. Z by Michael Thomas Ford (zombies :D)

I wanted to get The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty, but alas, budget doesn’t permit. I can get that delivered anyway.

It’s fun visiting another branch that I know I won’t be able to visit a lot. Plus, who says vacation stops me from getting books? :) No one, right?

I didn’t read the entire time I was in Cebu, of course, but I did manage to catch up on my reading while waiting for the plane to Manila to arrive. And this may be my first (?) picture taken while I was reading a book. Lame, I know.

That’s The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness that I finished earlier. Still reeling from it, but I have more reviews to write for now.

So what did you do during the weekend? :)

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In My Mailbox (5)

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Oh hi. This isn’t a review, for a change, because I realized I posted so many reviews this week. Eep! Not that it’s bad, but I’m just not used to it.

This week’s In My Mailbox is supposed to be last week’s post, but our wireless was acting up. I found out last night that our four-year-old wireless router died, so I had to get a new one today. I can’t tell you how relieved I am that we have stable connection again! (Yes, that’s the Internet addict in me speaking)

Anyway, let’s just pretend the things I’ll post this week wasn’t for last week. ;) In My Mailbox is a weekly book meme hosted by Kristi from The Story Siren, where bloggers post about what books received that week, be it via  mailbox, library or store.

I went book-crazy last week because it was sale, and it was payday. Last Saturday, Grace, Jana and I went bookstore hopping to take advantage of the book sales. We started at Fully Booked Greenbelt, Powerbooks Greenbelt, then at Powerbooks Shang, National Bookstore Shang, Fully Booked Gateway and finally, National Bookstore Cubao a.k.a. The Mother Ship. :) We went home tired but very, very happy with our purchases. :)

Yay!

Yay!

From top to bottom:

  1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson
    I figure I’d need a break from YA every now and then, and I’ve heard good reviews of this one. Let’s see if I’d think the same thing.
  2. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
    Finally! I have been looking for the paperback version of this since I saw good reviews of the series, and Chachic loved it so much. I can’t wait to start reading this. :)
  3. Dark Blue by Melody Carlson
    I’ve been looking at this book since I saw them in OMF (or was it the book fair?), but I never had the motivation to get it. Finally grabbed a copy from National after seeing it was less than P200.
  4. King Dork by Frank Portman
    Impulse buy! I saw some good reviews of the book from my friends in Goodreads, but there were also some bad reviews. I didn’t finish The Catcher in the Rye, so I am kind of wary of this impulse buy. Here’s to thinking positively. :P
  5. You Wish by Mandy Hubbard
    I WoW-ed this book a couple of months back, and thanks to Grace for pointing this out to me! :) Don’t you just love that pink cover?
  6. Spilling Ink by Ellen Potter, Anne Mazer and Matt Phelan
    Saw this, and I just had to have to have it. Writing books are always in my list, even if sometimes I don’t finish them. ^^
  7. Happyface by Stephen Emond
    When I saw this curious book with a smiley face in Fully Booked, I was surprised to see that it was filled with drawings inside. Happyface is a journal of a boy nicknamed Happyface, about how he always seems happy but really he’s not. I’m reading this now and I am loving it. :)
  8. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
    The Book Smugglers have a good review for this, but I wasn’t about to pick it up until I saw the hardcover version in National for less than P350. I just had to get it, even if I’m not fond of hardbound books. The paperback costs P399! This is a bargain, as far as I’m concerned.

Not in picture: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Picked it up as a favor for Ariel, who can’t seem to find a copy of this book. There were piles of this in Powerbooks Greenbelt and Shang.

This is probably the biggest weekend stash I have ever had, and my wallet wasn’t really complaining. Probably because it was payday? I am not so sure. But I’m okay with this stash — I mean it’s probably not as expensive as say, getting Outer banks short sales (which isn’t that expensive, either, I’m pretty sure).

But it’s not over! :) Guess what else arrived last week!

It's in a pink case, definitely.

Tadaaaa!

Paper-like screen

Eeeee ♥

Yes, I have a Kindle! I gave in and ordered, and my mom brought it home last week. Funny thing, though, was I ordered this one two days before Amazon announced they were releasing new Kindles. T_T But so far, I’m pretty satisfied with this one! I don’t really need the Wifi (although it would be more convenient), and 3G signal works pretty well when I’m at work. Reading on it is awesome, though. The screen really doesn’t strain the eye.

I’ll post a review of the Kindle soon, after I’ve read a couple more books on them. But I can say now that it’s a very good investment.

Oh, and her name is Astrid. :)

Now that’s a long In My Mailbox post! How about you, what’s in your mailbox? :)

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