Coraline by Neil Gaiman with Illustrations by Dave McKean

When you were a child, did you ever wonder if there is someone out there like you? With the same parents as yours, same house you have, same life you’re living in some parallel universe? In this book, Coraline finds herself in such a situation the moment she opened a magical door that led her to another house strangely similar to hers, with parents strangely similar as hers  who wouldn’t want to let her go. She knows though that they’re different, that the house is different, that everything is different. And she will do everything in her power to go back to her ordinary life and cherish it like she never really did before.

Mirror Mask by Neil Gaiman with Illustrations by Dave McKean

I have actually read and seen both the book and the movie. I was so gripped with the whole plot and the artistic production and illustration of the book( & animation of the movie)   that I literally glued my eyes to pages until I finished the book (& the film).

The Undead Series Books 3, 4 & 5

This is the third, fourth and fifth book of the Undead Series by Mary Janice Davidson. I've already shared with you the first two, Undead and Unemployed & Undead and Unwed, a while back and I keep coming back for more. I collect her works since they're just so surreal and hilarious. Although sometimes, it makes me think that perhaps, there  really are undead people out there living for centuries amongst us. Creepy, huh?

  Undead and Unappreciated

Anyway, in the Undead and Unappreciated, Betsy Taylor has realized that being a vampire queen does not only entail having perks but problems as well. Like Ben Parker said: " With great power comes great responsibility...".  Like, having a half sister who is the daughter of the devil and is destined to rule the world. Goodness! So much for great responsibility huh? Let's see how that works out for her.

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

To give you a brief background, it actually summarizes all the teachings I have learned from Stephen Covey (8^th Habit), Andrew Matthews (Being Happy), Chin Ning Chu (Thick Face, Black Heart), Paolo Coelho (The Alchemist) and the Holy Bible and all those other self-help books I’ve read at one point or another. Simply put:

The Peter Principle by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull

The Peter Principle is one of the oldest books we have on our bookshelf. It was published last 1978 and Peter and I can't remember exactly if the copy we have brought to our home is mine or his since both his folks and my grandpa owned one when we were little. The pages are brittle and brown with age but the words of wisdom inside transcend time and space. After all, it discusses PRINCIPLES. From the moment I read its reviews, I got so  hooked that in a matter of 24 hours, I was able to finish it in between work, commute and errands. As compared to Stephen Covey's 8th Habit which is taking me forever to finish, Dr. Peter's style of writing is direct, factual, and straight to the point. I can actually relate (both directly and indirectly) with everything that he's written.  Here are a couple of lines that struck me the most: 

Batman Year One by Frank Miller & David Mazzuchelli

Yeah, I know I said I was going to read Civil War. I started it some time ago but when I saw Batman lying around the living room, I picked it up and began reading the story of Batman's origins. 

This comic book was written using two perspectives --- that of Bruce Wayne from the time his parents were killed at the age of six to the time he returned to Gotham City at a ripe age of twenty-five, after patiently readying himself to fight crimes in their God-forsaken city. Then there's that of Lieutenant James Gordon, a police officer under the tutelage of the city's Police Commissioner, who somehow found his way to become Batman's new friend towards the end.

The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella

How I wish I could be someone like Samantha Sweeting (maybe in a parallel universe). You see, at twenty-nine, she has a very high-powered career as a top lawyer in London. She has no social life whatsoever; her mom and brother don't even bother to show up on her birthday, thus no home life to speak of; and all she cares about really is to get ahead and become a partner at their firm. 

All this pressure and adrenaline rush finally came to crash down upon her when she made one little mistake that costs the company millions of pounds. Shattered, devastated and in shambles, she boarded a train and found herself lost in a small suburb in London where she was mistaken to be an applicant for a a housekeeper. Imagine?! 

Hope for the Flowers

  

Hi guys! We just got back from  San Juan Surf Resort in La union where we surfed the entire weekend... I just wanted to share with you this wonderful short story I read...

I read this book way back in 2002 when I was a Quality Monitoring Specialist at Etelecare. It was my QM TL at that time who lent me her book which I thoroughly enjoyed. Years passed and I saw this book again on one of the shelves of Powerbooks (early 2006). Without much deliberation, I decided to get a copy of my own for posterity’s sake. It took me more than a year before I opened it and read it again. 

The First Assistant by Clare Naylor and Mimi Hare

The First Assistant is one of those books I bought at TRINOMA back in June. It's just now that I finished reading it, thanks to the horrendous traffic earlier at SLEX. The Human Walrus blogged about it and I truly share his sentiments. The novel was a fun read for me. I actually thought of acquiring such a job in Hollywood too (Not here in the Philippines, please! Even if it meant hobnobbing with our local celebs who, in my opinion, are a bunch of snotty pricks in real life...ok, most of them, that is.), in between pages of the main character's whirlwind of a so-called pathetically blessed life. 

Like The Flowing River by Paolo Coelho Part I

Hi guys! I'm still quite exhausted from the house transfer, unpacking of our stuff and voluminous paper work and quizzes I have to contend with in MDP but I couldn't resist blogging. This post has been in draft mode for almost a month already so it's easy for me to publish it. I'm sort of "stealing" our neighbor's wifi so I still can't fully blog. Peter still hasn't applied for smartbro... hopefully, tomorrow he'll be able to take care of it. So for now, enjoy the first part of my bookworm regarding one of the works of one of my fave authors...

~~~oOo~~~ 

Read more: Like the Flowing River by Paolo Coelho

KINGDOM COME by Mark Waid & Alex Ross

I finished reading KINGDOM COME, a comic book by DC, about the catastrophic battle between all superheroes of the DC world (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Original Red Tornado, Lady Marvel, King Marvel, Aleea Strange, Midnight, The Whiz, Captain Comet, Bullet Man II, Brainiac's Daughter, Bullet Girl II, Power Woman, Aqua Man, The Flash, etc...). It's the greatest Super Hero Epic of tomorrow! As such, it is set in the future, when Superman is around 50 yrs old or so, having retired from his superhero duties due to him losing his faith in humanity. After he caught the Joker, the Joker who was killed by Magog, a younger more extreme metahuman. Superman couldn't accept the fact that since then, people chose Magog over him, the man who can kill over the man who can't. Magog was considered to be the man of tomorrow and not him. And this was where the plot evolved. 

Candace Bushnell’s TRADING UP & LIPSTICK JUNGLE

“Modern-day heroine Janey Wilcox is a lingerie model whose often exceeds her grasp, and whose new-found success has gone to her head. As we follow Janey’s adventures, Bushnell draws us into a seemingly glamorous world of $100,000 cars, hunky polo players and media moguls, Fifth Avenue apartments, and relationships whose hidden agendas are detectable only by the socially astute. But just as Janey enters this world of too much money and too few morals, unseen forces conspire to bring her down, forcing her to reconsider love and friendship --- and how far she’s really willing to go for her deams.”

The World's Greatest Alien Encounters

I was in Grade Four at St. Scholastica’s Marikina when I began my interest in alien conspiracies, abductions, pyramids and all those weird stuff. So when I saw a three-part book about these things, I immediately bought them, one of which is a book about alien encounters.

 

It’s basically about people all over the world who have seen unidentified flying objects in the sky, people who claimed to have encountered alien life forms and beliefs that have been formed because of these things since the beginning of the flying saucer age in 1947. We somehow have a vague knowledge of such things in one way or another. But what struck me the most while reading this book was that amidst all the sightings and encounters is ONE SOLID MESSAGE from our alien brothers --- that if we continue the way we’re taking care of our planet, we’ll all soon perish. Freaky, isn’t it? 

Can You Keep A Secret? By Sophie Kinsella

We all have secrets, right? Those deep, dark secrets that we don't dare tell anyone, not even our bestfriend, probably not even our husband or wife! We even try to ignore them sometimes, pretending that we're really not that deranged or crazy for thinking and believing such incredibly awful things!  Like maybe hating a certain person at work, being  sizes bigger than you actually proclaim,  losing your virginity somewhere so inappropriate, etc... So imagine, Emma Corrigan (the novel's main character), during a very turbulent flight,  telling a complete stranger about her personal classified information and soon discovered that this very person turned out to be not only her boss but the owner of the company she's working for?! Pretty soon, all these secrets she divulged are being used against her! Oh my effing God!!! I would've resigned then died if that happened to me!  But Emma handled it way better. There are other amusing subplots as Emma tried to overcome all these things and learned about love along the way. It's so simple yet very catchy. Once you start it, you will not want to put it down. It's such a fun read for me, so perfect for any season. Buy your copy now!