2019 Big Bad Wolf PH Book Sale Book Haul

Yesterday, Big Bad Wolf’s Philippine Sale drew to a close after nearly two weeks of nonstop booksale; they were open for 24-hours. Big Bad Wolf’s first Philippine sale last year was so highly successful they decided to return to Manila for the second year in a row; they did have sales in Davao City and Cebu City last year as well.

Okay. So I wasn’t planning to attend this year’s Big Bad Wolf Philippines Sale due to some constraints. However, due to my friend’s insistence, I gave in to the temptation. It was just too unfortunate that we finally went there on its closing date. The implication: the good ones were already gone. Well, not really because there were still piles of books under the “Literature” (cue: classics) category. I was still able to pile a healthy mix of books. Here is my book haul from the aforementioned event.

---

Title: Back to Moscow
Author: Guillermo Erades
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publishing Date: 2016
No. of Pages: 371
Synopsis: “Tuesday Night: vodka and dancing at the Hungry Duck. Wednesday morning: posing as an expert on Pushkin at the university. Thursday night: more vodka and girl chasing at Propaganda. Friday morning: a hungover tour of Gorky’s house.

Martin, a young doctoral student of literature, comes to Moscow at the turn of the millennium hoping to discover the country of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and his beloved Chekhov. Instead he finds a city turned on its head, where the grimmest vestiges of Soviet life exist side by side with the nonstop hedonism of the newly rich. Along with his hard-living expat friends, Martin spends less and less time on his studies, pursuing instead the Mysterious Russian Soul in the city’s unhinged nightlife scene. But as Martin’s research becomes a quest for existential meaning, love affairs and literature lead to the same hard-won lessons. Russians know: there is more to life than happiness.”

Title: The Good Soldier
Author: Ford Maddox Ford
Publisher: Vintage Books
Publishing Date: 2010
No. of Pages: 239
Synopsis: “When John Fowell and his wife befriend Edward and Leonora Ashburnham they appear to be the perfect couple. He is a distinguished soldier and she is beautiful and intelligent. However, what lies beneath the surface of their marriage is far more sinister and their influence leads John into a tragic drama that threatens to destroy everything he cares about.”

Title: Orlando, A Biography
Author: Virginia Woolf
Publisher: Vintage Books
Publishing Date: 2004
No. of Pages: 215
Synopsis: “As his tale begins, Orlando is a passionate young nobleman whose days are spent in rowdy revelry, filled with the colourful delights of Queen Elizabeth’s court. By the close, he will have transformed into a modern woman and three centuries will have passed. Orlando is Woolf’s most extraordinary creation, and through him we see an intimate portrait of history in the making.

Title: Under the Net
Author: Iris Murdoch
Publisher: Vintage Books
Publishing Date: 2002
No. of Pages: 286
Synopsis: “Jake, clever and lazy, makes a living out of writing translations and sponging off his friends. When he is kicked out of his latest lodgings he embarks on a series of fantastic and hilarious adventures around London involving movie stars, majestic philosophers, bookies, singers and a celebrity hound called the Marvellous Mister Mars.”

Title: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Author: Philip K. Dick
Publisher: Gollancz
Publishing Date: 2010
No. of Pages: 193
Synopsis: “War has left the Earth devasted. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard stalks, in search of the renegade replicants who are his prey. When he isn’t ‘retiring’ them, he dreams of owning the ultimate status symbol – a live animal. Then Rick gets a big assignment: to kill six Nexus-6 targets, for a huge reward. But things are never that simple, and Rick’s life quickly turns into a nightmare kaleidoscope of subterfuge and deceit.”

Title: The Crying of Lot 49
Author: Thomas Pynchon
Publisher: Vintage Books
Publishing Date: 2000
No. of Pages: 142
Synopsis: “Suffused with rich satire, chaotic brilliance, verbal turbulence and wild humour, The Crying of Lot 49 opens as Oedipa Maas discovers that she has been made executrix of a former lover’s estate. The performance of her duties sets her on a strange trail of detection, in which bizarre characters crowd in to help or confuse her. But gradually,, death, drugs, madness and marriage combine to leave Oedipa in isolation on the threshold of revelation, awaiting The Crying of Lot 49. ”

Title: The Invisible Man
Author: H.G. Wells
Publisher: Gollancz
Publishing Date: 2017
No. of Pages: 144
Synopsis: “H.G. Well’s great novel of the dangers of science describes a man cast out from society by his own terrifying discovery. This is the story of Griffin, a brilliant and obsessed scientist dedicated to achieving invisibility. Taking whatever action is necessary to keep his incredible discovery safe, he terrorizes the local village where he has sought refuge. Wells skillfully weaves the themes of science, terror and pride as the invisible Griffin gradually loses his sanity and, ultimately, his humanity.”

Title: The Mill on the Floss
Author: George Eliot
Publisher: Premier Classics
Publishing Date: 2010
No. of Pages: 598
Synopsis: “George Eliot’s semi-autobiographical novel about the brilliant Maggie Tulliver epitomizes the author’s ability to find the drama at the heart of normal lives playing out in tandem with the universal themes of nature and society. Bankruptcy, death, flood, even the very flow of the river guide and often frustrate human ambition in The Mill on the Floss. Maggie and her brother Tom have grown up with a loving but hapless father who loses his living to the courts, leaving Tom to pay his debts and Maggie to languish in their impoverished house until she can escape into rich society with the help of her cousin, Lucy. Tender and tragic, The Mill on the Floss combines rich vignettes of family life with an elegant portrayal of the novel’s heroine. At the same time, Eliot offers a scathing critique of the Victorian era’s limiting social mores in matters of the heart while also celebrating many kinds of love.”

Title: Devices and Desires
Author: P.D. James
Publisher: Faber and Faber Ltd.
Publishing Date: 2017
No. of Pages: 594
Synopsis: “When Adam Dalgliesh visits Larksoken, a remote headland community on the Norfolk coast in the shadow of a nuclear power station, he expects to be engaged only in the sad business of tying up his aunt’s estate. But the peace of Larksoken is illusory. Someone is terrorizing the neighbourhood, and Dalgliesh finds himself drawn into the lives of the isolated headlanders in an attempt to uncover what sinister forces are at work.”

Title: Antic Hay
Author: Aldous Huxley
Publisher: Vintage Classics
Publishing Date: 2004
No. of Pages: 295
Synopsis: “When inspiration leads Theodore Gumbril to design a tpe of pneumatic trouser to ease the discomfort of the sedentary life, he decides the time has come to give up teaching and seek his fortune in the metropolis. He soon finds himself caught up in the hedonistic world of his frieds Mercaptan, Lypiatt and the thoroughly civilized Myra Viveash, and his burning ambitions begin to lose their urgency.”

Title: Revolutionary Road
Author: Richard Yates
Publisher: Vintage Classics
Publishing Date: 2007
No. of Pages: 338
Synopsis: “Hailed as a masterpiece from its publication, Revolutionary Road is the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright young couple who are bored by the banalities of suburban life and long to be extraordinary. With heartbreaking compassion and clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April’s decision to change their lives for the better leads to betrayal and tragedy.”

---

AHHHHH.

More books to read. To be honest, of the more than twenty books I bought during last year’s event, I was only able to read one. Yes, a measly one book! Haha. Now I have even more books to read. Oh well.

To those who attended this year’s Big Bad Wolf Book Sale event, what books were you able to purchase? Share it in the comment box. I am more than interested in checking out your hauls.

Happy reading!