Birthday month 30-day writing challenge: Day 7....

Today's writing challenge is one subject I've written about repeatedly - books.

The question for today is "Do you read? What are your favourite books?"

A few weeks ago, a friend tagged me to write bout ten favourite books. It was a difficult task but I was able to do it.

The list can be found here.

For this post, I'm not going to write about my favourite books. Instead, I'll just write a little about how I became a book fan and what my favourites are so far.

Two people who influenced me a lot in falling in love with the written world were my Lola Chimang and Tita Rosie. The former was the mom of my late father, while the latter was my late father's late eldest sister. Both my Lola Chimang and my Tita Rosie were teachers. Lola taught at a primary school in Manila, while Tita Rosie taught at my own university, the Ateneo de Manila University and I'm not sure in which school/university in Boston when she moved there with her American husband, Uncle Roger.

It was them who encouraged me, as well as my younger brother Raymond and our cousins, to read, read, ready. My Lola had huge collection of Mills & Boon titles, while Tita Rosie was always reading some book, too.

Then, of course, in primary school at my beloved Lourdes School, we had a Reading class. The Language lessons were different from the Reading lessons. I spent a good deal of my primary school years reading, reading, reading. Haha!

Also, I'm lucky to be surrounded by friends who liked to read. When I was still in Primary 6, a fellow altar boy who was a few years older than me introduced me to some good Filipino authors - Lualhati Bautista and Tony Perez. The latter got me into trouble with my mom because of the book Cubao 1980. I regret tearing the book to pieces after my mom saw my copy of the book. :-/

Saveral years later, I would discover the wonderful genre of LGBT fiction. My favourite authors are Andrew Tobias, Alex Sanchez, Michael Thomas Ford, Timothy James Beck, Noel Alumit, Jay Bell, to name a few. I also became addicted to other genres. I realise that I have a thing for books that are part of a series. Perhaps because it eliminates the need to think of what book to read next. Haha!

Recently, I've also been putting some of my hard earned cash into coffee table books. In particular, I've been buying hardbound books on fashion. Haha! If you have the books, the condo with a library/reading room will come? Haha! Thankfully, I discovered Book Depository and the used books shops at Bras Basah Complex. Both are pieces of heaven to any book lover.

Just how much do I love books? I'm willing to sacrifice a good meal, in order to add to my book fund. Hahaha! I still have a few titles I want to buy - Tom Ford, The Little Black Jacket, among others.

Soon...

Carine is here...

The package above was one of the few packages that welcomed me when I returned to work a few days ago.

I was very pleased to have finally received this package after waiting for a month or two.

My team mate Gen told me about this UK-based website, which does not only sell books at a discounted price but also ships it for free.

How the business earns profit, I have no idea. Hehe.

Anyway, I decided to try the website.

There are a few books I wanted to buy at Kinokuniya. However, I always end up returning the books to the shelves because I couldn't bring myself to fork out 100 over dollars for a coffee table book. Hehe!

Good thing Gen told me about the site.

I went online and checked out the price for Carine Roitfeld's irreverent. It was selling for $91 on the site. At Kinokuniya, the same book was selling for $166!!!

Such a huge difference, right?!

So I went ahead and ordered from the site just to try it out and see if it works.

Well, as you know by now, it does!!!

I'm thinking of buying a few more books again. Hehe! Sure, it takes awhile for the package to arrive. I just think about how much I'm saving.

The site's name is Book Depository. Check it out here.

It may be addicting. Don't tell me I didn't warn you. Hehe!