The Filipino Group: Fifth Meet-up

Last Saturday, I attended the fifth meet-up of The Filipino Group of Goodreads. It's my second, having attended the fourth meet-up last April 10.

Compared to the April gathering, which had roughly 20-something attendees, this one boasted of around 40 attendees, including some first-timers, and Filipino authors Mina V. Esguerra and Samantha Sotto, who is plugging her newly-released book, "Before Ever After". Also in attendance was DJ Caz of... I forget which radio station, but what I distinctly remember is that he also loves Anne Rice (one of my most favorite authors of all time!), and he doesn't play revivals. Yay for the ban on revivals! Hehe.

Here's a pic from one of the members, Book Elf, which I edited just a little:

With our loot! And happy smiles all around. :)

Lunch was at Congo Grille, El Pueblo, where we also had an introduce-yourself portion c/o Louize, a tete-a-tete with Mina, Sam and Caz, and the Literary Quiz - With A Twist! game c/o GameMaster Jzhun which, unfortunately, my team (Team Aldrin) lost. Huhu. There were also three birthday celebrators - Kuya Doni, Joyzi and Sam, so the event was definitely a blast. Imagine, I brought home a ton of books, both given and lent to me ~

See that corner bookmark at the lower right? A token from Louize! So cute!

I have to thank Tina for letting me borrow her copy of The Lover's Dictionary, Aldrin for my copies of Robopocalypse and The Little Prince, reading buddy Angus for The Inheritance of Loss, Tintin for Fragile Things and A Wrinkle In Time, Aaron for Howl's Moving Castle, and Kuya Doni for lending me Naermyth and The Wasp Factory, and giving me A Secret Garden. My copy of The Thirteenth Tale, I filched from the pile for giveaway purposes, so to whoever it was who brought that, thank you as well! :)



I also had Mina sign my copy of her book, "No Strings Attached", just for me:

Sorry for the grainy pics; they were taken using my trusty old phone cam. :)

Yep, I did read her "Fairy Tale Fail" previously. :)

As for Sam's book, I had been looking for a copy at the NBS branch in Robinsons Ermita since Thursday, but they didn't have it in time for the meet-up. Although I was able to find a copy at NBS Otis right after the meet-up, I might have to wait for a while before Sam could sign it. :( 

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stay and join the fun for the Pinoy Henyo games at Mandarin Wok (lipat venue!) because my baby girl Allie is attending a birthday party also at Ortigas, so I had to attend to my nanay duties. But even though I left early, I had such an absolute blast at the TFG meet-up. :)

Until the next meet-up! :)