The 31st Manila International Book Fair

When: September 15-19, 2010

I've never seen a lot of books in my entire life until last Saturday when we (BF & I = inseparable) went to the 31st Manila International Book Fair in SMX Convention Center. An obvious exception would be big libraries in big universities, that is. However, this is by far the biggest book fair I've witnessed. From law books to medical books to fiction bestsellers to kiddie books to Precious Hearts Romances (PHR) paperbacks... Hahaha! :) Every genre imaginable!

A souvenir shot

 A candid fact about me is that I've passed through a stage in my semi-bibliophile life wherein I read and collected Valentine Romances and PHR. Yes, funny but true. In mid-1990's, I felt it was almost mandatory for me to actually read those Pinoy love stories since I had to learn the Tagalog language as casual as I can. Imagine this, I was only a minor then and yet I was confronted with Pinoy romance which, I think, almost equaled Mills and Boon and countless historical romance titles. That stage only contributed a lot of idealism (note my sarcasm here) to my search of love. Cheesy, eh? I couldn't thank myself enough for a successful au revoir from cheesy and unrealistic story lines called romance. So, the on-going Martha Cecilia's Kristine series on primetime TV isn't actually new to my ears. Gosh.

Okay, so we went to the book fair and the most populated area is the National Bookstore. Why not? The largest bookstore chain offered a 20% discount on all titles, even the new ones. Amazing. I was tempted to grab them all, but I can wait for my birthday. To you-know-who, you know what I mean! :)

With one of Rex Bookstore's mascots

Just beside National Bookstore is my other favorite publishing company (really huh?!) which goes by the name of Rex! All law books are being sold with 5% discount. Anyway, I bought two interesting books from NB. Pretty cheap.

Book haul: The Way We Were: Remembering Diana by Paul Burrell (Php 100) and The Gospel of Judas (Php 50)

I love to read anything about Princess Di. I even cried when she died. I picked this controversial account about The Gospel of Judas because it reminded me how head-over-heels in love I was with Dan Brown's Angel & Demons and Da Vinci Code. :)