Posts tagged as "fully booked"
I was on my way to grab some late lunch about twelve hours ago when two males (one in his late teens, the other in his late twenties) accosted me for information, introducing themselves as college fraternity members ostensibly on a mission to have the culprit behind the recent attack of one of their brothers identified by people who were passing by the area where the alleged incident happened. Can you say “modus operandi”? Before they even got the chance to steal my money and my phone and my copies of Looking for Alaska and The Catcher in the Rye (I have the latter with me at all times), I said, “Sorry. I can’t be much help, I’m afraid. I have to meet someone in less than an hour and I still have to eat,” walked out, and jumped into the backseat of a passing taxi.
About six hours later, I came home with a bunch of books from three different Fully Booked branches, each with its own 80%-off bargain table. Christopher Isherwood’s The Berlin Stories and Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop are among TIME’s All-Time 100 Novels, so I had to get them. Charles Baxter’s The Feast of Love and Christopher Priest’s The Prestige are both well-designed movie tie-ins, so I also had to get them. Finally, I already had a copy of Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt, but I just couldn’t resist a heavily discounted Vintage Classics edition of the book, or of any novel, for that matter, so I also had to get it. All in all, my bibliomaniacal spree set me back by just under P500. But had my recent acquisitions not been on sale, I would have had to pay well over P2000. Which was just as well, I guess.
Better I get held up by bookstores than by shady pseudo-fraternity douchebags, I always say.
31 May 2010 · Comments · Permalink · http://aldr.in/647285435
Fully Booked, my favorite bookstore chain in the country, celebrated the annual Free Comic Book Day today by giving away (surprise, surprise) free comic books. More important, though, for this impulsive buyer of books, comic or otherwise, Fully Booked also put their stock of graphic novels on sale.
As was the case last year, I didn’t get to score free comics this year; the store I ran to this afternoon had run out of copies to give away hours before I showed up. But as was also the case last year, I nabbed a kick-ass graphic novel at 20% off this year. Last year I got Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s groundbreaking magnum opus, Watchmen. This year I bought Frank Miller’s masterful Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
KA-POW!
22 May 2010 · Comments · Permalink · http://aldr.in/622015483
Ribblestrop
Andy Mulligan
Why you haven’t heard of Ribblestrop up until now can be attributed to either of the following reasons. (A) You haven’t been to the nearest Fully Booked branch within the last couple of months, so you haven’t seen a copy of a certain children’s book lying around the store and you haven’t been enticed into buying it right then and there by its intriguing blurb and its handsomely drawn, if a little zany, yellow-on-black cover illustration. (I remember being told by a mad scientist on television that yellow and black is the most striking color combination of all time.) Or, much less probably, (B) You haven’t been consulted recently by a well-off colleague about which new book looks so promising that he must buy it immediately, so he can lend it to you and listen to what you have to say about the book shortly afterward before he starts reading it, because he values your opinion that way (or so you think), and you remember that paperback you skimmed through the last three times or so you were inside Fully Booked, that book you decided not to buy in the end despite its interesting premise and attractive design just because your wallet/ATM/credit card wasn’t presently up to the task of being complicit in making an $8 purchase, and you recommend that particular book to your friend. The book in question is called Ribblestrop.
You’ve heard of Hogwarts, yeah? You know, Harry Potter’s alma mater. Of course, you have. Why am I even asking that question? How about Hogwarts’ distant cousin then? Have you heard of her? No? Well, let me introduce you to her. Her name is Ribblestrop. She’s “the school they tried to close,” the subject of the fast-paced, genre-bending debut novel by Manila-based British educator Andy Mulligan. And if there’s a couple of things you must know about Ribblestrop, it’s that (A) she’s doggone crazy and (B) her motley crew of resident teachers and students are just as stoned out of their gourds.
8 October 2009 · Comments · Permalink · http://aldr.in/207505141
Shut Up And Let Me Go by The Ting Tings
Now oh so easily you're over me
Gone is love
It's you that ought to be holding me
I'm not containable
This turns up
It's not sustainable
ledgelife says:
Exactly one year ago, I won my very first radio contest on Jam 88.3, which by the way, is my favorite station. I didn’t really expect to win anything, I just texted my reaction to the songs of this very band I once knew nothing about.
Lana played some of their songs on the radio during her spot. I just happened to get addicted to this very song the first time I heard it. I was psyched I won. I got a free Ting Tings original CD and I’ve been hooked on them ever since.
Almost two years ago, I won my first ever radio contest on Jam 88.3, a music station which instantly became my absolute favorite the first time I crash-landed in Metro Manila and tuned in to it. (Coincidentally, the song that was playing during that fateful first time was Lifehouse’s First Time.)
Potterheads like myself will recall that around this time two years ago, we were holding our breaths in anticipation of the last book in the Harry Potter series. It so happened that Jam, in partnership with Fully Booked, were giving away one copy of the book every hour every day until the book’s release date. I remember doing nothing then but to listen to the station. 24/7. Until, at long last, Gabriel asked the Harry Potter trivia question, “Aside from Hogwarts, name the two other schools that participated in the Triwizard Tournament.” Think! That should be easy, I thought. “The first texter with the correct answers gets the prize,” Gabe announced. Rather convulsively, I thumb-typed JAM space 883 space Durmstrang space Beauxbatons space my personal details and sent the message to 2968. Several minutes later, I was jumping for joy.
A few weeks later, I got a copy of Switchfoot’s Oh! Gravity. CD from Lana. And how could I forget that Banana Republic boxer shorts from Patti?
4 June 2009 · Comments · Permalink · http://aldr.in/117912018
I was at Fully Booked yesterday to take advantage of the markdown on practically all items on display, including the generally prohibitively priced graphic novels. God does exist. Facing the considerably wide selection of graphic novels, ranging from the immensely popular to the somewhat obscure, I honestly had no idea which one to buy and to award the distinction of being the second ever graphic novel to be included in my rapidly growing pseudo-library to. So I turned to my trusty old friend Twitter and tweeted a question to the expert. Yep, that guy who looks like he just consumed a slew of pharmaceuticals is none other than @komikero himself, the man from San Pablo, famed comic book artist and writer Gerry Alanguilan.
Always a sucker for a good Batman story, I initially opted for either Batman: Year One or The Dark Knight Returns. Both of them though, I was informed, had just been sold out. Great. Then I saw what appeared to be the last remaining copy of V for Vendetta, which was highly recommended by @komikero. Stoked, I reached for my wallet to see if I was adequately equipped with cash. I wasn’t. Note to self: Books first, food later. And for Chrissakes recharge your credit card. As it was almost nine and I had to be in time for the last LRT trip, I went like lighting to the nearest ATM. “Hello,” said the ATM, “I’m an ATM, I operate 24 hours and I am temporarily unable to dispense cash.” Wow, just my luck.
I’m going back for it in a bit and it better still be there. Or a new set of potent expletives will be invented.
31 May 2009 · Comments · Permalink · http://aldr.in/115633363
© 2009-2010
Written by Aldrin Calimlim
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