Day 2 @ MIBF: First Impressions

Second day at the Manila International Book Fair!

Other than the sheer number of books and of book-loving people (and Read or Die flyers handed to the attendees, it’s an art form I tell you), there was also a lot of activities simultaneously happening at the book fair that it’s hard to pick and observe one event at a time.

My own first day at my first MIBF started at the Vibal booth which had the exhibit and demo for WikiPinas and Filipiniana.net. The booth itself is very eye-catching because aside from the huge banners and giant arrow sign hanging over the booth itself, there were a dozen or so shiny Mac PCs. There were also friendly facilitators (dressed in white to match the Macs) to help the curious use the wiki and the filipiniana websites. WikiPinas as the name implies is like the popular Wikipedia except the content is, of course, everything and anything Filipino. Articles can be edited same as any other wiki. Filipiniana.net, on the other hand, serves as an online archive of hard to find, out of print or unpublished copyright free works. Some of the articles on the site are even in Spanish! Good thing the English or Filipino translation is but a click away. The interface of both sites are easy enough to use, and combined can provide a very valuable resource for researchers on Filipino literature. You may view a short video presentation on Filipiniana.net over at YouTube

While the demo was ongoing, storytellers from Roofdeck Productions were at the Activity Center doing a storytelling session with the kids from The Growing Place. More on this when Karen posts as she was with the storytellers for the event.

Lunch was spent at the book donation kiosks which were very noticeable as they flank the entrance of the World Trade Center even before you enter the book fair grounds. The kiosk features what else but books with READ! spelled out in big bold letters serving as backdrop. Despite having the display cordoned off, people were still very much inclined to touch and feel the books for themselves and read the blurb at the back or sample some of the first few pages. (I do mean what I said literally, as I recall the copy of Good Omens was particularly manhandled, and several people were eyeing the copy of Trainspotting with Ewan McGregor on the cover with intent to own even by dubious methods).

The hallway where the two book donation bins (still empty btw, please rectify before the week ends!) are located is the best place to observe the bookfair attendees. Bianca Canoza has posted the ’stereotypes’ at her previous post here. I will have to agree. Also, while giving out flyers near the book donation kiosks, I noticed that the most common reaction after reading the header of the flyer (which read Read or Die of course) was an exclamation of disbelief and the word “DIE?!?” repeated at least twice. As one conversation went between me and a trio of students from Manila Doctors Hospital:

Girl 1: Read or Die? Pwede bang Read na lang? Gusto pa po namin makatapos ng nursing eh.
Girl 2 to Boy 1: Oi ikaw, Read OR Die?
Boy 1: READ syempre!

There was also one very excited mother who applauded Read or Die for giving out flyers as she tends to not listen to spiels (talk about being compared to a water purifier salesman ~_~ not that I have anything against water purifiers or salespeople in general) but gives more attention to what’s written on flyers. Said woman was also notable because she had her daughter with her and the daughter was the only person who didn’t ask what Read or Die meant as she explained to her eager mom while they moved on to the next booth that the name of RoD was taken from an anime (manga technically). We should have given her a prize! Or something.

The first forum on Pistang Panitik also started today. The featured National Artist was Bienvenido Lumbera. Since I am made of EPIC PHAIL, I wasn’t able to prepare a critique for the panel. But Tin (aka El Kapitan) was there! And Giyenah also managed the flow of the discussion.

Several other discussions were happening at the same time and other RoD volunteers were able to attend those panels. Hopefully, their posts should be up soon!

The last couple of activities for the day were the book launch of “If a Filipino Writer Reads on Don Quijote”, written by Vince Groyon, F. Sionil Jose and Alfred “Krip” Yuson (with an introduction by Lito Zulueta) by the Instituto de Cervantes and the Sudoku Challenge co-hosted by PSICOM and Read or Die. Along with the Sudoku Challenge was the launching of some new titles from PSICOM. These were:

Mga Kwentong Parlor ni Wanda Ilusyunada
Torbik & Co by Art Columna
Sopas Muna, a collection of inspirational stories
TOPAK!, a humor magazine
Chopsticks Comics by Stanley Chi
and True Philippine Ghost Stories: Haunted Campus

The artists who worked on the above books were present to sign copies and do caricatures for their readers.

Day 2 of the bookfair ended at eight pm. It was a long day indeed but well worth the experience.

Pictures, courtesy of Emil, to follow!

But wait! For you guys who tuned in to RX 93.1 between 9:20 and 10:20 pm today, you might have caught the radio show with Tin (aka El Kapitan), Dean Alfar and a representative from Anvil Publishing (gawd, I fail at names). The main topic for tonight was “Do Filipinos still read?” The answer to which the bookfair attendees can say for themselves — YES, of course! Issues that were brought up include the great debate about which language should be used in writing by Filipino authors (whichever suits them best), whether graphics novels are considered literature (hell yes), and lastly, Harry Potter, Book 7, and what comes after (people reading other books, hopefully). Other topics discussed were the nature of Read or Die (it’s a book club, and more!), why speculative fiction is gaining popularity these days (as Dean Alfar explains, it is a kind of escapism that gives the readers hope), and what kind of books are bestsellers in the country (self-help especially cookbooks top the list, as well as, not surprisingly, ghost stories). The DJ then asked if these are what Filipinos are reading right now, what can be concluded from the Filipino reader, to which Dean Alfar candidly answered that Filipinos love to cook, love to hope and love to get scared XD

For events in the remaining days of the Manila International Bookfair, stay tuned to this blog. For updates on the activities lined-up for RoD’s Ang Bagong Libro on Sunday, head over to here.

August 30, 2007 | Filed Under Reviews | 3 Comments

Virtual Shelf

Around the end of last year, someone in my flist [kaoko] had talked about Shelfari. In her words, “it’s friendster for books” or I guess it would be more apt or hip or whatever to say now that it’s “it’s myspace for books”. It’s a virtual library, just not the kind that allows you to take down books from the shelves and start reading. So, I guess, the library reference fails. Think of it then as a bookstore display window. You can see, but you can’t touch.

As the same implies, you create a virtual shelf of books you have. You can view my (pitiful) shelf here.I’m sure a lot of people can find some use for the site if only to inventory their books (which is why I signed up for one, also why you’re likely to see my programming books sitting next to Jared Diamond’s or Neil Gaiman’s).

I like the interface of the site. It’s simple and clean. It’s also pretty basic, but, really, what more do you need. Adding ratings and opinions aren’t complicated. Searching for books is easy as well, although if you’re searching for an obscure edition for a highly popular book, you can get tons of hits and spend hours wading through the search results (like what happened when I tried looking for my 1974 Ballentine Books printing of The Return of the King). It can get frustrating. In my experience, searching using the ISBN number is still best. Although this is tricky in itself, as even searching by ISBN does not guarantee that you will get a search hit on the edition you’re looking for. It does get a little annoying when instead of a shiny book cover, you get the generic blue book icon with the title of the book in white.

If you’ve added enough books looking at your shelf can be quite … fulfilling since it looks so pretty with the book covers and all. But maybe that’s because I’m easily impressed.

What I don’t like about the site is the limited way you can sort the books (either by date, author, opinions, or ratings). My obsessive-compulsiveness demands that there should be a customizable way to sort the books. And since I’m using the site mainly for inventory purposes, I find the tags not very useful. It would be convenient to be able to add a note to a book on my personal shelf, for example if I want to remind myself to whom I’ve loaned it to. The site is still a work in progress, so I suppose they will think of other features.

What I also didn’t like about the site is that they don’t have enough Filipino books. I did find The Best Philippine Short Stories of the Twentieth Century, and amazingly, Pol Medina Jr’s Pugad Baboy, but no F.H. Batacan or Carlo Vergara’s Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah. They do have a lot of manga though. I suppose the fact that the site is tied up with Amazon.com has something to do with it. I did a search of the two books in Amazon and came up with nothing. There’s also no way to add a book, which I suppose makes sense. You can only add editions of a book that’s already in their website.

Still, it’s a fun and useful site. They get more and more groups set-up which I think is great since, HALLO, community of readers! What’s more fun that talking to people who have read books you have read? I also like the concept of a Reading List and a Wish List.

Can’t compare it to LibraryThing as I haven’t tried their site yet. Maybe someone will be inclined to try the site and post about it.

Having half-completed my shelf though, I noticed that I am somewhat narrow-minded when it comes to picking books. Looking at my shelf, I’d say about 85% are fantasy novels, 10% are textbooks, and the remaining 5% are non-fiction. I’ve been trying to branch out more and read from other genres. I have the tendency to read by author, however, and it’s usually because I like an author a lot that I eventually collect his books. So far I’ve read Anne Rice, J.K. Rowling, Douglas Adams, David and Leigh Eddings, John Grisham, Robin Cook, Paulo Coelho, Neil Gaiman (his novels, not Sandman yet), Dan Brown, Tolkien, and … I can’t remember who else. Of course I haven’t read all their books, but I’ve read either a series, or most of their books up until the time I switched to a different author. So, I guess that kind of explains why I stick to a genre. Right now, I suppose it’s a matter for finding another author to read, although judging by my recent purchases, I haven’t found one yet. Mostly because the authors I do find interesting are very prolific (Stephen King, Raymond Feist, R.A. Salvatore, Terry Pratchett, again still in the Fantasy genre I know, except maybe Stephen King) and collecting their books is going to be a monumental task which my current financial resources can not cope with (having just used up 60% of yesterday’s paycheck to pay for my credit card bill because I just had to collect all eleven volumes of Mike Carrey’s Lucifer last month as a belated birthday treat).

But hey, I’m always open to suggestions. The only exception being Historical Romance, I read whatever anyone recommends really. It’s the getting the book part that’s a bit problematic. But feh, logistics.

August 15, 2007 | Filed Under Reviews | 2 Comments

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