Book Heaven

My wife is currently in Manila to visit the 27th International Book Fair happening in the World Trade Center in Pasay City. It was her second day there yesterday and when I was accompanying her, I kept asking her to get me something from the fair. I would love it if she got me a book on origami. She said she'll try.

She called me up at around lunchtime, and said she has a surprise for me! An origami book? I'll have to find out for myself. So right after work, I rushed off to the World Trade Center to find my surprise and roam around in the few remaining hours (it closed at 8).

I was truly delighted by my wife's surprise. An origami and papercraft book! It's loaded with work I have never tried before, plus it has paper sculpture, ideas for gift wrapping, papier mache, and even how to make your own paper! Can't wait to try my hand at the new origami stuff!

We also bought some books for baby Jo-Lo. I have been reading about this Sudoku craze from Abaniko and Owen FV so I bought a small book (only 50 pesos!) to try my hand as well. We also bought this thick Walt Disney storybook with illustrations at only 50 pesos from A-Z Marketing (distributor of Reader's Digest). We would have loved the hardbound Hans Christian Anderson story book but it retailed at 1,900 pesos.

There were lots of choices though for kid's books ranging from 60 pesos up.

Other specialty booths featured frog and human dissection figures aside from the Medical books. Interesting. Goodwill also featured fiction works at 80% off!

There's this book, City Lights, edited by Adam David (the nephew of BatJay) being sold at the PSIcom booth which my wife also bought a copy of (only 60 pesos!) I have read a couple of articles in it. If you did not read the disclaimer stating that it is fiction, you would believe that the people and events being mentioned therein are true. It's written in Filipino, so it's a pleasant change from my other readings.

My wife said she also saw a book called Kwentong Tambay by Nicanor David. Isn't that BatJay himself? Wow! Wish I can come back to the fair and see for myself. The book apparently sells for 100 pesos.


At the huge Goodwill Bookstore booth, there were these boxes which included tools for the book covering the topic therein. If it was about mixing drinks, for example, the package included a mixer. If it's about gardening, there's a pot with some seeds in it (I think). But what I got interested on was the Zen Garden box. It comes with a rectangular container onto which you put the sand, and it comes with pebbles and perhaps some other small items to have your own portable Zen garden right on your office table. It's a bit pricey, though. 1,080 pesos less 20%.


The hour and a half I stayed there was not enough to visit all the booths! Wish we can go there one last time before. The International Book Fair runs til Sunday, September 3.