Well, what do you know, it's time for Filipino Fridays again! Filipino Fridays is a weekly meme that leads to the Filipino ReaderCon. This year, the ReaderCon will be held on 14 November at the Bayanihan Center, Mandaluyong.
Anyway, the first Filipino Friday has a theme of "Surprise, reader!" Along with this theme is a list of questions that hopes to introduce the person in terms of books that he or she has read. So let's get on with it, shall we?
Tell us about your favorite book discoveries for this year.
Ever since I started my A to Z dead guys challenge, I've been on a high after reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. I fell in love with that book.
I'm not done with that particular challenge this year though, so I think I'll have more book discoveries for the last quarter of 2014. Just this year, I read my first Hardy, Kipling (Kim), Austen (Emma), Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), and Eliot (Silas Marner).
Any author you started reading this year that you can’t get enough of?
Well, aside from Brontë, whose Shirley and Villette I want to read soon, I would have to say Thomas Hardy. I read The Return of the Native this year and I breezed through it. It started out slow, like most classics do, but I learned to go with the pace of Hardy's very moody writing.
I've been slowly building my Thomas Hardy collection. Just this year, I bought Far From the Madding Crowd, Jude the Obscure, and The Mayor of Casterbridge.
A book you think you wouldn't like, but you ended up liking/loving?
Again, it's Jane Eyre. After I turned the final page, I felt bittersweet that it had to end. Such a headstrong character, that Jane Eyre.
I never thought that I'd like Jane Eyre that much, as I thought that it would be like an Austen novel, wherein everyone just gossiped the whole day. I read my first Austen, Emma, and I detested it. Thank goodness that Charlotte Brontë is such a totally different writer.
Any book series that you just have to get your hands on?
Hmmm . . . None of the moment, to be honest. I'm not too keen on the next George R. R. Martin novel, nor the next Brandon Sanderson. I have my whole life for A Game of Thrones!
I guess I am particularly interested in reading the other Brontë sisters. I've always been curious about Wuthering Heights, supposedly the most passionate novel ever written. Also, Anne Brontë, is reputed to be the most realist (most non-romantic) among the sisters. So I'm curious about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Have you discovered anything new from Filipino authors this year?
As part of the read-along for the book club, I read The Rosales Saga of F. Sionil Jose. I thoroughly enjoyed the 2nd book, Tree. It's rich with allegory and symbolism.
Unfortunately, my current worst read for the year is by a Filipino author, Bianca Bernardino, who wrote She's Dating the Gangster. That chick lit novel is hugely popular here in the Philippines, but I found the plot laughable and ridiculous.
So that's it for the first Filipino Friday, dear reader. Till next time!
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