Friday, May 18, 2007

litpicker

(or in the slumbook cliche: what are you reading right now?)

i know the idea is plagiarized from dean alfar's blog, as i'll be chronicling recent reads regularly. it'll be a series-sort-of, though it would definitely depend on how fast i finish them. anyway, books are part of my entirety, or collectively, the whole of the pingol household. yep, brianne managed to inherit my love of books and albeit she still possesses a bit of difficulty in the level of reading she is now in, it is clearly evident how books are beginning to shape her development.

my past trawls on bookshops and online merchants brought me a number:

Foucault's Pendulum Umberto Eco
Battle Royale Koushun Takami
Dark Water Koji Suzuki
The Battle Alessandro Barbero

some i bought from Amazon (one of the largest online bookseller, i'd say), and some during our occasional excursions to the nearest Barnes and Noble or Borders (which, i confess, is a far cry from bookstores in Manila- - -except for Powerbooks maybe, and that somehow remains as the ideal source of literature as far as pricetags are concerned). the noticeable lowdown in bookshops here is the inclusion of sales taxes which if you are the ultimate peso-pincher (those who never fail to impress me with their accurate knowledge of the current foreign exchange rate and the conversions they ultimately perform), you'd still conclude that Socorro Ramos did an impressive haggling.

i am a bargain person. but i am extremely meticulous when it comes to books. i'm willing to shell out a premium for a good condition (if defined as crease-free spines and non-yellowed pages, of course), primarily for the reason that i don't kink-wrap them. i honestly admit that i lack the basic mastery of covering in plastic, hence it is imperative for me that the (used) books i buy should be very well taken cared of.

Labels: books