2012 Filipino Friday 1+2: Introductions & School of Reading

This is exciting! Last year, the very first Filipino Reader Conference was held. A resounding success, the second one will be held this coming August 18. Check out the poster. I love the tag line!

To drum up some buzz, a Friday meme called Filipino Friday was started. It was great fun so of course I am piping in again this year ... just a little late! So here goes: 

Week 1: Introductions. As with every start of a weekly meme, we need to know a bit about you! Talk about your top 3-5 (or more!) favorite books of all time, the genres you read and would never read, the books that surprised you this year. You can also talk about how you became a reader and why you love it so much! And finally, if you were in the ReaderCon last year, talk about your experience too! If you weren’t there, but you’re planning to go this year, then what do you expect for the upcoming ReaderCon?

Top favourite books: I have so many favourites that it's difficult for me to pinpoint five. I can say that some books have become like old friends, which I go back to again and again. I like them for various reasons but they somehow resonated with me the first time I read them, making them very memorable.

Some of my fiction favourites are Les Miserables, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's collection of short stories Strange Pilgrims, Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, a rather obscure Australian children's classic Dot and the Kangaroo, and Khalil Gibran's The Prophet. 

For non-fiction, my go-to is 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (thank you, Mr. Covey). 

The genres I read: ... anything and everything. I'm an extremely eclectic reader which is why this blog won't and can't be focused on just one genre (yeah I am all over the place!). I read almost anything and am willing to try any genre. Asking me to read just one genre would be like asking me to eat the same thing day in and day out ... torture. For me, variety is the spice of life, in many aspects, and especially in reading.

I'm not exactly sure why I became a reader. I kind of fell into it. I learned how to read ... so I started reading ... and just kept going. Just like breathing!

Week 2: School of Reading. We all started reading somewhere, and more often than not, we were influenced by someone. Who got you into reading? Your parents? A friend? A librarian? One teacher who always lends out his/her books? How helpful was your school in helping your reading habit / fueling your book addiction? 

My answer last year was: They let me loose in the library at a young age and I've always had a feeling I was in a candy store when I was in a library or a bookstore! I feel giddy, even high! Come on, what's not to enjoy? The smell and feel of books ... those lovely words that come together so you can go anywhere, become anyone, experience anything!

Every word ... still true!
 
I had my aha encounter when I went to a small school library in Australia. I remember when I first got beyond the fear of getting a book with more words than photos. It was some really quaint book about a country girl with only little line drawings at the beginning of chapters (for some weird reason I associate it with the song Tammy). I read through it and felt like I had conquered the unimaginable!

I also grew up with books around me. I was often at my grandparents where books lay around everywhere. I started on Agatha Christie because of them. And I still remember all the Reader's Digests I read through!