ReaderCon 2012: Filipino Fridays (5) – Celebrating the Best

It’s time for another Filipino Fridays post! This is the last one for this meme, but worry not, since it’s the 2nd Annual Filipino ReaderCon tomorrow!! I  am so excited! This is my first time to go, and I’m hoping the 1st ReaderCon will be the only one I will miss 😉 Okay, so this week’s prompt, copied from the ReaderCon website, is this:

August 17 – Celebrating the Best. In honor of the first Filipino Readers’ Choice Awards, let’s talk about our favorites for this year. What are your favorite books in 2012 so far? Have you read any awesome Filipino books in the year? If yes, make sure to include them in your list!

This year, my initial goal was to read 75 books. However, I passed that mark last July, so now I increased it my goal 125 books. Before I go on, I have to elaborate that most of those books were graphic novels you could finish in one sitting, and I don’t really read that fast, haha! Moving on…

I am so happy that I got to read a lot of good books this year. I have to thank my Goodreads TFG family for many of those, which stemmed from recommendations and also from reading the reviews of the members. Some of them were also group reads! Here are this year’s newest additions to the favorites list (in no particular order):

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern – I love, love, love reading about magic and London and the circus. I am endlessly fascinated by those and seeing them all in one novel – what’s not to love? 
Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta – This is an intense novel, and I loved the use of dual narratives here.
1984 by George Orwell – Took me a while to finish this, but I loved it all the same. I always look for 1984 references in everything I read ever since I finished this book!
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams – Douglas Adams’s dry British humor is something I absolutely adore. I found everything funny and I was just laughing like an idiot with every page. The fact that the movie version (which I haven’t watched yet) has Martin Freeman and Alan Rickman’s voice, among others, doesn’t hurt!
Feed by Mira Grant – One of my buddy reads for this year! This is the first of the Newsflesh trilogy, which combines blogging, politics, and – one of my favorite evil creatures so far – zombies! It left me mindblown, though thankfully not literally, or the zombies would have rejoiced.
Angelfall by Susan Ee – This is an indie book, but this is soooo good. I love that they were really quite accurate with the angel mythology references. It has one of those slow-burning romances that really fits well with the evil angel-infested, dystopian world it is set in, and it’s not cheesy, either. 
The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien – I watched the movies repeatedly when I was younger, but it’s only now that I ventured to read the books. Really good stuff, I tell you. It’s easy to see why Tolkien is considered to be the best fantasy writer of all time. Most of the fantasy writers today have been influenced by him somehow! 
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card – One of those books that I kept putting off reading just to annoy the legions of people who keep on insisting that I read it. I just wish I read it sooner! I love reading about geniuses, and Ender is definitely one of my faves. I just get so gooey inside seeing all the tactics laid out and – gosh, I should totally write a review for this or else I’ll never stop.

That’s not the final list, though, since the year is far from ending and I definitely see myself reading more books. These are *subtle* nudges for you to read them, if you haven’t, though! 

I feel so ashamed for not reading enough local books. I have been buying more this year, though, especially in the graphic novels department (I have Kikomachine Vol. 1-2, and Ang Kagila-gilalas na Pakikipagsapalaran ni Zsa-Zsa Zaturnnah, but I’m not done with them yet!). The ones I read and liked recently, though, were Lumayo Ka Nga Sa Akin by Bob Ong, and Mina Esguerra’s books That Kind of Guy  and No Strings Attached. I shall try to read more, especially now that it’s August, which is Buwan ng Wika for us Filipinos!

I still can’t believe this is the last one, but hey, at least we’ll have ReaderCon tomorrow! Yay! I’m really so bloody excited, you guys. Hope to see you there!

Oh and by the way, enjoy the looooooooong weekend! 😀

 

PS

ReaderCon has some reminders for tomorrow’s event. Click here to read it, it’s mighty helpful!